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"Do I have to wake up again?"
"Yes, you have to. You are the head oncologist of an oncology department, you do have responsibilities."
Wilson had this conversation in his head before. Almost everyday. He knows common signs of clinical depression, which he is actually experiencing for a long time. He's currently on meds, but this unwillingness of doing regular things doesn't just go away like overnight. He wants to disappear from everything, run away from his responsibilities.
Which is of course, he can't.
He stopped his bedside alarm bell, then stepped out from his room to take a shower.
_
The hospital corridor doesn't feel unusual to Wilson. Smell of antiseptic, muffled voices, and some kind of sadness he can't explain or too used to it. He knows, one of the things that keeping him okay-ish is this job. He loves his job, yet nowadays he needs an escape from this place.
"Okay, I need coffee actually." He thought.
10.13 am. Sitting in his office, doing some paperwork and drinking his 3rd morning coffee. While looking at patient charts, his left hand reached for his mug of lukewarm coffee. Suddenly, a tinkle sound breaks his attention.
"Oh, crap." he muttered.
His mug is shuttered on the floor perfectly. Shards of thick ceramics are laying scattered across the bottom of his desk. Wilson sighed, leaning down to pick up the pieces, cursing in his mind for the mess he just made. Suddenly, his grip slipped, a sharp,cold sting bite into the meat of his right wrist.
"Ah!"
Wilson dropped the shard. It clattered against the desk leg. He didn't stand up but automatically bringing his right hand up to inspect it. It didn’t look bad at first. Just a clean, pale line running diagonally across the wrist and his upper side of forearm. Then, the pale line darken with pulsing crimson blood, spilling over the side of his hand and dripping onto his shirt cuff.
"Wow, great." Wilson whispered.
He grabbed some tissues from the box on his desk and clamped them down onto the cut. Within seconds, the white tissue turned completely red, turning into a wet, useless mush. He threw it into the wastebasket and grabbed another handful, pressing harder this time. Then the pain arrived, a deep, throbbing ache that vibrated straight up his forearm.
"It's just a laceration." He thought.
He looked at his desk clock. He has a consultation at 10.30 am. Then he has a board meeting. There's no time to go down to the ER, Cuddy will see him and she'll turn this minor procedure into an hour. He'll miss the consultation, he'll miss the meeting. More importantly, the last thing this hospital needs is a clumsy oncologist who can't even properly hold his coffee cup and makes an inconvenient situation.
"Okay, this is nothing. Don't make a scene, you can do this. Just a few hours."
He kept his wounded hand elevated, found an old first-aid box in the bottom back drawer of his desk. Opened the box with one hand. The moment the pressure was gone, a heavy flow of blood pooled in his palm and ran down his wrist. Anyone can tell this isn't a superficial cut, more of an angry radical artery branch. But he ignored the information, somehow managed to tore open a package of sterile gauze with his teeth. He pressed the thick pad onto the wound, then he tried to wind the medical tape around his palm and wrist to secure the gauze. He wrapped it three times. It was messy, uneven but it managed to slow the bleeding, at least to Wilson.
He wears his lab coat, pulls the sleeve down to cover so no one can immediately see the blood on his shirt cuffs.
"Let's go back to work." he whispered.
_
Wilson managed to finish his board meeting, without giving any clue to anyone what happened before. People can barely see what they don't want to see.
Wilson was walking back to his office, he's feeling cold, his fingers felt icy, cold numb. He took some charts in nurses station, just to see his patients' meds adjustments.
"Dr. Wilson?"
He looked up, blinked two times.
"There's some blood on your cuffs."
"Oh this?" he looked at his right hand, "This isn't mine. I saw a patient earlier." He lied without even thinking, like an autopilot.
"Oh." The nurse is now assured.
"Are you okay? You look a little pale."
"I'm fine, Sarah. Probably it was the meeting." He even managed to make a crooked smile.
"If you say so." She took the chart Wilson gave to her, but she didn't notice after this conversation how Wilson’s body language changed and hid his right hand behind his back.
Wilson is currently feeling dizzy. His legs somehow managed to reach him to his office. He closed the door, removed his lab coat, pulled up his shirt cuff.
The bandage is no longer white. Now it's a wet, dark, crimson mess that belonged in a trauma bay, not in an office.
"Okay, this is bad." A cold spike ran down his spine, mixed with shivers and panic. The bleeding never stopped, he has been bleeding the whole time.
He's feeling helpless right now. As a doctor, his brain is telling him how he miscalculated, what he has to do. But his brain is currently under foggy weather, and he doesn't know what to do. He can't go to the ER right now. He's on the verge of being passed out, it'll cause a whole scene, Cuddy will lecture him for a week.
His trembling left hand reached for his phone, and he dialed a familiar number. The phone rang.
"Wilson."
"House." He almost felt relieved after House picked up his call.
"You sound terrible. What's wrong? Did one of your patients die? Did they tell you that they love you before dying?" His voice is loud and sharp.
"House, I-I need you to come to my office."
"Can't. I'm in the middle of running away from my responsibilities. Also I'm hiding from Cuddy. Unless you are inviting me for lunch-"
"House, please." his voice cracked.
"Okay." House said after two seconds of silence. Then the line went dead.
_
The door swung open, House stood in the frame, his blue eyes instantly scanning the room. He doesn't look bored, but annoyed, which is another version of him being worried.
"Do you have lunch? Or did you-"
The metallic smell of blood hits him first.
Then he saw the floor. The broken porcelain, aside on the floor, the brown stain of coffee on the rug. Bloodied tissues in the wastebasket. And finally, he saw Wilson.
Wilson’s head was slumped back in his chair, his eyes half-closed. His skin wasn't just pale, it was a translucent, mixed with grayish color.
"Wilson? What the hell did you do?" he leaned over Wilson, his voice is aggressive.
"Broke the coffee mug, then cut my hand. It was stupid." Wilson whispered, he has no strength left to lie again, eyes are still closed.
House grabbed Wilson’s right wrist. Wilson flinched, a low groan escaping from his throat as House’s fingers dug into his forearm. House pulled the arm up. The wet, bloody shirt sleeve slid back, the light blue shirt is no longer blue. The bandage was a disaster horror show, wet heavy blood dripping on his desk.
"You bandaged this? You did this with one hand and teeth, didn't you? Why didn't you go to the ER? Even a first year medical student can do a better job than this."
"Couldn't. Had work to do."
"You're an idiot." House pulled out his pocket knife, sliced through the bloody medical tape in one clean stroke. He peeled back the wet gauze. The moment the pressure was removed, a dark, thick stream of blood started to spill over.
"Oh, great." House muttered, "You've hit the angry branch of radial artery. You've been leaking for what, two hours?"
"Three." Wilson corrected him. "I thought this was just a laceration."
"You thought? You thought! You're a doctor, Wilson. You're supposed to know the anatomy, you know the basic work of cells! "
House grabbed a clean towel, and slammed it down directly onto the open cut. Wilson’s entire body went rigid. A strangled gasp left his lips, and his right hand flew up to grab House’s sleeve.
"Agh-"
"Shut up." House snapped, leaning his full weight onto the towel.
"Hurts."
"Good. That means your nerves are still working when clearly your brain isn't."
House looked down at Wilson’s face. Hair is damp on his forehead. Eyes are half-open, half-closed. Not a good sign for someone who's bleeding through his bandage for three hours. His blue eyes are now back to the towel, watching for any sign of red seeping through the thick white cotton.
Wilson's grip on House's sleeve began to loosen. His fingers slipped, dropping onto the desk. His head rolled forward, his chin hitting House's chest.
"Wilson, hey, look at me." His sarcastic voice is now dropped worried, he grabs Wilson's chin and pulls his face up. "Stay with me."
" 'm sorry, House, for dragging you into this mess." Wilson’s eyes were rolled back, "It was stupid-"
Then, his entire body collapsed towards House.
_
House wasn't ready for this sudden dead weight.
Wilson is completely unconscious now, his face pressed against House's shoulder, fainting breath is puffing against House's neck. House is sitting on the floor, his bad leg is pinned beneath Wilson’s torso. The towel is still pressed hard on Wilson’s wound, but the angle is terrible and House is losing his control.
"Damn it."
"Wilson? Wilson! Hey, wake up! This is not a good time to fall asleep."
No response. Nothing.
House reached out for his phone, his hands are now sticky with Wilson’s blood.
"House?"
"Chase, I need an IV start kit, two litres of normal saline, two bags of O- and a suture tray in Wilson’s office. Stat. Put those all in an anonymous name, don't tell anyone anything, or I'll fire you."
"What-"
House cut the line before Chase started to ask any questions.
He looked down at the man who is lying down on his lap. Wilson looked smaller, his hair is messy, skin is paler than before. His body is shivering now. House shifted his position slightly, ignoring his bad leg is wincing in pain, pulled Wilson a little closer against his chest and kept his hand firmly against the cut.
"You're really an idiot, Wilson." House's voice is surprisingly gentle, "You survived three divorces, thousands of patients, and God knows how many times I hurt you. And you were letting yourself finish you off with a stupid piece of porcelain? Uhu, not gonna happen, not on my watch."
The doors burst open three minutes later.
"Oh my God, what happened here?" Chase asked.
"Don't stand there like a moron, help me to get him up." House yelled. They transferred Wilson's limping body to the couch. "Set up the line. He's down at least two pints, maybe more. Start the saline wide open."
"He needs to go to the OR, the artery is pulsing. "
"Yeah, why do you think I called you? He doesn't need a surgical team. He needs someone who knows how to tie a knot without waking up the whole hospital. We have to wait for forty minutes, and he doesn't have four minutes to wait. I'm handling it."
_
Wilson woke up two hours later.
He's lying on his couch, under a heavy blanket. His office is dimmed with low light, curtains are hanging like they've just closed a stupid show. An IV line is run into his left arm, the clear saline dripping rapidly from the bag. His right hand is now wrapped in clean bandages. House is sitting on a chair next to him.
"Ah, there you are! Welcome back to the land of living. You did a pretty good job of being irresponsible to his own body. Also, my shirt ruined with your blood, I missed lunch-"
"Don't start, House. I'm tired."
Wilson shifted his head against the pillow, looking at House. The color was starting to return to his cheeks.
"If you would've listened to your tiredness before, your body wouldn't be currently under seventy percent of saline and thirty percent of stupidity."
"What happened after I-"
"I called Chase. You know, he's actually good at doing 'OR situations'. You'll have a scar that'll look like a centipede. It'll give you a character. You definitely need a reminder of what-you-did."
"Thanks, House." Wilson sighed.
"Don't thank me, thank Chase. He even agreed to hide your stupidity from Cuddy."
"How did you-"
"What did you think, I wouldn't know? If Cuddy saw you she would've given you six stitches and a lollipop. She would understand. But what did you do instead?"
"I would have missed my appointments. I couldn't be an irresponsible doctor, House.”
"Yeah, but you became the irresponsible idiot who doesn't want to take care of himself.” House snapped, “You were supposed to be okay, Wilson. I'm the one who plays hide and seek. If I knew you were decided to fight with a piece of porcelain-"
"You came anyway, wouldn't you?" Wilson said softly.
"You called!" House snapped, "The phone was ringing, it was annoying."
"You could have let it go to voicemail."
"I will, if you start playing irresponsible idiot again."
House’s pager starts to buzz, he stopped talking for a second, looked down.
“Okay, I have to go now, I have an actual patient waiting for me. Go to sleep. Don’t be an idiot again, and don’t die before I come back.”
Wilson knows under all of these being sarcastic, House was actually worried about him. He also laughed at his own stupidity, in his mind. When the blood was slipping away from his body, the only person he trusted enough to call was House. He looked at his wounded hand, then House, who’s currently still mad at him, leaned on his cane and limped towards the door.
The door closed. He breathed out heavily, shut his eyes, realized he was actually being an irresponsible idiot to himself.