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Days like this make Wilson feel like one big, rotting pack of frozen sausage, forgotten long past its expiration date.
His diagnosis was four months behind him. PPTH is a lifetime away. The prognosis keeps getting gloomier with every minute, every hour, every agonisingly slow day. There's no coming back from his predetermined destination because there's simply no coming back from death itself. He tells himself, and sometimes House, that he's made peace with eventual demise. He has not. He thinks he won't ever be able to.
The clouds are rounding in from the beach. On TV, a forecaster announces the arrival of a storm with the grimmest tone Wilson's ever heard—and he's been the bearer of bad news enough times to master that particular sort of sombreness. God knows he bore his own bad news. Salty winds pick up a cacophony of animalistic howls outside tightly closed windows. The temperature has dropped to right below 65, which is not exactly cold, but enough for his cancer-ridden body to start shivering. September is a bitch, he muses, pulling the checkered comforter up to his chest. The sky darkens with every passing minute, the trees keen, the glass door opening out to their back porch shrieks weakly, and House—
House is not home yet.
It had become a common occurrence since they moved to Oxnard two months ago, despite House's protests. The older man had thought the city too loud, too pricey, and perhaps too hopeful for a couple of dying men finding refuge. Wilson was tired of arguing because believe it or not, he only had a few fortnights left, so he had booked the tickets and the movers behind House's back. House had nagged incessantly on the plane, but he saw the resignation in those blue eyes. His friend—his soulmate—had accepted their fate.
House has been avoiding him from the moment they landed. Wilson knows what this means for the older one. Hospice care is a word House tries to make nonexistent, even though it's undeniable that the process had already started when the X-rays came out with those coloured patches so blatantly obvious. They still have lunch and dinner together, and the bed is a shared kingsize instead of two separated ones, except Wilson has never felt more abandoned before. Between them, distance has never made the heart grow fonder. He tries to cope, but it's nothing but pathetic, futile attempts.
Wilson also knows his friend will not leave him.
So he waits, restless, heavy feet propped up on the tea table, slimming fingers grappling at the remote. It's okay. House will return sooner than he could blink, and all will end well.