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A Love Restrained (All The Broken Pieces Remix)
by Topaz Eyes
A/N: This was originally written for the Remix/Redux IV (I Know What You Did Last Remix) Challenge, based on the story A Love Restrained by Esse. Beta'ed by jazzypom.
~~~~~
The rain starts at lunchtime, almost at the exact time Dr. James Wilson receives the phone call.
Wilson blinks at the ring, even though he's been expecting it. He slowly picks up the receiver. "Wilson."
He listens carefully to the voice at the other end and nods mutely, suddenly unable to speak.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Wilson, I didn't quite catch that, did you--?" The voice sounds distant, tinny.
"Yes," Wilson says, turning in his chair to stare at the trophies on his bookshelf and Hitchcock's Vertigo poster behind him. "Yes of course, please send them over."
The click when he places the receiver back onto the base station sounds oddly like a crack in glass; how fitting, because he is about to shatter a world for a third time.
He swivels a three-quarter turn in his chair towards the bank of gray windows, away from the door. There he sits and rubs his neck, watching the rain grow from a light shower to a steady downpour as it sluices down the panes, and forgets his customary lunch date with House.
~~~~~
What feels like hours, lifetimes later the sharp beep of his pager stirs him out of his rain-lulled reverie.
He pulls the small black tether from his pocket and checks the number. His heart sinks as he recognizes the peds oncology unit's hospice room.
Damn it.
Andy is a fourteen year old boy dying from metastatic Ewing's sarcoma. He, like all his pediatric patients, is a favorite of Wilson's. His infectious grin, wicked talent for garbage can basketball, and near-obsessive love of video games and cartoons, remind Wilson of his own missing vitality, even as the boy lies increasingly pale and bald and listless in his hospital bed; drugged to the gills because of the pain.
Even more, Andy has managed to connect with House in a way that not even Wilson can do; perhaps because at heart House is not much older than twelve himself. Wilson finds it oddly endearing that his crippled, bitter forty-something year-old friend still appreciates the finer points of fart jokes and girl cooties. House occasionally visited the ward to entertain Andy when he can; claiming that garbage basketball with Andy is superior to correcting Chase's pathetic attempts at the crossword. The past couple of days though, House has been scarce, trying to diagnose his own patient's stubborn respiratory infection before she drowns in her own fluid.
The difference being, that House is able to save a great majority of his patients. Wilson can only dream to aspire to that.
Wilson arrives at Andy's bedside at a jog, trying to hold his cracking heart together. One glance at the small form tells him it won't be much longer. Andy's mother sits beside him, clutching his hand and smoothing non-existent hair from his forehead. She looks up at Wilson, her thin face worn.
"He's so cold," she whispers. She is resigned now, beyond broken.
Wilson nods sadly and sits down to join her in her vigil. There's no rush now. Andy's mother will be alone after Andy dies; the least Wilson can do is ensure she won't be alone for this.
As predicted, it doesn't take long. Andy's breathing becomes strained, agonal; his heartbeat slows. Wilson reaches up to turn off the monitor. Andy's last breath is a sigh, almost lost in the patter of the rain.
Wilson says a silent goodbye to Andy, and comforts his mother, who doesn't cry, but whose face takes on the rigidity of glass. When he rises to leave, she thanks him for all he's done for them. He nods dully, fully knowing it was not enough. It never is, even when he does his best.
A neat oblong envelope waits patiently for him on his desk for when he finally arrives back at his office in the late afternoon.
Sinking into his comfortable leather chair, he sighs and slits it open. Pulling out the legal documents he stares at them blankly, not reading the words. Over the rain he hears something shatter within him, but he does not look up. He knows what it is, and why.
After some more time sitting and staring, after his secretary pops her head in to bid him goodbye for the evening, he gets up and paces, hands on his hips. When that doesn't settle him, he rubs his hand on his neck again, shoves the papers back into the envelope, then strides out of his office, over to House's, envelope and coat clutched in his hand.
~~~~~
It's even later when House finally makes it back to his office. Through the darkened and empty hallways Wilson hears the echoes of his footsteps fall out of time with the cadence of the rain that is still falling, the step-thump over the wash of rain down the windows. He sees the long fall of House's shadow at the door, his stooped form backlit by the subdued pinkish light in the hallway. It's been a long day for him; but Wilson does not look up, not at the sudden crack of thunder outside, nor at House's eye-rolling sigh at Mother Nature's overdeveloped sense of drama.
House raises a concerned eyebrow, but says nothing at the sight of Wilson hunched on his sofa and Wilson is thankful for that. Wilson refuses to meet House's questioning eyes. He does not want to break just yet. He will, eventually, he knows that, but he does not want to break here. Not now, not until he's ready. Sitting slumped in on himself, the weight of his world crushing his shoulders, right now he simply needs someone to listen to him breathe.
House does not fail him, in this respect anyway. He sets his cane aside and lowers himself with a grunt to sit beside Wilson on the sofa. In the muted half-light, embraced by shadow, they sit almost close enough to touch. The warmth from House's body radiates to chase away the damp chill around him, smoothing some jagged edges.
Wilson feels grateful. House is not normally a patient man, but he will wait for Wilson to talk in his own time. Wilson counts on House to listen, knowing that House pays just as much attention to what he does not say as to what he does.
Yet that's what makes it so much harder.
Wilson refuses to speak.
So they sit in silence and listen to the rain instead, its steady drumming off the concrete balcony patio almost like a heartbeat. The rain has sustained itself since it started falling over ten hours ago, since Wilson started the first machinations towards-- But the rhythm soothes as much as it agitates; Wilson slowly finds himself not relaxing precisely, but starting to loosen, the sluice of rain slowly dissolving some of the crystallized weight off his shoulders. He shifts, his stiff trapezoid muscles starting to soften. He reaches up to rub the back of his neck.
After a while Wilson sighs softly with a sort of relief and rolls his shoulders as some of the tension dissipates with the rain. He is no longer Atlas, the weight is bearable now, and he finally feels strength enough to share some of it.
Wilson turns to look at House; House meets his eyes with a sort of bemused expression on his face. Wilson knows that House suspects, what Wilson is about to say won't be all of what he should. A stray thought flits through Wilson's mind: blame it on the rain, a la Milli Vanilli. (The irony that that particular music group was ultimately exposed as a fraud is strangely lost on him.)
"Andy," Wilson finally says. It's a deflection and he knows it, but it does have the sad virtue of being true.
House only nods then bows his head in sad respect. Wilson knows how much House liked the boy, even found in him a kindred spirit.
After a long moment, House looks up to meet Wilson's dejected gaze. "And you?" he asks.
A gentle strike, but still meant to crack. Wilson sighs and rubs at his temples. It's a helpless gesture, and now House knows that his problem is so much more than Andy's death, but he doesn't care anymore. He wants'"oh God, he wants. Doesn't want--to think. To feel.
He can't quite decide.
His hands drop back into his lap, defeated.
Then House reaches over, takes his hand and squeezes gently. Wilson concentrates all his being on that simple touch; that warm and surprisingly tender hand gripping his own.
In that gesture, Wilson thinks that House has decided for him.
Touch is what he wants now.
And when Wilson turns to House again, the sudden and overwhelming need clear in his shadowed eyes, House's answer is written plainly in the set of his face.
In some ways it only makes it worse, even as it makes it better. Somehow Wilson is always good at forgetting that in the rush of the moment.
"Let's go," House says, reaching for his cane to heave himself to stand.
Wilson follows.
~~~~~
The rain takes them back to House's apartment, adding its own subtle overture to what has become a ritual on nights like these. The pounding droplets soak Wilson's hair and dot his chilled skin as he waits for House to unlock the front door. Inside the darkened living room, the full Scotch bottle and two clean glasses already sit expectantly on the scuffed coffee table.
Wilson had needed the Scotch the first time, after his first divorce when facing the spectre of an empty bed seemed too much to bear. He has never needed the Scotch since but he accepts it anyway, preferring to hide behind the excuse it offers. One glass down, two, three; the false heat adds to the slow burn in Wilson's belly. House sips his, perched on the arm of the sofa. The shadows from the rain-dulled streetlight shift across his face, rendering it unreadable.
Soon they move by instinct to the bedroom; deliberately, as if by rote. They shed their clothes almost without thinking; two halting steps, then it is just them, naked in the jaundiced glow of the night rain, half-reclining on the rumpled bed. Wilson can taste House even through the heaviness of the Scotch as they kiss. The scents of rain and House fill his nostrils and urge him further. His hands play lightly up and down House's shoulders and back, skating over the ridges and valleys of bone and muscle in his chest; he touches House reverently, the way he would his wives or lovers.
This defines stupid; this defines screwed-up.
Wilson does not want to know by how much it defines their friendship.
But it feels so damn good every time Wilson knows neither would ever say no, even as they break with it.
He gasps as House's lips slide over his rain-pocked skin, at his tongue darting out to taste the salt and gray water along his cheek and jaw. Wilson presses that much tighter, closing the infinitesimal distance until he cannot tell where his body ends and House's begins.
Ever mindful of House's bad leg, Wilson eases them all the way down onto the mattress, reveling in House's warm solid weight beneath him. They trade now, touches for kisses, House's fingertips tracing the paths of Wilson's bare skin, each touch soft enough to be a caress. Wilson's mouth leaves warm wet trails of saliva as he savors the differing tastes of House's neck, his ear, his collarbone; his own skin rising in goosebumps under House's surprisingly gentle hands. He is desperately eager to know every slight nuance of House in these stolen moments, to memorize the coarse stubble prickling his lips, juxtaposed against the almost unbearable smoothness of skin at the hollow of his throat.
Wilson sighs, a blurred and breathy wordless whisper, as he lowers his hips and presses them against House's, thrusting lightly. This is it now, this is why he's here, rocking naked against his best friend and not his wife (certainly not his wife) or his latest lover: he's silently begging to be broken. For Wilson's learned that only House's touch can break him the way he needs to be, the way he deserves; shattered and scattered like glass in the night, to be rebuilt again in the morning. He counts on House to comply and he does, as he's done many times before and doubtless will do again; pushing against Wilson's chest to give enough distance between them so he can slide his hand to grasp him.
Wilson is fully aroused and ready now, heated and throbbing in House's fist that fits around him like a glove. Wilson's lips search for House's own, a prayer or a plea; but House turns his head away, refusing to answer. Wilson's lips brush against his cheek instead. Disappointed but not deterred, he leans his forehead on House's shoulder, breathing shallowly against his neck as he settles into his rhythm. Wilson's hand blindly searches for House's free one; finding it, he links their fingers together. Beneath him House writhes too, his hard heat pulsing against Wilson's thigh. Wilson knows House cannot help but be sucked into the rain-swollen stream along with him, ready to smash against the submerged rocks in the torrent.
Push and pull, give and take, they share their heartbeats with the icy rain falling all around them, inside and out. The ecstatic ache builds with each measured stroke of House's hand between them, the pressure echoing at the base of Wilson's spine. Each jolt elicits a shocked needy gasp, soft at first but steadily rising, in intensity if not in volume. Wilson rocks more insistently against House, straining towards release. If only he can get there, maybe he can begin again, maybe he won't screw it up the next time--
He moves faster, harder, each thrust into House's hand growing more urgent. Wilson's jaw clenches, eyelids fluttering against the pulsing hurt that boils under his skin and screams to be lanced. Wilson is just barely aware that House is urging him up now, to watch him fly apart in blissful agony; not that it matters because everything in Wilson's soul is concentrated on that burning pit of pain pretending to be pleasure.
Then House tightens his grip, twists Wilson's wrist'"and Wilson whimpers, the keening, broken sound that signals the start of his free fall. Wilson squeezes his eyes tightly shut against the rush, his whole body bracing in that endless split-second just before the final plunge to oblivion. Then his eyes snap open, staring at House beneath him; and in this moment, Wilson's breakdown is complete.
"I did it," Wilson breathes; he comes with the admission, his catharsis crashing in waves through his body and over House's hand.
As he collapses against House's chest he is only vaguely aware of House's own shuddering orgasm against his thigh. Wilson rolls off, spent and trembling and bathed in sweat; laying side-by-side, House squeezes his hand until Wilson is lulled to forgetfulness, engulfed by the wash of silence, and the underlying rhythm of rain.
~~~~~
Wilson wakes early next morning. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, and now the rising sun beyond the window is drying all its wet traces away. The remaining droplets against the glass reflect the beams like a thousand tiny prisms. He blinks and covers his bleary eyes against the growing brightness of the room until they adjust to the light.
He turns his head to look at House lying beside him. House is still asleep, assisted by the Vicodin, the covers pulled up to his waist; but there is a residual rigidity on his face that Wilson thinks is testament to the constant pain he endures. Wilson has seen House like this countless times before, and it still hurts, every time; there is only so much that Wilson can do to help alleviate it. He reaches out and lightly traces his finger down House's chest, over his heart; House does not stir, nor does his face relax. Wilson sighs, then rises from the bed and pads to the bathroom.
In the shower he scrubs off the scents of sex and House imprinted on his skin. Rolling his shoulders under the warm stream of water, there is no more weight, though oddly enough nothing else has changed. He is almost, almost happy. He slips back to the bedroom to pull his scattered clothes together and dress, quietly so as not to disturb House, then moves to the kitchen to start the coffeepot.
As the coffee brews Wilson fetches the morning paper from outside and his coat from the front hall, then returns to the table. He pulls out the legal-sized envelope rolled up in the inside pocket, containing a folder within it. Sliding the papers out from the manila sleeve he studies them, suitably detached now. He picks up a pen and starts to scribble signatures and initials at the "X"es.
Some time later, House enters the kitchen, showered and dressed himself. Sitting at the kitchen table, Wilson looks up from the morning paper and coffee; his face cracks into a warm, boyishly grateful smile. House's mouth twitches, but he does not quite return it. That's all right though. Wilson is long used to those half-gestures.
"Coffee?" he asks, sliding the partially completed crossword across the table as House eases himself down to sit. "I saved you half."
House frowns at the slightly smudged newsprint. "You did it in ink."
Wilson cheerfully ignores the accusatory tone in House's voice. "Hey, I'm not Chase." He sets House's mug down in front of him. "I can do it right."
House huffs and picks up a pen, ignoring the coffee. Wilson sits back down in his seat, his hands curled around his own cup, and sips.
"So, I did it," Wilson says after a moment.
House spares him a brief glance from the crossword. "Hm?"
Wilson nods at the folder lying on the table between them. "I filed."
The title of the document, "Dissolution of Marriage", is just visible over the top of the sleeve. Wilson watches House read the words upside-down. House looks up at Wilson again, for longer this time.
"You need a place to stay?"
Wilson smiles again, touched by House's gruff but genuine offer. "Yeah."
House just nods, turning his full attention back to his coffee and his puzzle. Wilson ducks back behind the newspaper, a companionable silence settling between them.
When House sets his pen down a while later he says, "Just keep your hands off my crossword. You got two wrong."
Wilson lowers the newspaper. "I did not."
"No," House agrees, "you actually got four wrong, but I was trying to spare your ego."
Wilson laughs, full and rich. Life, this morning, is good.
Coffee done, they rise to leave, House leading and Wilson following. Just before House reaches to open the front door, Wilson backs him up against it to kiss him: slow, thorough, putting all his wordless thanks into it. House returns the kiss in full measure, with a surprising openness that startles and touches Wilson somewhere deep within. When they pull apart and House smiles at him, Wilson feels weightless.
Life--as defined by their stupid screwed-up friendship--is indeed good.
~~~~~
Even so, the taste of coffee and House lasts only a little while on his tongue, fading completely by the time they reach the hospital.
~~~~~
The next few days pass by in a rush of patients, clinic duty, and board meetings. Wilson does not see House except in passing; House and his minions are occupied by not one but two new cases. Wilson himself takes on three new oncology patients in place of Andy, tells two others they are dying and is duly thanked for his efforts by both. He reminds himself to inform House that House now owes him twenty dollars.
The manila envelope somehow ends up buried, and then forgotten under the ever-growing stacks of charts and reports on Wilson's desk.
Wilson's brief forays to House's glass-walled office at lunchtime and the end of the day, show House pre-occupied with the intricate details of one of the cases. (The other, Wilson learns through Foreman, is nothing more than an actor with a garden-variety cocaine addiction after Wilson rules out brain tumors.) Wilson long ago learned to respect the meaning of every fling of House's yo-yo, every bounce of his ball, every baton-twirl of his cane as he stares at his symptom-scribbled whiteboard. So Wilson leaves House alone to solve his puzzle, save his patient.
In the meantime, Wilson flirts with the newly hired clinic nurse during the day, and reluctantly goes home to Julie at night.
~~~~~
Friday night brings a hospital reception to celebrate a recent endowment. Wilson is there as a member of the board. Julie is there at his side out of propriety. They are still married after all, even if only in name.
Wilson does not expect House to attend. He's already heard from Cuddy, the herculean attempts House has already made to duck out of attending. Though Cuddy is formidable, Wilson figures House will successfully stage an end-run around her rules. He plans to find out tomorrow, how House managed his coup, over beer and B-movies at House's apartment.
Tonight though, tonight at the reception he finds himself belonging to Julie. Even more so, strangely he finds himself enjoying it.
Julie is laughing this evening, wavy hair falling over her shoulders with careless grace, in the way that Wilson remembers before they were married. Her wide smile flashes at him, soft and open as she holds the long-stemmed champagne flute between her fingers, and he remembers why he married her.
He wraps his arm around her slim waist and leads her through the mingling crowd to introduce her to Dr. Zimmerman, a fellow board member. Julie and Dr. Zimmerman exchange pleasantries while Wilson's hand absently traces circles on the small of her back, exuding all the comfortable familiarity of a longtime lover.
Like everyone on the Princeton-Plainsboro staff, Dr. Zimmerman is well aware of Wilson's friendship with House. "Really, Wilson, why do you choose to hide your charming wife when you should be hiding your taste in friends?"
Wilson grins and shakes his head, giddy himself from champagne and closeness to Julie. "I suppose Julie does look better on my arm than House does."
Dr. Zimmerman nods and Julie laughs, tilting her head back and exposing the graceful line of her throat. Wilson, entranced by the sight, drops a quick kiss on her lips before she can right herself.
"Well, I think you should trade them if you can," Dr. Zimmerman concurs, and takes his leave.
Wilson turns to Julie and kisses her properly then, his hand against her cheek, inhaling the fragrance of Chanel by her ear. Drawing back, he offers her a promise couched in a clear, bright smile. Julie nestles contentedly against him.
It is then that Wilson looks away from her and across the room, where House is standing beneath a crystal chandelier; cleanly dressed in a blue suit and a red tie, but his face is twisted in pain and his fingers are spasming around an empty long-stemmed champagne glass.
Wilson's smile dulls and turns brittle as Julie turns him away, the crystalline weight bearing down again inexplicably on his shoulders. He hears her voice speak, but it sounds muffled and far away. He thinks he hears a crash, a shatter of glass.
When he turns to look again, the crystal chandelier is still hanging suspended from the ceiling, but House is already gone.
~~~~~
Wilson never goes to House's apartment on Saturday night. Indeed, he avoids House just as House avoids Wilson.
Flirting with the new clinic nurse soon leads to the inevitable encounter in an empty exam room. When he exits, flushed and not a little rumpled, House is leaning on his cane outside the door. Wilson can not meet House's oddly resigned glare and they walk away in opposite directions without exchanging a word.
Wilson never knows how Julie finds out about his indiscretion, but a couple of days later, before he can find his at the bottom of the stack, her own divorce papers land on his desk.
That evening it rains again. Wilson sits and watches the sheets sluice down the windows until he can no longer stand it. But when Wilson passes by House's office it is dark behind the glass walls. He learns from Chase that House left early because of the pain. Wilson winces at that, not knowing why.
Wilson sleeps alone in his office that night, dreaming of shattering glass.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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