FIC: Memory Sharks

[isaytoodlepip.livejournal.com]

Title: Memory Sharks
Author: IsayToodlepip, aka Tubesox
Pairing: House & Wilson strong friendship (or slash, if you squint)
Summary: Inspired by an idea from Steven Hall's "The Raw Shark Texts", this is a short story with alternating POVs
Rating: PG-13

The Ludovician is a predator, a shark. It feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self. Ludovicians are solitary, fiercely territorial and methodical hunters. A Ludovician might select an individual human being as its prey animal and pursue and feed on that individual over the course of years, until that victim’s memory and identity have been completely consumed. Sometimes, the target’s body survives this ordeal and may go on to live a second twilight life after the original self and memories have been taken. In time, such a person may establish a ‘bolt-on’ identity of their own, but the Ludovician will eventually catch the scent of this and return to complete its kill. – The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall


There are so many things this could be about. If you lay their story out across the years, push at it and pull until it's flat against a table or desk or hospital bed or slab, all of the relevant moments, emboldened by recognition, make it hard to see that their history couldn’t possibly be so linear. But thinking about this memory shark, it’s difficult not to make connections in that easy, innocent, connect-the-dot way…

First, you think of the infarction, that obvious violent event. The trauma. Because there is always a clear before and a lucid after for an attack such as this, and it’s so easy to imagine blood in the water (blood in the urine) and a frenzied force circling the wounded, a tease, a bloodlust, waiting to show the power of restraint, the “I can afford to sit back and watch you slowly drown. Unlike you, I have the luxury of time. And of choice.” You think of the many times you hear “What was he like, before?” You remember late nights on the couch, watching Jaws, singing Show me the way to go home, without really meaning it. You were already home. That was a before. An after would be…Hooper and Brody swimming back to land. You’re meant to think, the shark is dead, so they must be safe. But all you can see is the distance they have to go, and all you can think about is the deep unknown beneath them. You can never kill all the sharks.

First, you think of the pain. You used to think that pain was an event, but you’d never really taken the time to recognize the cruelty of endurance. Now, pain is a rope. You’ve jumped off the bridge, noose around your neck, ground nowhere to be seen. You have no idea how long the rope is, how long you have until it snaps taut and breaks your neck. You can only curse yourself for feeling grateful, some days, that at least something has you tethered to that stupid fucking bridge. This is that twilight life. You’re at your most joyous when you notice an absence. You think, can a person live on this alone? Falling through air…it’s not like swimming. For all the buoyancy, the surface tension, the starlings and shoals, there is an inevitability that comes with falling. There is always a shark beneath you, watching your flailing limbs, waiting for that anchor line to snap.

Next, you think of the Vicodin. Is this the beast that destroyed him? You remember…what? Swimming with him in the Atlantic one summer, envious of those strong legs that could carry him out to sea, could be a beacon for the eyes of so many women, bronzed and half-naked and easily impressed on hot afternoons. Did the pills really rip that part of him away? You remember…months of pain management trials, of surreptitious PT and so many prescriptions, and finally the relief of finding something that worked. You sat with him in the rehab pool one night. He was high on his first dose, giddy enough to ignore that niggling self-consciousness that usually came when his scar was laid bare, and flirting with a gymnast doing reps across the room. Did he used to forget your birthdays, anniversaries? Before, could you look in his eyes and still not know it was him? Would he have mocked you for your failures, knocked you for your losses, kicked you when you were down? Would he have been the one to get you on the floor in the first place? You think about the Vicodin. You find it easiest to say…no.

Next, you think of the Vicodin. The pills he gives you. You wish he could understand the law of diminishing returns. You know all about the risks. You know all about the dangers. But he can’t see it – the Vicodin is the cage that keeps the shark out. It’s hard to be afraid of something that saves you every day, but you manage. Not for yourself, but for him. He used to be your friend. He used to help you because he was a friend and that was what friends do. It wasn’t a pleasure for him, or a need. It was never so methodical. You think he’s forgotten who he is supposed to be to you. You can imagine him in one of his rickety schooners, prescription pad fins circling the boat. You don’t care how waterlogged your metaphors are becoming. All you can see is him trying to bail out a sinking ship. He’s always been good at bailing. He thinks you’ve always been good at sinking. But you wonder, which of us is drowning?

Then, you think of him. His step-thump gait ringing like a John Williams score in your ears. The giggles of nurses are like a bloom of fresh blood, and he’s there, circling, snapping his jaws until the weaker hunters are gone and only you remain. Sometimes, you wish you could just blend into the walls. One day, your tie will be the perfect burnt sienna camouflage. Other times…well, you’re so tired of hiding that it’s just easier to let him overtake you. He’s got the thrill of the hunt in his eyes, and you can’t deny him that. You can’t even wish that he’d be merciful and go for a quick kill. No, you like that he just holds you in his teeth, letting you slowly dissolve in the erosion and arrogance and erudition that surrounds him, because it means you have time. The both of you have time.

Then, you think of him. His hands-on-hips talk to me attack. His subtler are you sure you want to do this, because I know you know it’s wrong strike. His this is what you’re thinking, this is why you’re thinking it, and this is why you are completely wrong blitz. You’ve seen a pod of dolphins kill a tiger shark, but how does that help you, when he’s the only person who’d ever be on your side? And how can you defend yourself against him when he knows your weaknesses? But you aren’t completely without armor. If you take enough pills, drink enough scotch, break enough rules – if you project your pain, say enough cruel things to surprise and hurt, if you destroy every good memory between you one at a time, it’s like a shit-scared octopus shooting ink into the ocean. You can blind him and maybe get away long enough to regroup, and to remember why you’re friends and why you should always, always let him catch up to you in the end.

Then, you think of yourself. Why doesn’t anyone ever ask you what you used to be like, before? Maybe they know – you can’t remember. You imagine you smiled with him more, relaxed with him more. But that’s a memory of an us. Who were you, before him? Younger, stupider, more afraid to take certain risks, less afraid to take others, twenty pounds lighter, minus a few wrinkles, minus a few grey hairs, minus a few laugh lines, minus a best friend, minus the most meaningful relationship in your life, minus a career you could be proud of. Did you ever think that your life would be easier? Happier? Did you ever think you’d have kids by now, or even that you’d still be married to your first love? You don’t know. Every conversation with him, you build yourself anew. He gives you the chance to do that, with all he takes from you and out of you. Memory sharks. It’s so easy to think of the blood in the water. But it’s better to remember that, no matter which one of you is the shark in the end, you won’t really ever have to live without him.

Then, you think of yourself. All you have to do to see the damage that’s been done to you is to look down. All you have to do to see the damage that you’ve done is to look at him. When you were a boy in Japan, you saw a man who’d lost his leg to a shark. At the time, it was the most powerful reminder you’d had that a single moment could mark you forever. What was your moment with him? The day you met (is this seat taken)? The night Stacy left (I’m not going anywhere)? The time you stole his pad (don’t play me)? The time you stole his food (some primeval thrill)? It doesn’t matter, in the end. You meant what you said, when you told him he ate neediness. And you hope you’re right. Because if you need him, it’ll mean he needs you, and you can tear each other apart time and again, and then build each other up, preserving your food source. You can both be the ones who are drowning, be the waves pounding overhead, be the weather-beaten shores, be the blood in the water. Be the life vest and be the one clinging to it. Be the threat. Be the hope. Be the survivor. Be the thing survived. Memory sharks. It won’t matter which one of you goes first. Part of you will go on, and part of him will be gone forever. Unless the pills or the pain are really the things that will swallow you in the end. But you don’t like to think that, because you can imagine him throwing himself to the next shark that comes along. And you like to think that you’ve already marked him as yours.

The End.

PS...for anyone interested, I put up an angsty H/W vid at YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_j7l2DIM6E