Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wilson trudges through the sloshy snow, pulling his scarf tighter around himself when an onslaught of frigid air stings at his face. He cursed himself for forgetting his gloves at the office last night, because now, as he walks out to his car from his front door, he feels his fingers becoming stiff. When he tries to unlock his car door, they move slowly and uncoordinatedly.

He sets his bag down in the passenger seat clumsily, with those stiff fingers, while trying to dislodge it from his mass of warm clothing. His scarf is tossed on top of his bag and he tries to wiggle his toes to get more feeling into them. It’s been one of the coldest winters Wilson’s experienced in New Jersey in a long time, and they’re still a few weeks off from the holidays.

The hot blast of air from his car when he turns it on is a blessing. He warms his hands for a long moment, waiting for the heat to reach his face, eyes closed, breathing in the day. This moment of calm is necessary; a moment he makes sure to take everyday before work. Sometimes he takes it in his bedroom, next to his sleeping wife in the early hours of the day; sometimes it’s with his breakfast under his nose and a mug of coffee steaming in his hand; sometimes it’s in his idling car in his driveway, like now. He isn’t sure when this ritual began, but it’s become so entwined with his morning routine that if he skips it, or forgets to do it, a constant yet vague motion settles on his chest for the entire day, and he will find himself wishing more and more as the hours past that he had taken the time to do it, that the whole day is now skewed because he didn’t.

Wilson imagines House feels a similar way if he doesn’t offend at least three people a day.

As Wilson drives to work, he considers the younger man.

It seemed that the more time passed since the infarction, the more miserable House became. His recovery has been staggered and full of set-backs. Wilson doesn’t think he’s ever going to forget the first time he had to rush over to House’s place to help him after he slipped in the shower. 

It’s been about two years since the beginning of the infarction. Wilson finds himself remembering more and more about how young and how pained House looked in that hospital bed. Almost small, with his fists curled up in the blankets and his eyes closing against the onslaught of painful tears. Very rarely did Wilson consider House young (certainly not since that first night they met, outside that bar in New Orleans, Wilson clutching divorce papers and House clutching a fake I.D. that fooled little to no one), but when he thinks back to those days where House was not a doctor but a patient, and Wilson had to play the part of doctor and of a visitor, it floods back to him. A wave of empathy, the kind that can only go to someone younger than you.

House hasn’t looked nearly as young or pained in the past two years since he started on Vicodin—against all odds, that is; House was tall, lanky, and with a fading case of baby face. He wore band t-shirts and converse and he played on that Game Boy Advance that Wilson got him for his birthday almost constantly—but he’s come close, in the past few months, since Stacy broke up with him. In the quiet moments, when Wilson is doing paperwork and House is lounging in his office, waiting for him to call it quits for the night so they can go grab dinner, Wilson will sneak a glance to his right, to the couch.

House will be there, staring at the Game Boy Advance’s “Game Over” screen. He’ll be silent, scowling, lips pursed tightly together. If Wilson maybe saw the beginnings of tears once or twice, he looked away immediately to give House as much privacy as he could, and ignored the occasional swipe at his eyes or sniffle.

And everytime he looks at House in those quiet moments, he’s brought back to the hospital bed and the fat tears running down his pale cheeks and his constant pestering for morphine or something, anything, please…

Wilson slows his thoughts, feeling unease settle deep into his stomach. He’s pulled into Princeton-Plainsboro’s Teaching Hospital’s parking lot, now, and gives himself an extra moment to breathe the day, to come back to his senses. If he looked at House after having these thoughts, pity might show on his face, and pity was the quickest way to piss House off.

He grabs his scarf from the passenger seat and bundles up again, before shutting his car off and pulling his bag back on. He makes the walk inside as quick as possible, squinting against the sharp winds that carry a promise of more snow tonight.

Cuddy is leaning against the check-in counter in the front lobby, discussing something to the receptionist. She looks to be in a good enough mood, although quite tired. Her eyes have that early-morning puffiness, but if there were any eyebags, her makeup covers them up. She smiles at Wilson when he walks in, flexing his cold fingers.

“No gloves today?” she asks, when he settles up beside her.

“Forgot them here last night,” he responds, just as pleasantly as her. He really does enjoy his conversations with Cuddy, one of the only other people in the building who puts up with House for longer than twenty seconds. “Good morning, Kathy,” he greets the woman at the desk; then, to Cuddy: “House not in yet?”

Cuddy scoffs. “He definitely is. I had to kick him out of my office as soon as I walked in this morning.”

Wilson hums in surprise. “He’s not usually in this early. What did he want?”

“Nothing. He was just playing solitaire at my desk.” Cuddy shakes her head, a fond smile (in Wilson’s opinion, at least) growing over her face. “When I told him to go to his office to meet Cameron and Foreman, he started his little groaning fit again, but he stopped when I said I’d send you in there when you got here.”

“Ah,” says Wilson, nodding solemnly. “I guess I’ll allow myself to be sent in there, then.” He’s putting on an act and they both know it; Wilson would’ve checked in with House and his new employees as soon as he realized that was today. Cuddy huffs a laugh, and waves him away, turning back to Kathy.

Wilson takes the elevator out of force of habit, despite the lack of a certain loud, miserable misanthrope. He only stops at his office to set his bag and winter clothing down, right by his gloves which he forgot last night. He can recognize House and Chase’s voices through the door, and hears two new ones. Cameron and Foreman, no doubt.

He uses the hallway to enter House’s meeting room, despite how much quicker it would’ve been to jump the barrier of their balconies. Not a great first impression for the two new employees, although quite fun. House had put him onto it.

With three small raps on the glass door, Wilson pushes his way inside. The four of them are seated at the table; House sits closest to the wall that connects to Wilson’s office, at the head of the table. He fiddles with the head of his cane, swiveling his chair back and forth, not looking at anyone until Wilson walks in. Chase sits closest to him, then Cameron, and then Foreman, all on the same side. Power in numbers, Wilson thinks, with a small smile.

The three fellows look up at Wilson as he enters. Wilson can’t help but note the relief in Chase’s face when they make eye contact.

“I hope he hasn’t been hazing you all,” says Wilson cheerily. House leans back in his chair and begins swiveling it again, right to left to right to left. He stares right at Wilson, though, his head staying still while his body moves. He looked like a chicken.

“This is James Wilson, head of the oncology department. Don’t let that boy-next-door look fool you, though—He’s really a ruthless animal. Once, he kicked my cane out from under me,” explains House, smiling that wicked smile of his.

Cameron (as Wilson can tell from her nametag) looks appalled, and Wilson sputters to defend himself, “That’s not—not exactly true. House was—”

“Oh, relax, Jimmy.” House waves his red mug up for Wilson to see. “Black please.”

Wilson doesn’t hide his annoyance as he takes the red mug and begins to fill it with coffee.

“Uh, I’m Alison Cameron, by the way,” he hears from behind him. He turns to smile pleasantly at her, hoping to offset whatever terrible thoughts she currently holds about him.

“Nice to meet you,” he says truthfully. “And you’re Foreman?”

The only other man at the table nods. He looks serious, maybe a touch arrogant, but not a douchebag just for the sake of it. Wilson already finds himself wanting to display more respect towards him; this, here, was a man who might be able to go toe-to-toe against House’s more extravagant ideas. “House was just telling us about you.” Foreman’s eyes linger at House, looking put-off.

Wilson was waiting for something like that. A sign of their discomfort of a boss about five or six years younger than them. Chase had been disgruntled at first, too, a few months ago when he began. Very quickly did he learn his place under House though, and Wilson doesn’t doubt that Foreman and Cameron will have similarly unpleasant realizations. For now, they’ll certainly try to undermine House’s authority and criticize his approaches; until they’re broken in and see just how genius House was, under his eccentricities.

House notices Foreman’s look too, if his (already tense position) tensing more was an indication. Very quickly, Wilson sets his new mug of coffee down in front of him, then sits in the seat across from the fellows but right next to House. Damage control has arrived , he thinks, humorously.

“Any questions about the hospital or about the department? I know it’s the first of its kind, and it’s still quite new, so some of the kinks are continuing to be worked out,” says Wilson. He chooses to ignore whatever House had been saying about him, absolutely positive that it was a mix of lies and embarrassing truths.

“What are you doing? This is my meeting, get out of here,” grumbles House. “Are you trying to undermine me?”

Cameron and Foreman hesitate, looking between House and Wilson and sometimes sparing Chase an occasional glance, apprehensive. Wilson waits it out, ignoring House very plainly, which frustrates the man even more. Before he can kick up some new insults to get a rise out of Wilson, however, Foreman speaks.

“How many patients come in for this department specifically? I can’t imagine it’s many,” he says. 

Wilson waits for House’s answer, staring at him, watching the way he rocks the chair back and forth, abusing that swivel feature to the point Wilson is surprised the damn thing doesn’t squeak yet. He’s begun twirling his cane between each hand, watching it spin. There’s clearly no intention to answer the question, so Chase jumps in, seeming embarrassed at his boss’ antics.

“We get fewer patients, but each case takes a lot longer to diagnose, let alone treat. Patients typically come in for about a week until we can figure it out.”

“And, how many patients do we take on at once?” Cameron asks. She seems more eager now, leaning forward on her elbows. She’s looking at House, and Wilson wonders if she really thinks he’s going to answer this one.

House’s hand suddenly disengages from the tossing movements of his cane to take a long sip of the coffee Wilson made for him. “One at a time. Slow and steady wins the race, you know.”

Cameron looks almost as surprised as Wilson felt. Though, Wilson figured her surprise wasn’t because House actually answered her. “One at a time?” she repeats, astounded. “What if more people need our help in that time?”

House has lapsed back into silence, so Wilson wearily takes this one. “I think Dr. House’s typical approach is to put all his efforts into one patient who can get better quicker, and then move onto the next, rather than trying to divide and conquer and end up losing multiple patients.” He knows this is a rationalization of House’s technique that may not even be close to true, but it’s the only thing he can think of right now to keep House’s new fellows on the job. House doesn’t object, like he would have if he were in a better mood.

“And, trust me, we do need all the effort we can get on these patients,” assured Chase. “Some of these cases are the second ever recorded cases of rare diseases. It’s a miracle some of these people are diagnosed and treated at all, and we wouldn’t be able to do that with multiple patients at once.”

Seeming appeased enough to drop the subject for now, Cameron nods slowly. She’s clearly chewing the information around in her mind, but as long as she doesn’t push it more for right now, Wilson thinks it’ll be okay. He’s glancing sideways at House. Really, what is up with him today? He’s not even playing his video game or throwing his tennis ball, pretending to be more disinterested. All he’s doing is sitting there, swiveling his chair and drinking coffee. Not even a snarky comment…

“Are we done yet?” says House, bored. “Yes? Good, because our newest patient is about to go into cardiac arrest.”

Just as he says it, four pagers are going off in unison. Cameron looks appalled. “We had a patient this whole time?”

Foreman is the first to stand, Chase at his heels. “What—?”

“Questions later. Go make her stable. Room 304. Come back and we’ll do the differential,” commands House. He’s looking more like himself, now that he’s stopped staring sullenly at the carpet. The fellows stare at him for a moment too long, so he barks, “ Hello ? She’s dying up there!”

The file out, Chase leading them to the appropriate room. It’s barely a second until they’ve rushed out of sight.

Now, it’s House and Wilson sitting at the table. House turned off his pager as the door shut, then slowly stood up with a tired groan.

“They seem nice,” prompts Wilson pleasantly. 

House scowls. “They’re idiots. They think I can’t tell they hate me.”

Times like these, Wilson has found himself thinking has House always been so insecure? Or is this a post-infarction side effect? There’s no doubt House’s confidence took a hard hit after the infarction, and even more so after Stacy left. No hobbies, no girlfriend, no exercise…No outlet for anything at all, essentially. Wilson can almost feel pity (he does, but he won’t let House see that. Not ever. He knows how much House hates it).

“They don’t hate you,” says Wilson. The exasperation is clear, even to himself. “They just met you.”

House scoffs. “No. They met me for the first time at the interview. This time they were reintroduced to me, this time not as a doctor conducting an interview, but as their boss. They hate me.”

He’s limping away, his cane leaned up against his chair at the conference table. He slowly makes his way into his personal office, and Wilson follows behind him easily. Letting House lead him to and fro is a necessity if Wilson’s trying to get House to listen.

“And why would they hate you?” Wilson knows the answer, and House knows he knows.

“Because they’re all old and slow,” says House bitterly. He’s finally made it to his large, comfy chair by the door to the hallway, and he settles into it heavily. His hurt leg is propped up immediately, and his hands begin their practiced technique, digging into the muscle around the bone. “They can’t handle my youth, especially not as their boss.”

Wilson keeps standing in the middle of his office, shoving his hands into his white coat’s pockets. They’re beginning to get cold again, with all the blood rushing to his brain, trying to de-escalate this situation before it can blow up. “Cameron’s probably only, what, three, four years older than you?” he asks, unimpressed. “House, they don’t hate you. They’re probably a little put-off, having their superior be a guy in his mid-twenties who refuses to answer their questions and who immediately puts their patient’s life in jeopardy, but that’s it. They won’t hate you until you start berating them over every little thing.”

“I do that with you, and you don’t hate me,” mumbles House. He’s scowling again, his hands working more furiously around his thigh. His long fingers prod more gentler the closer he gets to the actual wound, like he’s playing piano. 

“How can you be so sure?” replies Wilson dryly, but there’s a smile rising across his face. 

House glances up at him for just a second, registering the smile, before looking back down to his leg. “Because if you hated me, you wouldn’t be taking me to Esposito’s for lunch today.”

It’s clear what this is, and Wilson recognizes it immediately. It’s a request. These have been happening more frequently these past few weeks, ever since House’s last two fellows quit and he had to start the rehiring process again. His leg was acting up, and he was looking for a distraction. He was hurt and he didn’t want to spend his lunch alone—if they stayed at the hospital for lunch today, House’s leg would only get worse under those sharp fluorescent lights. Even if Wilson was there, eating beside him, he’d be alone, because he’d be thinking about the case, and no relief could come to his leg. But House would never say it. Never out loud, and probably not even to himself, in that big, complicated mind.

“Esposito’s? Really ?” Wilson knows the part to play here. If he’s all too willing, House will shy away from the clear understanding that Wilson can grasp his situation so easily. But if Wilson were to outright refuse, House would take the rejection hard, and lock himself in his office, massaging his leg desperately. He needed a balance, here, where House understood that Wilson understood, but not enough to…He’s getting carried away now. Wilson blinks his introspection away.

“Best chicken parm in North Jersey,” says House enticingly. Wilson sighs, ignoring how his mouth waters just thinking about it.

“Meet me in the lobby before noon,” he says, resigned. House grows a wicked grin over his face, enjoying his “manipulation” of Wilson. 

Saying goodbye, and praying that House won’t scare off the new employees, Wilson departs. He sees the fellows rushing back to the office as he turns to close the door to his office. Chase makes eye contact with him and mouths, “Thank you.” 

Well, at least someone notices his effort around these parts. Wilson gives him a reassuring smile, before hunkering down to do his morning work. At least he now knows that House won’t be yelling insults at anyone within earshot by the end of the day, now.

Chapter Text

House looks homeless. Not at all like the respectable doctor he should be.

He wears ratty band t-shirts under whatever wrinkled button up he wears to pass as professional. His jeans are always worn in the knees, about three shades too light to look like it’s part of the design, and often have holes worn through the pockets or the cuffs. He wears the same pair of brown Converse every single day, and the outer side of the left shoe has a giant hole in it, near the dirt-stained vamp. Foreman can perfectly see whatever sock design he has on each day if House shuffles his foot in just the right way.

House was also clearly supposed to be typically clean-shaven. He seemed unable to grow a full beard yet, and so, by the end of every week, his face was covered in a weak stubble that was only really noticeable if you got close enough. But every Monday, he was clean-shaven again, like he could only be bothered to shave when he really had nothing else to do. His hair was another story—his brown, curly hair was often matted. Not Tarzan-matted, but clumps of curls would stick together in a nasty mess towards his nape some mornings. It was longer than Foreman would expect of a department head. While Wilson was able to maintain a clean cut in the back and sides, and a neat look to his longer bangs, House seemed fine with his hair curling around the tips of his ears and brushing against his eyebrows if he raised them even the slightest inch.

All this made him look young . Younger, maybe, than he actually was. It was already a shock to see a guy in his mid-twenties with an M.D. and running an entire department—It was even more surprising when the guy still looked to be in college.

The only thing that made him look any older was his cane. It was an almost vulgar contrast to his ratty youth. His long, thin fingers were almost constantly clasped around a wooden cane’s head, dancing across the handle or else holding it tightly while he walked. To see the end of the cane walking right beside that hole in those brown Converse made Foreman feel uneasy. Similarly to how he would feel if he had taken a peek into the cockpit of a plane, only to see both pilots taking a nap. A sense of a loss of control, or rather no control at all, and knowing there was nothing to be done except watch it all happen and do his best under the circumstances.

Foreman, on the other hand, prided himself on dressing well to work. He wore nice, ironed button-ups under his white lab coat, and made sure his ties looked nice and were the appropriate length. His pants were nice, verging on dress pants, and all of his clothes cycled through the washing machine often enough to carry a cleanliness about them. His facial hair was consistently trimmed and maintained nearly every day. He was older than House, and much more mature. If anything, he should be the one running this damn department.

And so maybe it was a little hard, trying to listen to House. He twirled around in his office chair and played with an oversized tennis ball and clearly didn’t care about anything, ever. He was a pain in the ass on the best of days. He was childish, immature, and rude. It was insane, to be asked to do half the things he did. When Foreman was looking into fellowships, and found that the famous Gregory House was opening applications back up, he thought he had been lucky. He thought someone so young and yet so good at being a doctor (world renown, in fact) must hold a very specific level of maturity, of composure. He thought there’d be something to learn , to introduce into his own practice. Instead, there was Greg House; there were home intrusions, unorthodox treatments to obscure diseases that could never be compared to other cases, insultingly easy or mundane tasks to be accomplished, and a constant berating of his abilities.

But, then again…

“You got the House fellowship?”

“He’s a genius, man, I’m telling you!”

“You have to tell me all about it. God, I’m so jealous.”

This was something to be proud of. He was worthy enough to get the fellowship; he wasn’t going to quit it so soon. It’s only been three weeks since he’s started. This was a position that all of his buddies in medical school were drooling over. This was a position he had worked hard for, had dreamt of from the second he found out the applications were opening back up. He had gone through a month of gathering recommendations, of working up his resume to the highest abilities it could be, of interviewing with Cuddy and the Board and a phone call with House. He got the job. He wasn’t going to let House’s rattiness and immaturity break him so soon.

That’s why, when he found himself faced with House nearly unconscious in his office, he didn’t cry out in shock and anger and immediately quit the job.

House was on his stomach, left cheek smashed against the carpeted floor. His cane was a few feet away, like he had been walking and suddenly collapsed. His bad leg was twitching, spasming, twisting up in strange bursts of movements, suddenly straightening out, then bunching up again. His right hand was desperately grasping at the muscle, pulling at it while simultaneously trying to still it, while his left arm was reaching out for an orange bottle of pills. House was grunting, cursing, and possibly…crying?

Foreman feels cold splash across his stomach suddenly. He tries to move forward, but aborts the movement quickly, before shifting forward again. He knows he can’t leave House like this, clearly suffering a spasm in his bad leg, but he also knows that no good will come if House knows someone has seen him like this.

Before he can come to a real decision, the spasm suddenly ends with a final seize—one that has House choking out a desperate shout. House lays there, wheezing and gulping for air, shaking and sweating in pain. Foreman watches, appalled. Appalled at himself, at the horrible spasms he had just seen, at the pitiful sounds that had been coming from House. He stays still, then, suddenly taken with an overwhelming disgust for himself, rushes forward, bounding over House to grab the pill bottle. He kneels down in front of House’s head and opens the bottle.

House looks up at him. His right hand is still massaging his leg, but his left hand is slowly and weakly held out for the pills. Foreman shakes out three—knowing that it was probably more than the intended dose, but also knowing that House was on the verge of passing out from pain.

He collapses again, after he swallows the pills dry. He’s panting, but they’re deeper breaths now, and much quieter than the wheezes from before. His face, when he was still looking at Foreman, had been disturbingly pale and sweat had been pouring down from his hairline to around his collar. Tears had stained the gaunt cheeks, and snot had been smeared across his upper lip.

He looked…older, now. The pain had aged him considerably. Lines appeared on his forehead from the effort of looking up at Foreman, and from controlling the deep scowl that contorted his otherwise unmarred forehead. His blue eyes looked especially vivid from in between the red-rimmed lids. His stubble seemed darker, fuller.

But now he was face down on the carpet again, and all Foreman could see was an expanse of matted brown hair covering pale, clammy skin. His long, scrawny limbs were shaking, shivering with the effort of pain, splayed out in every direction like the Vitruvian man. His eyes lingered again on the hole in his left shoe, and on the blue-and-white pattern on the socks underneath.

He stayed there, kneeling in silence, while House slowly regained control. The pills were kicking in, then. 

When House’s breathing was finally evened out almost perfectly, save for the occasional hitch that Foreman wasn’t sure was attested to pain or crying, and when his arms had stopped quivering, Foreman cleared his throat. “I can…help you up, now.”

House sighed into the carpet, and didn’t move for another few moments. Then, very slowly, cautiously, he raised himself up onto his good knee and his arms. His bad leg was kept limp, dead weight on his figure. Foreman stood and wordlessly extended his arm, which House used to pull himself up and drag his bad leg under him long enough to stumble into his office chair.

He looked younger. The aged lines were disappearing, as the pills set in, Foreman realized. He looked like he usually did, like the pills were taken often enough to prevent the pain from overriding his work. 

Foreman, somewhat awkwardly, set the orange pill bottle down on the desk. It was labeled “Vicodin” and he could just make out the name “James E. Wilson” as the provider. Then he grabbed the wooden cane from where it was discarded on the ground and gently set it up against the desk.

“You can go,” gritted out House. Foreman was surprised at the strength of the venom in his voice.

Recognizing the dismissal, and unwilling to push this frankly embarrassing situation any further, Foreman quickly turned around and stepped out of the office. Update be damned. Chase or Cameron can give it to him—Foreman was clocking out for the night.

When House got home that night, he tore off his button-up shirt, ignoring a loose button which became ripped off and bounced under the coach. Then, he pulled the old t-shirt over his head and got to work with his belt buckle. Every item of clothing was discarded on the ground nearest to where he was standing. Each pile of fiber or cotton or polyester led to the bathroom like footprints.

He drew himself a bath. A hot one. And he even risked the painful journey into his bedroom to get his headphones and MP3 player. He put in an old tape with a mix of his favorite annoyingly loud rock songs and stepped into the steaming water.

The water soothed his leg inexplicably. It felt good. He relaxed into it, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the cold tile. The steam rose around his face, creating a ruddy blush that offset the unhealthy pale that had taken place after his collapse. He kept his hands out of the water, hating the way they pruned up, and listened to the music.

He thought. He wondered how long Foreman had been there before he acted. He would’ve heard the door opening and closing if it was after the spasm, so it must’ve been while it was happening…Maybe he saw the collapse. Maybe he walked in right when House had begun to cry. Maybe he heard the sounds first, and then came to see what was happening.

No matter how House tried to twist it, the deep, paralyzing embarrassment stayed lodged deep in his stomach. It had been a bad pain day anyway, and working late was always hard on his thigh. More walking from patient to office, more pacing when he really couldn’t figure it out, more testing. It was nearing midnight when he was returning to his office from Cuddy’s, and right when he thought he had made it—right in the home stretch—his leg gave out into a spasm.

Makes sense. Most car accidents happen close to home, you know.

The spasms weren’t frequent. Not as often, since the infarction was about two years ago now. But Stacy had only left nearly a year ago, and they had come back pretty hard after that. The only reason one would come back now…It must’ve just been because it was so late. He was using his leg more, walking all the way from Cuddy’s and back to his office. He was tired, and he had missed lunch and dinner.

At the reminder of the pain from before, House’s leg twinged, and he winced. Doesn’t matter now, he told himself. He let himself feel the warmth of the water seeping into his leg. He let himself focus on the music blaring through his headphones.

Soon, the embarrassment and humiliation and shame began to ebb away. House found himself dancing along to the music, nodding his head and bouncing his good leg and pretending to strum an imaginary guitar or bang at the imaginary drumset. The water was splashing with his effort, spilling out of the tub and onto the floor, or bounding up, up, and landing back in the water near his feet with a splatter. He grabbed a washcloth and doused it in body wash, and scrubbed himself in tune with the song.

But when he brushed against the infarction site, his bad leg contorted suddenly, and House yelped, tossing the MP3 player off the side of the tub and onto the floor while his hands desperately grabbed at his thigh. In the commotion of the MP3 player falling, his headphones were torn off, and the sudden silence hurt his leg even more.

He threw the washcloth out of the water, like it had some special property that was causing the pain, instead of just dragging against his skin the wrong way. He groaned with the newly amplified pain, grunting out a string of swears. 

There was nothing he could do but wait for the pain to subside, and he knew it. He just had to sit there, in the cooling bath, and remember the humiliation he had gone through earlier that night, and feel the agony right now, and wait. No gentle touch or tugging massage got rid of the pain. If he left it alone, trying to feign uncaring in the face of torture, his leg began twitching again, which hurt even more.

More water splashed out of the tub, and he could only hope none of it was getting on his MP3 player.

He stayed there for a long, long while. He maintained his tense position, afraid that any loosening of his limbs would curse him, and only cause more pain. His shoulders were aching with the force necessary to keep them hunched up the way they were, but he refused to let them waver.

He wasn’t sure how long it took, but eventually the pain faded to a dull pounding and his thoughts were able to flutter back to the case. The distraction was necessary. While his mind was busy flickering through symptoms and conversations with his fellows, the dull pounding stabilized. He knew that, at this point, he would be able to get out of the tub without risking another spasm. He didn’t doubt the pain it would bring, however.

He stayed for another moment, allowing himself to mourn the loss of comfort he had only half an hour ago. Then, he began to hoist himself out of the tub.

It was a long process, full of sudden stops and sharp inhales through his nose, but eventually he was wrapped up in a towel, sitting on the toilet lid, and the bath was draining. He was dizzy with the effort, and studied the MP3 player to bring himself back to his senses. It seemed mostly untouched by the water, and should be fine. His mind was still numb and dull from the pain, and his eyes slowly followed the cord that connected the MP3 player and his headphones. He looked there for a long while with glossy, unfocused eyes. Then he realized that water had been poured directly onto his headphones, and that there was no doubt they were ruined by now.

A sharp pang of agony went through his thigh at the realization. His heart dropped dramatically and his stomach flipped.

Then, he decided the pain didn’t matter. He stood up anyway and kicked the headphones across the bathroom. The wire got pulled out of the jack in the MP3 player with a CLKK and the headband part of the headphones broke in half as they hit the wall. He shouted at the pain in his leg, but limped out of his bathroom, even as his vision darkened and the room began to spin. He wouldn’t have been able to pick up the MP3 player even if he tried, so he moved into the living room. Each step tingled with pain, sent sharp waves of shocking pain through his nerve endings.

He wanted to break something. To feel it break. The headphones weren’t enough—He’d broken nothing, only made the damage more apparent. They were ruined before he could hurt them. He needed to know he hurt something, something that had been fine before he came along.

He grabs an old, empty glass from his coffee table. Perfect. Perfect. It’s clear and empty and perfect. Completely fine, completely untouched by him. His leg hurts. It’s beginning to twitch, but not spasm—the bath was good for something, at least. It was ruined now, though.

If Stacy were here, she’d stop him.

She fucking left. No one is here to stop him. The reminder of Stacy makes bile rise in his throat and anger pound harder than the pain in his leg.

He throws it at the wall as hard as he can. His towel drops to the ground as he does it.

It explodes. The sound alone has him wincing, horrified at his own actions. Tiny bits of glass rain back into his face, his hands. It’s not enough. It’s broken, but that’s all. It had already been glass before it was broken. That was all it was. That’s all it is now. Glass on the coffee table and glass on the floor is still glass. There was no change except broken bonds on a molecular level.

Desperate, dimly aware of angry and pained tears streaming down his face, House grabbed a larger shard of the glass. He gasps in surprise as he shifts it in his palm and a thin wound is opened immediately. He watches the red line with fascination.

Suddenly, there’s a slow, almost orgasmic realization. Crimson bubbles out of the wound slowly, bulging until it begins to stream down his wrist and down his forearm. He really split his palm open, huh? All he did was touch it…

It feels similar to what he feels when he cracks a case. A deep understanding in his gut that soothes a fire of desperation and agony, chemicals in his brain firing, signals sending across his frail body, nerves settling in their places, pain disappearing. Blood drizzling down his arm, stemming from his palm, and dripping onto the shards of glass below.

He gives another twist to the large shard he holds in his palm, and watches with restrained enjoyment as another line of blood begins to flood out.

Oh. Oh .

His anger was gone. His pain was gone. 

One last time, he grabs hold of the shard of glass, and this time allows himself to carve a superficial line into his wrist. 

He watches it, watches the blood, watches it stain the white towel at his feet. Watches it gather with little specks of glass.

Then he takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and turns around to go to bed. All anger and pain has dissipated.

Chapter Text

When she hired him, she knew it would lead to unmeasurable difficulty. For her, for him, for the rest of the staff, for the patients. Everyone . And yet she did it anyway.

She knew him from college first. Later, she’d know him from the articles he wrote and edited. Those articles had been everywhere, in every major medicine publisher’s magazines and newspapers. It had taken a while for her to get the connection between the young boy at her college and the famous doctor co-writing and publishing all of those articles. She can still remember that bitter anger she held toward him at the time. She had hated him from a distance, for his acceleration in his career and his clear genius. The worst of the envy was rooted deep within her time with him in college.

He was so young in those days, and yet he would walk right past her everyday on campus. She had taken the SATs three times for the results she wanted, had stayed up late studying, had poured more time and thought into her college application essays than she ever did in her English classes at school; she even worked after school and on weekends for the money necessary to send in the application. She pasted University of Michigan stickers on her water bottles and hung flags in her room. And she had finally made it.

And, yet, so did he—that gangly teenager who held the arrogant air that only someone who thought they were much smarter than you could hold.

He was a tall, really quite alarmingly thin boy. He must’ve been sixteen, maybe seventeen. His voice was still breaking on every seventh word and he could only grow small patches of facial hair and she truly doubted that he had any chest hair. He had this particularly dark shade of mousy hair that was permanently messy, never the same style each day, and always sticking up in the back from how he slept. His thin lips, typically pulled into a small frown, quirked up into a smirk when he saw her. His piercing blue eyes latched onto her until she was completely behind him, and his head never moved once.

She knew he could see the bubbling disbelief within her, hot with rage. She didn’t make any attempt to stifle it after a while. Faux politeness wouldn’t work on him like it did with the other guys who thought they were geniuses, she sensed. She felt that this one might’ve been the real deal—a truly intelligent boy, smarter than the rest of the arrogant men that polluted her university.

It took an entire semester before Lisa actually spoke to him. She knew his major already, assuming it had something to do with medicine since he was always bumming around that part of campus. So, she asked the next logical thing, the thing that would immediately soothe most of the intense part of her jealousy, the thing that gave her the most grief out of anything when she saw him: “How far into your Pre-Med program are you?”

She herself was in medical school, having already completed graduate school. He was in college, yes, but she found it flat-out ridiculous to think that he could have finished his Pre-Med degree by now. He was very clearly at least beginning that, and must be taking more advanced classes that were just near the real medical degree classes. This, Lisa knew, she could hold over him, even just in the recesses of her mind.

“Finished Pre-Med. I’m getting my full certification,” he said. There was a twinge of humor in his voice.

Lisa’s heart dropped through her intestines and lodged itself deep within her stomach. Are you fucking kidding? This twerp ? This scrawny, arrogant asshole?

He had seemed excited, Cuddy remembers, when he picked up on her frustration, because a small grin rose to his thin lips. Very small, like it was somewhat foreign for him to exercise those muscles.

“What’s your name?” She sounded more annoyed this time, a new edge to her voice. She wasn’t sure if it was his progress in his degree or his pleasure at her misfortune that was pissing her off more. 

“Gregory House.”

“Lisa Cuddy,” she had replied, even though he hadn’t asked. 

Lisa had been planning her next sentence when he suddenly said, “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder.”

“ What ?” she asked. The nerve of this kid was astounding. “What do you know about me ?”

“Well, you have a full schedule. You’re doing over the amount of necessary credits. Also, you’re taking Swan’s classes, and nobody takes his classes unless they’re trying to prove something, because Erickson teaches the same courses as Swan, but gives out less work. Are you working outside of school too?” The way Greg asks the question implies he already knows. Lisa doesn’t dignify him with a response, so he continues. “What, do you hate having freetime or something?” He pauses, then, with a cruel grin, says, “I bet you hate your mom.”

Outraged, Lisa scoffed. “You don’t know a single thing about me or my mother. You know what? I bet you’re lonely. Nobody talks to you, because you’re clearly younger, and everyone I’ve asked about you hasn’t even known your name. You were probably bullied all through school, and so now you hate the world.” If anyone else heard them, she might have been embarrassed—back in those days, she hadn’t understood that aggression would be necessary for her advancement in her career. But Greg smiled—a real smile, not a smug smirk—and moved a little closer.

“You ask people about me? Don’t tell me you have a crush.” His voice, only in the midst of dropping but already sounding like it won’t be very deep by the end of puberty, is tinged with a teasing humor.

Lisa scoffs again, but this time much more good-naturedly. “I don’t crush on little boys. Nice try, though, Greg.”

And then, as if moving under the same rules, they promptly kept going on their own paths without wondering if now was the right time to go. Neither of them had looked back to the other.

It wasn’t until she was seated at her normal table in the dining hall with her friends that she had realized how strange it was that she’d been annoyed at him, and then only moments later befriended him. She was beginning to look forward to talking to him again, until the next day, when they crossed paths again, and he pointedly ignored her.

Anger had risen within her again.

But that was a long time ago, and most of Cuddy’s jealousy had ebbed away by the time House was publishing articles in the New England Journal of Medicine. She would pick up a few subscriptions to medical journals during this time, to read what he published. She had bought it with her own money, even though Princeton-Plainsboro had its own subscription she could’ve been using. It felt more personal this way. 

They had called, sometimes. Lisa would ring him up and ask about his new articles or new cases or jobs. Despite his clear genius, it seemed harder for him to maintain a job for long, and many of their calls were filled with his constant ranting and strong declarations of hatred for his colleagues. 

Lisa knew the risks of hiring him. She knew she had hated him in college, until they had come to a tentative friendship a few semesters after their first conversation. She knew that she hated him now , sometimes. But he was so young, and so smart, and that was exactly what the hospital needed.

So when she got promoted to running the place, her first decision had been to extend a job opening to House. To be a department head.

…

Lisa could spend all day reminiscing on college with House, on those days when he’d show up in strange places—parties she couldn’t believe he got into, her own classes sometimes, or one memorable time she found him in the library, actually studying (later she found out he was staking out, waiting for some girl to walk in). Or how, in the years after they had both graduated, they maintained loose contact, mostly through email and sometimes calls. She could even berate herself for her hiring of House despite all these years she knew him. Or , she could do something productive and get his scrawny ass into his office to assist his employees in covering a “case,” as he insisted they would call patient files.

“House,” she said, in that all-too-familiar tone, a mix of exasperation and desperation to get him to listen. He perks up at her voice from where he was seated in the waiting room for the clinic, reading a thick novel. Gone with the Wind , she reads, when he shifts it just the right way from her position at his shoulder. For some reason, this upsets her even more. “Get upstairs. You can’t blow off work forever.”

House smiles a little, before he nestles back into his chair and reopens his book. “You never would’ve noticed I was blowing off work if you hadn’t been blowing off work too.”

“I was not ‘blowing off work,’ I was trying to find you. Wilson said he saw your fellows in there alone, doing the work by themselves,” explained Cuddy, trying to stamp down her annoyance. She learned long ago that annoyance will do one of two things with House: either it will fuel his antics with a newfound passion, or it will make him shut down entirely in the worst way possible.

She’s moved to stand in front of him now, and watches as he quirks an eyebrow. “Well, that’s no good. Those morons won’t be able to diagnose the patient at all.” Still, he makes no move to leave.

“You have ten seconds to get up and go upstairs. Or else I’m not going to let Wilson eat lunch with you today.”

A threat as old as time, and so sweet on her tongue. Cuddy watches with glee as House sighs, shuts his novel, and begins the trek up down the hall. Before he’s totally gone, he shouts out, “This hospital is a prison!”

Cuddy, under the safety of his back being fully turned to her, allows herself a small smile. House won’t fight back against that threat; not after it had been fully acted out against him for an entire week. Wilson dutifully ignored House’ pages, texts, even calls to his work and personal phone, even when House threatened to get him back ten times harder. He was the boy who cried wolf, and so Wilson refused to listen to Cuddy’s ominous warnings that he really would enact revenge—When Wilson showed up the next week with green hair, Cuddy felt a twinge of guilt, but couldn’t help but laugh right in his face. 

…

Cuddy sits at her desk, contemplating an email she’s received from Wilson. It’s nearing eight at night, which means many of her staff members are already gone, or else are clocking out. The fact that House is still in his office proves his dedication ( finally ) to the case he was assigned, but also dignifies Wilson’s email. Which, really, is unfortunate, because Cuddy was planning on ignoring his concerns so long as House stopped giving reasons for it.

All doctors need doctors. This is a fundamental fact that all doctors need to come to terms with. The biggest matter is finding a provider you trust enough to agree with their diagnoses and treatments. Lisa’s is a doctor who works at an entirely different hospital, and who knows very little about her. Wilson’s is a doctor at Princeton-Plainsboro, but who he rarely ever sees unless for check-ups. And House’s is Wilson.

Since the infarction, House has only ever allowed Wilson to complete check-ups on him—due to a mixture of guilt and relief, Cuddy has never argued against this. Unfortunately, though, it’s become increasingly obvious over the past few weeks that House has been hiding something from his doctor. Meaning, he’s hiding something from Wilson. 

Apparently, during his last check-up, House refused to take off his shirt for the scoliosis check. Wilson admitted that it wasn’t entirely suspicious for him to do so, because House has always been uncooperative in their appointments, but what was really worrying him was that House pointedly won’t wear anything other than his button-downs, now.

They all knew House’s past drug abuse. His cocaine benders and, in the harder moments of his life, even heroin use were large sources of concern for both Wilson and Cuddy. But since starting the Vicodin (heavily monitored by both of them), House seems to have stopped most other drugs. Well, okay…sometimes his apartment smells like weed. And, yeah, every once and a while his eyes are all glazed over and he gets spaced-out, like he’s on some other drug that probably isn’t prescription. But generally , the recreational drug use has tapered off.

The only times House has refused for them to see him in states of undress have been when his drug use was worse. When Stacy was still around—Cuddy grimaces a little; she tries not to think about the days House was so much happier, and in so much less pain—when Stacy was around, though, marks that implied sex would be displayed proudly. Hickeys, scratches, whatever. And House wasn’t necessarily self conscious over his body, to put it lightly. There’s been a few nights, both pre- and post-infarction, where Cuddy’s had to wrestle him in or out of the shower, either due to pain or intoxication. But House’s heroin use was always something he seemed more ashamed of.

The fact that he’s refusing to undress in front of Wilson, seemingly because of the state of his arms, is alarming. For a man who would strip down naked at any moment in the halls of the hospital to prove a point, modesty is something to view with suspicion.

Cuddy leans back in her desk chair, frowning. Okay, so House isn’t taking off his shirt. Whatever. That can be overlooked, if she chooses to ignore all history of drug abuse. But his dedication to the case is something else to hold with concern.

Lisa wants him to be interested in the cases he takes. She wants him to have something to focus that giant brain of his on. She even wants him to get into that obsessive state where the case is almost the only thing he can think about, even at the expense of eating or sleeping (as long as it doesn’t go to extremes). He needs it, and that much has been clear for years now. And while it’s typically a good sign that he’s getting into the flow of a case and staying late, Wilson’s email also mentions that House has been considerably distracted during the differentials. His fellows have picked up on it, growing increasingly aware of his oddities, and knowing that this isn’t one of them. Chase led them to Wilson with their concerns, and now, Wilson has brought them to her.

House is only distracted from a case when something larger, and usually something with huge pains attached to it, is pressing down on him. The last time his parents were in town, for example, or—well, here it is again—when Stacy left. His normal leg pains or other daily stressors can be forgotten in the midst of a case. The big things linger. He can stay late all he wants, miss as many meals as it takes to get the diagnosis, but so long as he’s even the tiniest bit distracted from the case, it’s clear something is wrong. Even when simultaneously meddling in Cuddy or Wilson’s affairs, he can focus enough on the case to get the work done. Distraction from the diagnosis is not something Greg House is apt to fall into.

Factoring back in the drug use, this is a serious issue.

Resigning herself to the full weight of the problem, Cuddy heaves out a breath and slumps forward in her chair. She should probably reply to Wilson now, huh?