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There was a coffee table in the center of the room. It was hard, sturdy, reliable, made of good solid wood, patternless except for the small, black, ocean waves etched into the surface. Usually cluttered with food, coasters, cans, papers, or pills, yet on this stormy evening everything, except for one corner, was relatively clear. The table lay dormant like a bear hunched on its paws; dirt brown, meticulously sanded, seeping the power and menace of the tree it came from with a terrifying lip that ran along its edge. As House slammed his toe on its leg, it grunted slightly, but altogether stood strong, like a commanding, broad-shouldered guard with his arms folded in front of a vault door.
House winced, the signals in his brain breaking off and pinging around his skull like a game of pinball. His head was filled with many other thoughts, and it took quite a bit of consideration, whilst frozen upright in pain, to kickstart his knees to collapse so he could sit down. The black leather couch caught his fall, embracing him like a motherly hug, but he quickly sat upright—his haywire brain didn't need to be overloaded with the thought of family—and leaned his head in his hands. Something stopped his eyes from closing, peeling them open with tape just to deprive him of sleep; they remained wide, glancing at every little detail in wonder. His ears buzzed like a chainsaw, a thousand little voices murmuring ideas all at once. Each and every inch of his body jittered with anticipation, waiting for the chance to get up and do something awesome. Yes, that was right—he craved that awesomeness, that thrill—maybe he should get up again, pace around the apartment until a useful thought squirmed through the crowd to deliver the news to the head office.
He sprang to his feet. Noticing an odd artifact on a bookshelf before the corridor leading to the bathroom. He decided to take that with him, too. He hadn't ever noticed it before, probably a lame gift from someone. A gift? From who? Wilson wouldn't get him something this ugly. In fact, nobody would get him something this ugly, this disgraceful, this vulgar. Swirling his gums between his cheeks, he rolled it over in his hand. He raised his arm. It shattered on the wood, shards of colourful glass strung out across the floor. House could imagine the little, yellow, numbered triangles as the police drew an outline of the scene, staring down at the dismantled body of the object. It was rather pitiful, although he felt no guilt surrounding the destruction at all, only a lingering confusion as to why he felt the need to destroy it. What did it matter? The putrid thing was gone now, he'd never have to notice it again.
He stepped over it and continued down the hall, swerving into the bathroom. The tap squeaked as it reluctantly turned, trickling out a weak stream. House cupped his hands like a beggar, watching the water flow out of the cracks between his fingers. When he had enough sensory play, he splashed some onto his face, the chill washing over his skin instantly. He shook himself like a wet dog. The storm raged heavily outside. Rain howled against the windows, wind hammering the building and whirring down the air-vents, lightning cracking in death-defying flashes, casting momentary shadows of spindly tree branches against the plain bathroom walls.
Just then, something screeched. A bumbling trill, each vibration that accompanied it like an impatient tapping of a foot. It rang on and on, blaring like an alert alluding to some ultimate non-emergency. Begrudgingly, House made his way back to the living room, after shutting the tap off and lunging over the broken glass. Ignoring the mess at the corner of the coffee table, he picked up the phone from its tiny holder, accepting the call from 'b'.
He tried to deepen his voice, shoving down the ecstatic tone in his throat, "Go for House."
There was a crackle at the end of the line and the brief sound of a busy room before a woman's voice flowed through House's apartment. "Where are you?"
"Narnia," he said. Knowing she couldn't see him, he smiled at his own joke, but even that quickly faded as he realised she could probably sense it.
She rolled her eyes, "Real funny. You were meant to pick me up, remember?"
House plugged one of his nostrils and breathed in, "I forgot," he exhaled. He slouched onto the sofa, crossing his legs on the armrest.
"You forgot?"
"It was a rough day," he said nonchalantly. It was the truth, today had been unbearable.
"Look, don't bother with the effort of getting up and driving to come meet me," she said, concealing her exhaustion.
"You're going to walk here? I'm jealous, at least you can do that. So many people have issues walking: cripples, fat people, smokers—" at that thought, House looked over at the concealed drawer under the desk to the left of the room. He squinted his eyes, contemplating for a moment before extracting the box, rattling it to check if it was empty, and lighting the last cigarette. "Say," he said after a puff, "do you know anyone who smokes?"
"Actively?"
"Yes, actively."
She paused, not so much as to think over the question, but to think of why House was asking this, "Not off the top of my head, no," she said cautiously.
"I think I only ever knew two or three people who regularly smoked. One of them was my Oma."
"How does that have—?"
"You think if she could see me now she'd approve of me doing it?" he turned the cigarette over in his hands, gazing at the ashen end, "I mean, I never saw her do it often. She hid it from me, which probably means she didn't want to get me into it. Smokers often do that to little kids, channel the guilt they feel for not being able to stop into protecting the youth. How ironic."
"How is that ironic?"
He watched the smoke billow out his mouth like juice through a straw, "They think it'll solve something in themselves by stopping the next generation picking it up. Little do they know, Tiny Timmy trades his chocolate bars for Marlboro Lights with Fat Sam under the playground slide."
She went silent, shoulders drooping with a sigh that passed through the phone, "Are you smoking again?"
"It was just one!" he said, imitating a child's voice.
"House—!"
"Don't say I didn't warn you."
Bailey looked up at the droplets traversing down the front windows of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital with a sense of dread, glancing at her measly umbrella as bundles of wind-swept leaves scooted into the lobby. She ran her nails through her brown hair. "I'll be there in forty."
The journey to House's apartment was still relatively new in Bailey's mind, having only traversed it a handful of times since she had met him. She walked hugging her burgundy coat, hood tied tight around her head, umbrella strapped to her chest. In only ten minutes her legs were already numb with cold winter water, her backpack was soaked through, and upon realising the journey she had left to go she was filled with a moping grumble that wouldn't quite stop teasing her. She kicked up rain as she went, the water flicking on the backs of her heels.
A rumbling car slid to a halt beside her, a somewhat familiar face rolling the window down and crouching to see her better. "Need a ride?" Wilson asked, innocent brown eyes wide open.
Bailey sucked her lips into a relieved smile, cracking open the door and flinging her bag onto her lap. The warmth of the air conditioning soothed her shivering skin.
"House's again?" he pulled away from the curb, merging into the traffic whirring by.
"Yeah," she said, her head resting on her fist. She stared out the window at the night sky.
She slipped in through the already unlocked door of House's apartment with a startled expression. A pale glow traveled underneath the front door and into the small entrance room, running up the walls at a harsh angle. She slipped her shoes off, placing her bag on top of them.
The smoke immediately hit her, wisps circled the ceiling lights. She spluttered, waving the smell from her eyes. Despite the size of the room, without any windows open the smoke clumped and gathered aggressively.
She observed the furniture, the towering bookshelves, the solo desk and the sinister piano, before hesitantly peering over the black couch. House laid stretched out, hands tucked behind his head and elbows curved like a beetle's mandibles. His tight t-shirt rolled up slightly, exposing a thin line of skin and a slither of his waistband. Greg's head lulled over as Bailey walked around the couch; he briefly looked her up and down.
On top of the table was a small bag, smaller than a coin, smuggle-able in anyone's palm, half empty and filled with white powder. It made her stomach churn, a dusty hospital ID card and the paper straw thrown next to it, two lines remaining, neatly stacked and meticulously equal. Her throat tightened. Part of her wanted to take them, and it took her digging her nails into her palm to resist that urge.
House cooed an odd, happy sound, "Why did you come in the end?"
Her eyes were still fixed on the powder on the corner of the coffee table, sprinkled specs like snowflakes scattered in the wood grain. Her heart pounded in her ears, and it took her a while to think of a response.
"You don't call to have a casual conversation unless you're looking for a way to cry for help", she snapped, more venom in her tone than she would've liked to let out. The guilt that followed soon after snapped her out of the trance she had delved into.
His grin faded, "You're angry."
She had no time for flowery language. He was right, she was angry. It festered inside her chest like an eternal flame turned roaring. "Well, clearly I am, because when you imply you're smoking and I come over here and you're doing cocaine, then obviously I'm going to be angry!"
"Would you rather see me smoking?"
She hadn't even noticed the black blemish and stumped out cigarette, streaks of smoke that funneled up from the crumpled tip. She frowned, "That's not what I'm trying to say."
"Then what are you trying to say?" The grin was back again, now he sounded almost giggly. Her stomach creased in half.
"I just—", she squeezed her eyelids to strain the tears away, " I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Why bother?" he snapped.
She tried to take a step forward, but her feet were planted as if the floor had engulfed them. She coated her throat to let the words slip out; "I want to help you."
"That's sweet, you should've become a doctor." He gazed longingly at her brown eyes, but all Bailey could focus on was the size of his pupils, like black dinner plates peering at her.
"I never planned on it." She glanced at the floor.
"So you settled for hospital receptionist?"
Folding her arms, she said: "I settled for whatever I could get that paid well."
"Whatever job you could land after you came out of rehab?" His words were like icy bullets.
"How did you—?"
He smirked, "Even rehab centers have no dignity when it comes to releasing files."
She shot a glance at the drugs. "You're—you're doing this on purpose!"
"Which circles back to my question: why stay?"
"Because," it was a good question. She honestly didn't know, not exactly, at least. She loved him, albeit unsteadily, but it was still early days. She had been warned about House plenty of times, yet still relied upon him in a way she never had done with any other man. All that was too romantic to say to someone like House, no matter how much she wished she could drill it into his head so he wouldn't have to do something reckless again, so she summed it up: "you're the only bonus I get around here."
He spat out his answer as if it had been rehearsed; "But I'm the hospital jerk."
"So I've heard," she nodded.
"I'm broken."
"I gathered."
Rain thundered outside.
"You can't fix me," he furrowed his brows.
She shook her head, "I don't need to."
House knew her. She knew women like her, at least. She'll say she loves him as he is, but there's always something. Change came to him slower than others, it held no meaning, never happening in the way someone else wanted it to. Wishing for him to fix himself was just as irrational as wishes themselves, and a kind, young woman like her really shouldn't be wasting her beauty on such an ugly soul like him—"You'll die trying,"—he blurted out, the words turning rotten in his memory.
"Then I'll die loving you."
House looked at her, resting still. His eyebrows were subtly raised, speculating what she had just said. Internally, House scoffed; it was so immature to swear your life away on another man, he thought. But something about how she said it, the tightness of her arms around her ribs, told him it was true.
Her nervous eyes were slightly uncomfortable from the drugs on the table. Not just because of her prior addiction, which he now felt slightly guilty about rekindling, but because of her genuine care. The word felt so foreign in his mind, the idea so distant, so unusual. He had solemn experienced being looked after for the sake of it, usually left to writhe in his own pain—and sometimes filth—throughout the day, in his office; or in his bedroom, in the dark.
Part of him actually felt sick thinking about it, the premise of having someone that truly cared about him. Sure, the people around him cared about him in the way someone often does when they spend enough time adjusting to a person, even if they had disliked him at first, but she was so head-over-heels that she had jumped the gun and went straight into unprecedented care.
The way her lips didn't move sealed the deal on her intent. God, it was love, wasn't it? Not just the buckets of random dates shared prior, nor his blunt attempts to get her in the bedroom or their lunch-time meetings, which now turned almost daily, no, she had taken the step further and had gone and fallen in love with him—such a stupid thing to do. The way she watched him sent something through him, too, which, in that moment, was only amplified enough by the drugs for him to actually act upon it.
After reaching under the table and taking a swig of water, making sure to thoroughly rinse out his gums, he sprung up off of the couch, limping towards her and slipping a hand on her waist. She jolted slightly, but eventually melted into the warmth of his palm on her cheek. Almost apologetically, he gave her a small smile before leaning in to kiss her, the stubble on his top lip rasping against her skin. He parted his mouth again, tilting his head to press further into her, the scent of her faint cocoa lip balm blessing his nostrils.
She crossed her arms over the broadness of his neck, pulling him closer to her body. His cigarette breath wasn't as disgusting as she thought, although it still wasn't exactly all that pleasant. There was a part of her immensely satisfied, and a craving she had long held throughout the day was finally being released as his hands combed through her hair. An uncontrollable smile spread across her face, which remained even when he parted from her, his blue eyes meeting hers.
"For the record," he decided he had been vulnerable enough to tell her, "my father was the one who smoked."
"I already assumed. For the record," she continued, "maybe don't 'forget' to pick me up next time."
His arms trailed to her hips. "Are you gonna stay the night?"
"Hm, maybe."
"If I flush that baggie can I claim a prize?"
"Sure," she grinned, "why not."