help me, or not

 Synopsis: “Help me” but if House had left Cuddy in the bathroom.

Foreman was following him, still in his yellow emergency scrubs, smelling of crumbled rocks and copper blood. “There was nothing you could have possibly done—”

Turning around, House snapped, “Right. I did everything right and she still died! How is that supposed to make me feel better?” His cane thudded, his legs asynchronised as he slid more than walked across the waxed hospital floors.

A moment later, he winced and grabbed his aching leg, the muscles taut and strung like long, industrial-grade cables. It was so stiff it hurt. But it always hurt, didn’t it?

“As your boss,” he hissed out, but it sounded more like a gasp, “get out of my way.”

Foreman watched him with calculating concern as he limped off the linoleum floor and out into the cold night. With sunken shoulders and a frustrated sigh, he spun around, making his way back to the emergency ward.

He hoped that he’d have a boss come tomorrow.

Slamming open his green wood door, House limped into his apartment. The textures under his skin, usually familiar and safe, now felt muted, his skin coated with grime. Everything felt dull. Rustic colours of vintage furniture passed him in a blur as he walked towards the bathroom.

A finger, then another, tentatively lifting the mirror off its hinges as if it were a Renaissance painting, which the figure reflected clearly was not. Two orange canisters, innocently stashed in a void, the absence of concrete harrowing to him. He felt empty, but soon he wasn’t going to be.

Vicodin. He used it to take the edge off, but now he was chasing a high with it. What sense did that make? He slid onto the floor, bad leg sprawled on stained tiles. The cold of the bathroom was barely registered, even through his pair of thin, thrifted jeans. A gift for himself, it had been, after he’d survived the mental hospital.

Looking at the frayed edges and loose strands of polyester fabric, he thought of Nolan, in all of his big sterness and egotism. Who did he think he was? Instinctively, his fingers slipped and a pop echoed in the small space.

Just take it. Dirty fingers cradled and carressed two white pills, the gesture disgustingly perverted in his eyes. Don’t play with your food, his father used to tell him. Then don’t play with me, fuckwat.

House sighed, head lolling back against the lukewarm tiles, the smooth hardness applying pressure on his skull. He rubbed the back of his head harder, trying to feel something more. A cold prick, a hard edge. But he was numbed.

Was he experiencing shock? He must be. But then why did his leg still throb and scrape, clawing under his epidermis, snaking into…

“Ugh,” he groaned, hand leaving its spot on his lap to clutch at his leg. Tears were welling in his eyes and the pain was growing, searing and spreading.

Muscles spasming, he convulsed and doubled over, all the while wondering why he could feel internal sensations but not external stimuli. Did he have something? Or was this all psychosomatic?

Sweat turned his dirt into mud. His fingers shook, still cradling those white pills.

“Can’t relapse…” he muttered, teeth chattering as he curled further inwards. He didn’t want to go back. He couldn’t go back, not to Nolan, not to Cuddy, not to anyone. He needed to do this himself. 

“House?”

Cuddy leaned against the toilet doorframe, in her pink scrubs and high ponytail. She must have cleaned up, for nothing on her betrayed the horrors of the evening. Not even a speck of dust. And look at him, a grimy, stinking, soggy heap on the floor.

“You gonna leap across the room, grab them out of my hand?” he started, looking away when she entered the bathroom, when she got a better view of just how sorry he was. His fingers were still, paralyzed as she begun her approach.

“No.” Her eyes closed, those long lashes shaking as she said, “It’s your choice if you want to go back on drugs.”

He hung his head down, staring at her prim and proper dress shoes, thought about Rachel chewing on them. “Go with Lucas,” he muttered, but every word was clear in that little tiled bathroom. And they were so close. “You deserve to be with him,” his breaths were coming in spurts now, “Rachel deserves…”

“Breathe,” Cuddy knelt down, her knees rocking against his good one, her hands on his shoulders. In his peripheral vision, House noted the pearly-white brown of her nails, neatly clipped and filed.

“No,” a shove sent Cuddy against the opposite wall, and House quickly scrambled to his feet, leaning against the sink. The porcelain was cold, tantalizingly so, and House relished the sensation. He was going to be fine.

Until a slap burned his face, nails breaking his skin. He staggered back, one hand holding his face with the other braced on the sink behind him. That pearly-white brown now had edges of dirt and blood. I contaminate everyone.

Breathing hard, “You idiot,” she spat. It was in an undertone, with unbridled rage and heavy, sinking disappointment dripping off her words. “I wanted,” she paced around, effectively blocking House’s way out. “I wanted to help, and you just had to—”

“You didn’t want to help,” he said softly, eyes fixed on Cuddy’s suddenly inanimate form. A beat passed before he shook his head, “I don’t know what you wanted, but if you wanted to help you wouldn’t have come here.”

The implication of his words hung between them as they stood, sharing the space. It was such a vulnerable position and he hated that. Why did she come? Why?

At that moment, it was like something set off his sarcastic, insulting mouth again.

“Did you come to humiliate me? Think you could get me to do more clinic hours if you found me guzzling pills again? Or did you think you could finally get rid of me? Ship me off to prison this time?”

“Shut up,” she said, not in the insulting or funny way she usually did, but with a soft tone and a gaze that stank of sadness. She had never looked at him like that. With pity, yes. Respect, most of the time. Anger and disappointment were also very common. But sadness? Why on earth would she be sad?

Unfortunately, House could not ask Cuddy this burning question because his leg flared up and he jerked, hunching over. His eyes wandered around the bathroom floor before finally focusing on Cuddy’s tense, expectant form.

Puzzled, House furrowed his brows, picking apart how she stared at him for awkwardly long periods of time but seemed unconcerned, analyzing how she fidgeted with her hands, seemingly thinking of what to do, how to act. Averting his gaze back to her hands, he noted the empty ring finger with a disdainful hope rising in his throat.

“You don’t want me,” his voice was low and gruff, like it always was. Despite this, Cuddy jerked at the sound and then slid into it, as if it were a comforting blanket. Her body turned to face him, revealing her most vulnerable parts, almost like she trusted him. Her empty hands twitched, as if itching to touch him or scratch the spot behind his ears.

“Trust me,” looking away, he simply couldn’t bear to see her so desperate, her body falling apart as their eye contact broke. “’Cause I’m the most screwed up person in the world.” That would do it, he thought. Good job, myself, for screwing my only chance to hell.

His fingers trembled as he reached for his cane, the varnished wood so warm and strong. Hobbling out of the bathroom, he just about reached the green wood door when Cuddy called out, her breaking voice coming from the bathroom.

“I know.”

With an injured shoulder, he shoved the green wood door close.

After that, House went to a bar for a fight. He settled on his usual, though the chances of an actual fight were pretty low because the annoying barkeeper always watched out for him. But there was always a chance.

His fingers slowly thudded on the smooth bartop, delighting in how his dirty nails stained the walnut brown hues a mottled dark grey. “A scotch, your best,” he ordered, peeling his hands from the bar to rummage for his wallet. A green wad of $20 landed unimpressively in front of the barkeeper, who huffed, collected the rumeneration and turned around to prepare the drink.

Tack, tack, tack, went his fingers. The barkeeper probably wasn’t making him one of his best scotches, for the bottle he was pouring looked oddly familiar. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but one brief glance at the menu confirmed that the best scotch in here was not that yellow gunk.

His fingers went still as he contemplated the odds of him winning a fight against the barkeeper. Sure, he was big and probably knew how to clobber a drunk bastard, but… well, he didn’t want to win. But the barkeeper liked him too much to give him a beating, so it’d have to be someone else.

The drink skidded across the bartop and into his hands, some of the scotch sloshing over the side and joining his little puddle of grime on the bartop. “Sorry,” muttered the barkeep. Yeah, he definitely wouldn’t do.

He threw his head back and downed the whole thing before ordering another. Licking his lips, his fingers thudded harder against the unnaturally smooth bartop as the alcohol made its presence known. Soon, a lovely rush of dopamine would numb his senses, making Cuddy and her stupid decisions seem as abscure as quantum entanglement.

“Will you stop that?” A gruff voice brought House back to the busy bar, with clinking glasses and girls with nice asses…

“No,” he replied, swirling the refill he hadn’t even asked for. Or had he? Whatever.

A smirk played on House’s lips, contorting his weary face into something barely charismatic, and he took a sip of the hot scotch. It burned its way down his throat, a glimpse of the pain he was going to ask for tonight.

The gruff voice’s owner was a sleek man, thin with a hardly ruffled suit. Pre-infarction, House would’ve taken him down easily. But losing one quarter of your leg muscle does things to you.

He almost decided against picking a fight with him. I mean, what could he do? Make you do your tax returns? The brunette, idly sloshing his toxin of choice, flicked his brown eyes up to meet him every once in a while, the liquid amber flashing as a warning.

House rolled his shoulders, wincing when his wound scraped against the messy cotton of his shirt. A snicker left his opponent’s lips as he watched the entire movement, half-slitted eyes taking in the entirety of his body, how his muscles slid underneath skin with reptilian power. His gaze felt dirty.

“Stop looking at me.” House pushed, testing the waters. He eyed the brunette from above his glass before gulping the residual scotch down. Giving an ah of pleasure, he turned around on his bar stool, albeit stiffly, facing his pick of the night.

“Why? You shy?” The taunting words squeezed out of his throat, gleeful eyes locked onto blue ones.

Shaking his head, House gave a scoff-chuckle of incredulity. This guy was insane. Was he seriously flirting with him?

All the fight in him quickly dissipated, but the urge for a beating still laid, slightly dormant, half awake, in his subconscious. It floated among all the other things he wanted, most notably Cuddy, but he pushed it down with an aggressive swig of alcohol. He’d have to find someone else, somewhere else.

He got up to leave, whole body rippling with the effort of minimizing the pressure on his bad leg. Shoulder throbbing, House looked up to see the brunette still watching him, tapping his fingers on the table.

As House limped past him to the door, the man turned abruptly, twisting his torso in his seat. “Wait,” he choked out, the annoyingly grating voice ever more shrill up close. House didn’t wait. The firm staccato of his cane against the floor never wavered until he left that holed-up den.

The night was chilly, like it always was. Streetlamps flickered as they tried in vain to fend off the darkness, the bugs mocking their efforts. House leaned against the firm black pole, the light above him comforting despite its weakness, like a worn-down lighthouse, barely functioning but still doing its best.

Sweat evaporated off his skin into the night air, the sudden coldness it illicited a reminder of how far he had to walk to lose that homosexual freak. He was persistent, following him for five streets before House had had enough and entered a bustling supermarket, leaving through the backdoor.

What a swaggering, arrogant jerk. Probably thought he could have an easy catch, what with the cane and all.

He limped towards the park, attempting to find a bench amongst the sprawling green. Finally settling for one near the lake, he grunted softly, sounding somewhat defeated, as he settled down, right leg outstretched.

The surface of the pond rippled as cold gusts of air tugged and pulled at the elastic liquid, moulding it into crests and troughs. What happened to wanting to take a beating? He asked himself, absentmindedly scanning the black expanse of molten night. I guess that perverted twit turned me off, he halfheartedly replied, fingers itching to toss a stone and see it engulfed by the silent waves.

“Hey,” a familiar shape shifted on the bench next to him. But how? He hadn’t felt him approach.

Probably just a hallucination. But he hadn’t had that much to drink, right?

House turned his head marginally to catch sight of Wilson’s face, stern expression jutted against the frosty wind. House swung his head back to the water, eyes following the fluid motions in the dark.

“What now?” Wilson asked, still not looking at House, his gaze on some faraway silhouette. Probably one of his ex-wives.

“I go to another bar,” House chanced a glance at Wilson, saw his eyes close briefly in stunned disappointment. He sighed, “You should know—”

“You’re an idiot, House,” he interrupted, pupils still trained on something, anything but his best friend. House stared at the way his pupils constricted and dilated as he scanned the horizon beyond the lake, how those swirls of auburn reflected the flickering light of the streetlamps.

“I know.” A sigh and a shrug as House leaned back against the bench, shoulder brushing Wilson’s, shiny leather against soft fabric.

They were comfortable, like this. Two buddies sitting in a park. The calm before the storm. But they’ve been here before.

“Cuddy—”

“No,” he stated. He reached over to massage his bad leg, hoping that his friend would get the message.

“You have to talk about it.” Chestnut brown flicked in his direction, then retreated back to the scenery before them.

“No I don’t.”

“House—”

“Y’know what?” He was talking fast again, pupils blown, breaths coming in faster than they went out. The alcohol? “I might just go find that guy. Give him what he wanted.”

They were both standing now, the lake’s ripples zooming across the pond to meet them, like a tsunami reaching a cliff, its edges reaching the precipice. What a might of nature. And here they were, House flaunting his might of stature.

He tilted his head down, reminding Wilson of their height difference. Even with the cane, he was no doubt imposing. But not to Wilson.

“Seriously? Just because you don’t want to talk about it, you’re going to, what, give him a lap dance?” A stuttered chuckle escaped his lips, and his chestnut hair wobbled affectionately as he shook his head. Seriously, House? Stop acting like a child. That’s what his actions meant.

“How did you know?” House questioned, eyes boring into ones that were averted, evading. Always hiding. That’s not like Wilson. The man had the guts to look him in the face. So…

“I’m you, idiot.” Not-Wilson shuffled his feet, shoving his hands into his coat pockets, as if he could suddenly feel the cold. “You think the real Wilson would stalk you out here, spend the whole night in the cold looking out for his stupid best friend?” Not-Wilson sat back down on the bench, the muted thud drowned out by the splashing of the lake and the humming of the streetlamps. “He’s got better things to do.”

Right. Were all his hallucinations this cruel?

“If you want to get fucked up, go ahead.” Leaning over, Not-Wilson picked up a rock and hurled it into the lake. Unfeeling eyes watched the rock’s impact and the resulting chaos. That predatory gaze glanced in his direction, but it was just a momentary flick. Like he couldn’t stand to look at him.

This was screwed up.