Things House Didn't See ...            By blackmare_9



The only thing he'd been able to think was:  Oh God.  Oh God, not again.  House, you fucking moron, not again. 

By the time they told Wilson what had happened, it was over with, and his best friend's heart was beating once more.  He's glad for that.  He's glad he didn't have to know it when House was lying lifeless on the floor.  Wilson had sped back to the hospital in a haze of adrenaline, his skin as pale and cold as wax.  The antidepressants are helping him cope, but drugs can only do so much.  Just ask House. 

House isn't conscious yet.  His left hand looks like he had an accident with a blowtorch.  Wilson cradles it, inspects it as gently as he can, uncurling the sleeping fingers so he can see the extent of the damage.  He's as careful as if it were the hand of a tiny child.  As if he weren't so sad, so angry and afraid that he's got all sorts of violent, destructive words charging around inside his skull.

He won't say any of those awful things to House.  Not even while House is lying here unconscious, unaware.  Definitely not while he stands here holding House's wounded hand.

It's different than last time, at least.  Last time it was despair and this time it was probably House's insane curiosity, his incorrigible stubbornness.  Wilson hopes that's all it was.  He hopes it wasn't another of House's desperate attempts to make the pain go away.  Drugs can only do so much, but if drugs are what House needs, that's better than this.  Anything's better than this.

God, what an idiot, he thinks, and then realizes he's not sure which of them he means.  House, or himself.  The word might apply equally well to either one.  Wilson places House's hand back on the sheets and watches his face for any sign of awareness.  Seeing nothing, he wonders what might be going on in there, in the darkened recesses of that magnificent, brilliant, twisted mind.  In that soul.  He's certain House does have one, although he has long since given up trying to tell House that.

Gingerly he stretches out his hand, laying his fingers across House's temple, where warm skin converges with soft hair, covering the obstinate bone underneath.  It is, Wilson thinks, an appropriate word.  Temple.  His friend is as beautiful and unknowable, as capricious and wild as any deity.  Now if only he were also immortal. 

If only he weren't such a moron.

____


He leaves the room twenty minutes later, with House awake and in pain, and his own mind constantly repeating what House just said.

House meant it.  He'd deny it and mock anyone who asked, so Wilson won't.  He wishes he'd been quicker on the uptake, able to quip back "Love you too, you cretin."  House would have understood that it was both a joke and the truth, but House had just knocked him sideways so hard that he couldn't find words.  The moment was lost.  There's no going back to it now.

He'll have to find another way, he thinks, as he approaches the pharmacy counter. 

Well, he says to himself, this is House we're dealing with.  Nothing says 'I love you' like a scrip for oral morphine. 

Actually, he supposes that what this says is I finally believe you.  At least it's a start.




... And Things He Saw.              By kidsnurse.



House stares thoughtfully at the amber vial from the pharmacy, nestled comfortably in his uninjured hand.

Not from the pharmacy.  From Wilson.  Gotta give him this; hell of a lot better than flowers.

He leans his head back against the thin pillow, trying to make his mind go blank.  But against his will, a mental tape starts playing and he's forced to watch, to listen.  He's looking again into Wilson's confused, concerned, compassionate eyes.  Just looking at you hurts; gonna order up some extra pain meds.  And he couldn't just say "thanks," could he?

House shakes his head, trying to clear it of what had come next in that conversation.  Not so much the words, his own words, three of them.  But the fleeting look of disbelief in Wilson's eyes, and then that second when Wilson realized that what House had said was true, that infinitesimal nod, the wordless acknowledgment -- the surprise.

House.  What'd you see?

House sighs, resigned to the endless loop of this particular tape.  Nothing.  I saw nothing.  And... I saw everything.

Mindlessly House lifts his burned hand to his face, and lowers it quickly when the stinging pain shoves all other thoughts from his mind.  He thumbs the cap from the bottle he's still holding and takes one of the tiny, off-white morphine tablets.  His eyes go distant, and he savors the taste of something different, something unfamiliar, in his mouth.

I love you.


____