(no subject)
Aug. 19th, 2009 03:39 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
http://users.livejournal.com/lucid_dreamer_/ posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
house_wilson_ghcTitle: Spotless :: Spotless
Author: lucid_dreamer_
Rating: 1) R for vehicular violence. 2) for language
Pairing: H/W established relationship
Genre: AU/Angst
Summary: “That can’t be right. I’d remember dying.”
Warning: 1) Character death. 2) Mention of duck sex.
Disclaimer: I don't own House M.D. nor do I own Dead Can Dance. Some dialogue featured from "Wilson's Heart".
Author's note:
This is the final chapter of "Spotless". I want to than everyone who caught my bad editing, and especially everyone who commented on the chapters. I enjoyed writing this piece and really bummed myself out with this section. *prepares to be egged*
I wrote an alternate ending because there was a request for it, and because the initial version can be confusing and wouldn't make sense in the real world. If you read it, and think that it makes sense, great! If you're not satisfied with it... keep scrolling. Both endings are, in my opinion, really sad. The second, moreso.
Previous parts: Heartbeat, Clockwork, Wind, Sensory Deprivation No. 1, Spice, Skin, Aftershave, Sensory Deprivation No. 2, Heartbeat No. 2.
**ALTERNATE ENDING INCLUDED AT THE BOTTOM**
You can either read the poetic one that, I think, has a happier ending, or scroll aaaaaaaaall the way down to the end and read the more realistic version.
The world was suspended in absolute silence as House straddled the bike, laughing as he adjusted the straps of the helmet.
“Just milk, ok, Greg?”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Just beer.”
“Greg!” Jimmy was smiling, leaning out of the doorway of the apartment, “Do you want the damn cake or not?”
A car rolled by. In complete silence.
“Would I have suggested you make a cake, if I didn’t want it? I’ll be back. Twenty minutes.”
“I know, for a fact, it doesn’t take twenty minutes to get milk.”
A UPS truck went by, splashing a tire through a puddle… in utter silence. House grinned at Jimmy and started the bike… he could feel the vibration of the engine through his legs and arms, through his spine, but there was no sound. Just the silence.
“Love you!” House shouted over the non-existent sound of the bike, pushed it off the kickstand and pulled away from the curb.
Complete silence as he made his way to the store; shoppers moved through the aisles and amongst each other without sound. He passed a baby strapped into a cart, red in its face from crying, but absolutely silent.
Milk. Magazines. A movie from the Red Box… some new release they would both have fun trashing. The cashier’s lips were moving as he went through the checkout, but no words came out.
“Credit,” House’s voice interrupted the silence as he handed her Jimmy’s MasterCard. She smiled as she handed him his one bag, her lips going through the motions of ‘thank you, have a great day, Mr. Wilson’.
House stepped back out into the soundless world, limping for his bike, past two men who were obviously having an argument. He watched them for a moment as he put his helmet on and started the bike.
His luck seemed too good. All of the lights were turning green as he headed back towards the apartment, gliding through the soundless world with a faint smile on his lips.
A truck gunned its engine, the roar of the machine deafening in the silence of the rest of the world, as it barreled down the street. House turned his head as he entered the intersection at the same time as the massive Ford, reacting in the split second he had to try and turn the bike.
The grill of the truck smashed his leg between the two machines, and the bike was literally bumped into the air. Safety courses taught you to throw your body away from the bike, to let go of the reeling machine… safety courses didn’t always anticipate you being hit by a truck doing fifty through a red light. He could hear the crack of bone and the screech of metal as he felt his body jerk against the hood of the truck. The bike was gone from his perception… all there was in the world was metal, blood, bone and rubber.
Silent witnesses were gathering around as the truck’s driver climbed out…yelling, frothing… in a panic. He had a cell phone to his ear.
“911… what’s the nature of your emergency?” the tinny sound of a bored sounding operator through the cell phone’s speaker seemed more prevalent than the crack and pop of the truck’s engine, or the distant muttering of the witnesses.
“I… I hit this guy, on a motorcycle… shit… I don’t know if he’s alive…there’s blood, everywhere…oh, shit…oh shit….”
He was aware of the flashing red and blue lights and of the presence of more people… still completely without sound. All he could do was stare straight up into the cloudy sky… it was threatening to rain. That’d be just perfect, to die in the street… and be rained on.
“House,” a woman’s voice called to him in the silence and he tried to turn his head.
In the middle of the wreckage, lying beside him, was Amber. A metal pole jutted out of her thigh, and blood leaked from her lips into her blond hair, “House…”
“Stay with me,” he heard himself muttering, reaching out for the delicate, bloodied, hand that was held out to him.
“Dr. House, you have to stay still,” the volume of the world got turned up to ‘deafening’ as the paramedic spoke to him, “you’ve been in an accident, and we have reason to believe you have a spinal injury. …Dr. House, can you hear me?”
Boots crunching on pavement, the sound of the driver describing what had happened while he… threw up? Was that what that sounds was? Cars coming to a slow, gawking, stop as police tried to direct them away from the scene of the accident. The subtle ‘click’ as the traffic lights turned from green, to yellow, and to red… there was a bird singing somewhere…
“Stay with me,” he repeated numbly, and the paramedic took his hand.
“It’s alright, Dr. House. You’re going to be alright…”
“House, I’m cold,” Amber whispered in his ear, as his vision started to fade, “House…?”
“We’re losing him!” the paramedic called in the distance, as far away and unimportant as the bird had been.
”That can’t be right. I’d remember dying.”
“I think that ‘dying’ would fit neatly under the category of ‘traumatic memory’ and thus qualify for repression.”
“That necessitates the ability of the dead to repress memories. As far as I’m concerned, all the dead can do is decompose.”
“According to some people, they can dance.”
“Ha! Clever. Dead Can Dance. You’re a riot.”
“Mmn.”
“The other problem I have with this, is the fact that I have memories from after the accident. That’s impossible.”
“Not necessarily. It isn’t uncommon for those who have died traumatically to try and go on living, as if nothing happened. Everybody lies to themselves in one way or another.”
“I didn’t try and go on like nothing had happened. Why would I imagine myself in the hospital, if I were trying to go on like nothing happened? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. You’re a very logical man… you acknowledged that you were in an accident, that you were very badly injured, that you would be in the hospital if you had lived…”
“With amnesia?”
“Perhaps it was easier to imagine an out… to give yourself distance from Wilson through a lack of memory, than it was to acknowledge the fact that he’s grieving…”
“That’s bullshit.”
“What is the most interesting thing about this, is the fact that you still allowed him to go through the stages of grief, albeit not in order…
Denial.
”Oh, thank God, you’re in the hospital…you’ll pull through this. I know you will.
Bargaining.
”Anything I can do, please ask. I’ll answer any questions you have, bring you anything that might help you remember. Anything.”
Depression.
”I know I need to stop beating myself up, but… I want him back. The other night, we were in bed… and he told me I was beautiful. He spent a whole hour, just… letting me know he thought I was beautiful. And now he’s not attracted to me?”
Anger.
“Bullshit, Greg! That’s… that’s complete bullshit. Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
Now all there is left to do is to allow him to accept that you’re gone, House. You have to let him go.”
House shook his head, staring in silence at the people in front of him. A paramedic was leaning over his broken body, trying desperately to get him to breath again… another was charging the defibrillator. Clear!
He turned his head and looked at Amber, dressed in her red pantsuit. She reached over to him and took his hand, knitting her thin fingers with his.
“….Dead Can Dance was a corny joke.”
She smiled and looked over at him, “I know.”
”Hello, Lisa. What can I do for you?”
”James? I… have bad news….”
“…Oh God…”
“He’s gone, James…”
“…No….”
“There was an accident…”
“No, no…he just… he went for milk…”
“I’m so sorry…”
“He just went for milk…no…no…please, no…he can’t have….”
House rested his hand on Wilson’s shoulder… Jimmy’s shoulder… as the other man sat at his piano. There was a glass half full of watery scotch in front of him as he let his fingers drag across the keys without any kind of rhythm.
House squeezed his shoulder and sat down beside him.
“Do you remember me, yet?” Wilson’s voice was quiet… broken.
“Yeah… I remember you.”
“I miss you, Greg.”
“I know,” House smoothed his hand along Wilson’s shoulders, bringing his body closer to his own, “I miss you, too.”
“This is where we first kissed,” Wilson looked at him, choking on the words, “you were playing… it must have been two o’clock in the morning. I’d crashed on your couch… you had this watery glass of scotch on the top of the piano…I don’t know why I remember that…but, you must have been sitting here since I’d gone to sleep. And I must have been drunk, otherwise I don’t think I would have slept through you playing… I sat down beside you, and you put your arm around me and kissed me. Just…kissed me, like I was the most important person in the world. It seemed so… right, so natural…”
House tilted Wilson’s jaw towards him and kissed him softly, “It was.”
“Is it better there?” Wilson looked at him, meeting his eyes, “Wherever you are?”
“I guess it is,” House shrugged, tracing Wilson’s lip with his thumb, “I haven’t really thought about it much.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No,” House shook his head, “I… don’t feel anything.”
Wilson nodded, looking down at the piano keys, “I love you, Greg…”
“I know you do, Jimmy. I love you too.”
“I’m not going to forget you… I’m sorry… I’m sorry I walked away from you. I’m sorry for what I asked you to do… I’m sorry I never said thank you, and that… that I put her before you. I’m sorry I never told you, when I had the chance.””
“I know.”
“Would you mind playing for me?” Wilson looked at him, resting his hand on his thigh, “One more time, before you go?”
“Nah, I don’t mind,” House shifted to reach the keys betters, pressing his fingers against their cool surface, “what do you want me to play?”
Wilson sniffled, leaning against him despite his request that House play the piano, “Our song. Just one more time.”
House started to draw the notes out of the piano, comforted by the feeling of Wilson pressed against his side, and by knowing that it was over.
The whole thing was finally… just over.
It should have terrified him that he couldn’t feel anything, when he couldn’t taste the watery scotch when he reached for it and took a drink. It should have terrified him when he realized that he was no longer sitting on the bench of his piano, but on one of the cold vinyl seats of a city bus. It should have terrified him when he realized that he could feel nothing, taste nothing, hear nothing…
Nothing, except the voice of the blond woman in the driver’s seat, “Are you ready to roll, House?”
“Yeah.”
Amber smiled at him and pulled the lever that closed the doors to the bus.
The door sealed itself with a final hiss, and there were no more sounds, no more feelings, no more tastes…
…and absolutely no pain….
There was nothing.
And House was in Heaven.
End.
Or, you can choose which one you want to read! Or, if you're lazy like the author... hit back and click here!
"Spotless"
“That can’t be right. I’d remember dying.”
“I think that ‘dying’ would fit neatly under the category of ‘traumatic memory’ and thus qualify for repression.”
“Yeah, well, by your definition of traumatic, I should have repressed my whole life,” House looked up at the woman who had come to visit him from the psych wing. She was attractive for being middle aged, bearing a vague resemblance to the picture in his hand of a woman named ‘Stacy’.
His whole life was spread out across his lap, in the form of photographs and videotapes and other pieces of memorabilia.
“I think that’s the issue we’re trying to deal with here, Dr. House,” she crossed her long legs and picked up one of the photographs, “you have repressed your whole life.”
“Do you have any proof that my memory loss isn’t amnesia?”
“You’ve had several MRI’s, Dr. House, that show that your brain sustained no damage in the accident… there is no physiological reason that you should be experiencing this kind of memory loss.”
House set the photograph of Stacy down and looked at the woman, “Then I want my case forwarded to diagnostics, because obviously there is something wrong. There has to be a physiological reason for my amnesia.”
“Dr. House…”
“Repressing your whole goddamn life because of one car accident doesn’t make sense!”
“Dr. House, your file has already been looked at by the diagnostics department,” she chewed her lip, betraying some anxiety, for a split second, “Dr. Foreman—“
“Then I want someone else to look at the goddamn scans!” House shouted, “I want someone other than doctor Foreman to look at the results from the MRI, because he’s obviously missing something!”
“Doctors Hadley, Kutner, and Taub all looked—“
“Are they neurologists?”
“They’re all in the diagnostics department.”
“Fuck this,” House looked away from all of the pictures spread out over his bed, “this doesn’t… this doesn’t make any goddamn sense.”
“Dr. House, I am going to suggest that you go to therapy, and discuss this possibility of repre—“
“Repression is a theory, not a diagnosis,” House snapped, “it isn’t even widely accepted in psychology. That’s a crap diagnosis. I want something better.”
“Dr. House, repression fits.”
“Are there definitive tests for it?”
“No…”
“Can you prove that repression exists physiologically, and that it isn’t some neat label made up by some asshole obsessed with his fucking mother?”
“Dr. House!”
“Your profession relies heavily on theories and vague symptoms, not concrete evidence and tests. It isn’t even really a science! Social science my ass… I am not going to let you come in here and tell me you think I might be repressing my entire life! Get the hell out of my room and don’t bother coming back until you have a definitive answer.”
She left in an angry whirl of high heels and a skirt no doubt purchased at Express. Jimmy entered the room, giving her a strange look as he passed.
“You chased off the psychologist? Of course you did…”
“Did you come back to yell at me some more?” House looked at him sharply, “Or do you have another trash bag of my life with you? I loved the delivery method of this one. Do a lot of ding-dong-ditch as a kid?”
Jimmy sighed and walked over to the chair by House’s bed, throwing his weight down into it, “Yeah, actually. My brother Daniel and I. The game sucks when the whole neighborhood knows you, though. What about you?”
“Wouldn’t know.”
“You’re still doing this.”
“This isn’t an act, asshole,” House grumbled, picking up a picture of himself standing next to a monster truck, “if I love monster trucks as much as you’ve told me I do, why the hell wouldn’t I want to remember this?”
“Continuity,” Jimmy shrugged, “you know, Greg…. I honestly don’t claim to know why you do anything.”
“It’d make things damn convenient if you did, because then you could tell me,” House picked up another picture, “this. You’d think I’d want to remember this.”
Jimmy looked at the picture. House had a sarcastic smile on his face, some cheap party hat slapped on top of his head and… well, the primary view of the picture was a stripper’s ass.
“Yeah, you probably would. You hate parties, though, and that one… that was a bachelor party you put on for me. You left half way through and I went home drunk off my ass with a duck. I still have no idea where the duck came from.”
“What kind of duck was it?”
“I don’t know…. A brown one.”
“You might have picked it up off the ground. The duck might have been entirely unrelated to the party.”
“Why would a duck let me pick it up?” Jimmy sighed, picking up a few of the pictures.
“Rape flights,” House set the picture down, “after ducks pair off to get jiggy with it, there are often mallards that are left without a partner. These loner males will sometimes group up and chase after a loner female… rather than just asking for her number… and pester, peck and chase her until she’s too weak to fly anymore. At that point, the group of males will take turns mating with her, then leave her in her weakened state. They’ll fuck the dead, too.”
“…You remember that, but you don’t remember me, or your life… I don’t buy it.”
House shrugged, “There isn’t necessarily a rhyme or reason to what I remember and what I don’t.”
“You’d prefer to remember duck sex.”
“I don’t think preference has anything to do with it,” House picked up another picture, “maybe duck sex is relevant in some way.”
“In what crazy world would duck sex be relevant?”
“In what crazy would I have intense dreams about a dead woman, who was apparently your girlfriend, night after night?”
“Maybe you need to address your guilt about her death.”
“My guilt about her death. Ok. Here, let me address it. As I’ve come to understand it, she died of amantadine poisoning, after her kidney’s failed, due to trauma sustained in a bus accident,” House looked up at the ceiling, “let’s see. Did I prescribe the amantadine?”
“No.”
“Did I force her to take an extra dose?”
“No.”
“Was I driving the bus?”
“No, but…”
“Was I driving the garbage truck?”
“She wouldn’t have been on the bus, if…”
“If what? If she hadn’t followed me onto it? Well, gee, if she hadn’t gotten on the bus, maybe I would have just died and you wouldn’t be sitting here right now accusing me of being a liar.”
“Because you are a liar, House! She wouldn’t have followed you onto the bus if you hadn’t ditched out on your tab and forgotten your cane!”
“She also wouldn’t have followed me on the bus if you’d come to pick me up.”
“What, you’re trying to pin this on me, now? I was working, House! She tried to do something nice, and died for it! If you hadn’t been in the bar---”
“I wouldn’t have been in that damned bar if you had paid any fucking attention to me!” House found himself shouting, “If you’d just… paid me a minute’s notice, instead of ditching out on me every time I needed you, or letting the stupid custody battle go on…you were mine first, you were just too stupid to realize it!”
“...Are you remembering this, House, or are you slipping up?”
“Shut up!” House continued to shout, “What’s more, during that whole fuck up, I risked my life for her and I didn’t even like her. I risked my life for her, because you asked me to. You asked me too, and then you walked away from me. I could have died!”
“You didn’t! She did!”
“Fuck you, Jimmy! Just… fuck you!”
Jimmy looked at him in silence, biting his lip, “…Greg…”
“Get the fuck away from me,” House snarled, throwing a handful of the pictures at Jimmy, “just… get out.”
“Greg,” Jimmy stood up and reached for him, “Greg, please. Just… stop. Alright? I think I get it. I think… I understand this.”
“Well, please enlighten me.”
“I think… this… all of this, is because we never really talked about Amber, or what happened after and… some things got brought up, in the first twenty-four hours after the accident…” Jimmy held out his hands beseechingly, “why don’t we both calm down, and just… talk about it?”
“Calm down? Fuck…”
“I’m not going to accuse you of lying, anymore. I’m just… we’re going to talk about this.”
“Fucking talk, then.”
“Alright… Amber was…” Jimmy sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, “Amber was the perfect wo--”
“You’re seriously starting like that? Thanks.”
“How else do you want me to start?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just let me finish, ok? Amber was the perfect woman for me. She didn’t need me like the others did, and she taught me a lot about myself. It… ruined me, when she died. I didn’t know what to do with myself and… I did a lot of selfish things.”
“I’ll say.”
“Greg, please…”
“Fine. Go on.”
“I have trouble letting go, and she… she was gone. I was trying everything to try and hold on to her. You’ve been such a permanent fixture in my life, I didn’t even… you’ve always seemed like you were immortal, like you could do anything and come out without a scratch. When you started to seize… and then went into a coma… I didn’t know what to do. I ran.”
“You took a hell of a long time to run.”
“I know… I didn’t know how to let go of you.”
“So you devalued me.”
“….Greg… I came back…”
“That doesn’t matter, does it? You… you’ve never told me once, that you were sorry for asking me to kill myself for your dead girlfriend. You’ve never told me once that you were sorry for walking out of my life. You’ve never given me the chance.”
“…I’m with you now. I love you.”
“That doesn’t mean that you’ve forgiven me. For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t even my fault.”
“If it wasn’t your fault, why do you need me to forgive you?”
“Because obviously you think it was my fault.”
They both fell silent, Greg staring at Jimmy and Jimmy looking down at his expensive French shoes.
“Fine. I forgive you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Greg, I forgive you,” Jimmy looked at him, his brown eyes watering, “please… can we just stop this? I don’t want to deal with this anymore…”
“I didn’t want to have to be reminded of Amber’s death and how it was my fault every time I turned around, but there we are. You know what’s real sick about all of this? You… you tormented me about it, without even really saying anything, you just… wouldn’t let me live it down.”
“Greg, that’s not true…”
“And I’m supposed to feel better because you’re with me now? You love me now? Boy, it feels great to be the consolation prize.”
“Greg…”
“Emotion’s one hell of a good trigger for memory, you know that, right? Fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said quietly, “I’m sorry I hurt you, I just… didn’t know what to do.”
“So you chased me around until I couldn’t fight anymore.”
“What?”
“Quack, quack, Jimmy. There is a good reason to remember duck sex.”
“You’re trying to say I raped you now?” Jimmy looked at him, aghast, “Greg, I never…”
“Not physically. Emotionally.”
“….Jesus…”
“He’s not in today. Hi, Greg House. How can I help you?”
“Fuck you, Greg,” Jimmy stood up, wiping his eyes, “I thought everything was alright, and now you’re… you’re doing this? What about our life together?”
“If this was what my life was like, why would I want to remember it?” House looked up at him, “Why would I want to remember being blamed for something that was out of my control, every time I turned a corner? Why would I want to remember constantly being questioned about whether or not something was all in my head, and constantly be treated like a fucking lunatic? Why would I want to remember being in pain, all the time? It just doesn’t seem worth it.”
“I love you, Greg. Wouldn’t you want to remember that?”
“Not if love came at a price.”
Author: lucid_dreamer_
Rating: 1) R for vehicular violence. 2) for language
Pairing: H/W established relationship
Genre: AU/Angst
Summary: “That can’t be right. I’d remember dying.”
Warning: 1) Character death. 2) Mention of duck sex.
Disclaimer: I don't own House M.D. nor do I own Dead Can Dance. Some dialogue featured from "Wilson's Heart".
Author's note:
This is the final chapter of "Spotless". I want to than everyone who caught my bad editing, and especially everyone who commented on the chapters. I enjoyed writing this piece and really bummed myself out with this section. *prepares to be egged*
I wrote an alternate ending because there was a request for it, and because the initial version can be confusing and wouldn't make sense in the real world. If you read it, and think that it makes sense, great! If you're not satisfied with it... keep scrolling. Both endings are, in my opinion, really sad. The second, moreso.
Previous parts: Heartbeat, Clockwork, Wind, Sensory Deprivation No. 1, Spice, Skin, Aftershave, Sensory Deprivation No. 2, Heartbeat No. 2.
**ALTERNATE ENDING INCLUDED AT THE BOTTOM**
You can either read the poetic one that, I think, has a happier ending, or scroll aaaaaaaaall the way down to the end and read the more realistic version.
The world was suspended in absolute silence as House straddled the bike, laughing as he adjusted the straps of the helmet.
“Just milk, ok, Greg?”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Just beer.”
“Greg!” Jimmy was smiling, leaning out of the doorway of the apartment, “Do you want the damn cake or not?”
A car rolled by. In complete silence.
“Would I have suggested you make a cake, if I didn’t want it? I’ll be back. Twenty minutes.”
“I know, for a fact, it doesn’t take twenty minutes to get milk.”
A UPS truck went by, splashing a tire through a puddle… in utter silence. House grinned at Jimmy and started the bike… he could feel the vibration of the engine through his legs and arms, through his spine, but there was no sound. Just the silence.
“Love you!” House shouted over the non-existent sound of the bike, pushed it off the kickstand and pulled away from the curb.
Complete silence as he made his way to the store; shoppers moved through the aisles and amongst each other without sound. He passed a baby strapped into a cart, red in its face from crying, but absolutely silent.
Milk. Magazines. A movie from the Red Box… some new release they would both have fun trashing. The cashier’s lips were moving as he went through the checkout, but no words came out.
“Credit,” House’s voice interrupted the silence as he handed her Jimmy’s MasterCard. She smiled as she handed him his one bag, her lips going through the motions of ‘thank you, have a great day, Mr. Wilson’.
House stepped back out into the soundless world, limping for his bike, past two men who were obviously having an argument. He watched them for a moment as he put his helmet on and started the bike.
His luck seemed too good. All of the lights were turning green as he headed back towards the apartment, gliding through the soundless world with a faint smile on his lips.
A truck gunned its engine, the roar of the machine deafening in the silence of the rest of the world, as it barreled down the street. House turned his head as he entered the intersection at the same time as the massive Ford, reacting in the split second he had to try and turn the bike.
The grill of the truck smashed his leg between the two machines, and the bike was literally bumped into the air. Safety courses taught you to throw your body away from the bike, to let go of the reeling machine… safety courses didn’t always anticipate you being hit by a truck doing fifty through a red light. He could hear the crack of bone and the screech of metal as he felt his body jerk against the hood of the truck. The bike was gone from his perception… all there was in the world was metal, blood, bone and rubber.
Silent witnesses were gathering around as the truck’s driver climbed out…yelling, frothing… in a panic. He had a cell phone to his ear.
“911… what’s the nature of your emergency?” the tinny sound of a bored sounding operator through the cell phone’s speaker seemed more prevalent than the crack and pop of the truck’s engine, or the distant muttering of the witnesses.
“I… I hit this guy, on a motorcycle… shit… I don’t know if he’s alive…there’s blood, everywhere…oh, shit…oh shit….”
He was aware of the flashing red and blue lights and of the presence of more people… still completely without sound. All he could do was stare straight up into the cloudy sky… it was threatening to rain. That’d be just perfect, to die in the street… and be rained on.
“House,” a woman’s voice called to him in the silence and he tried to turn his head.
In the middle of the wreckage, lying beside him, was Amber. A metal pole jutted out of her thigh, and blood leaked from her lips into her blond hair, “House…”
“Stay with me,” he heard himself muttering, reaching out for the delicate, bloodied, hand that was held out to him.
“Dr. House, you have to stay still,” the volume of the world got turned up to ‘deafening’ as the paramedic spoke to him, “you’ve been in an accident, and we have reason to believe you have a spinal injury. …Dr. House, can you hear me?”
Boots crunching on pavement, the sound of the driver describing what had happened while he… threw up? Was that what that sounds was? Cars coming to a slow, gawking, stop as police tried to direct them away from the scene of the accident. The subtle ‘click’ as the traffic lights turned from green, to yellow, and to red… there was a bird singing somewhere…
“Stay with me,” he repeated numbly, and the paramedic took his hand.
“It’s alright, Dr. House. You’re going to be alright…”
“House, I’m cold,” Amber whispered in his ear, as his vision started to fade, “House…?”
“We’re losing him!” the paramedic called in the distance, as far away and unimportant as the bird had been.
“I think that ‘dying’ would fit neatly under the category of ‘traumatic memory’ and thus qualify for repression.”
“That necessitates the ability of the dead to repress memories. As far as I’m concerned, all the dead can do is decompose.”
“According to some people, they can dance.”
“Ha! Clever. Dead Can Dance. You’re a riot.”
“Mmn.”
“The other problem I have with this, is the fact that I have memories from after the accident. That’s impossible.”
“Not necessarily. It isn’t uncommon for those who have died traumatically to try and go on living, as if nothing happened. Everybody lies to themselves in one way or another.”
“I didn’t try and go on like nothing had happened. Why would I imagine myself in the hospital, if I were trying to go on like nothing happened? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. You’re a very logical man… you acknowledged that you were in an accident, that you were very badly injured, that you would be in the hospital if you had lived…”
“With amnesia?”
“Perhaps it was easier to imagine an out… to give yourself distance from Wilson through a lack of memory, than it was to acknowledge the fact that he’s grieving…”
“That’s bullshit.”
“What is the most interesting thing about this, is the fact that you still allowed him to go through the stages of grief, albeit not in order…
”Oh, thank God, you’re in the hospital…you’ll pull through this. I know you will.
”Anything I can do, please ask. I’ll answer any questions you have, bring you anything that might help you remember. Anything.”
”I know I need to stop beating myself up, but… I want him back. The other night, we were in bed… and he told me I was beautiful. He spent a whole hour, just… letting me know he thought I was beautiful. And now he’s not attracted to me?”
“Bullshit, Greg! That’s… that’s complete bullshit. Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
Now all there is left to do is to allow him to accept that you’re gone, House. You have to let him go.”
House shook his head, staring in silence at the people in front of him. A paramedic was leaning over his broken body, trying desperately to get him to breath again… another was charging the defibrillator. Clear!
He turned his head and looked at Amber, dressed in her red pantsuit. She reached over to him and took his hand, knitting her thin fingers with his.
“….Dead Can Dance was a corny joke.”
She smiled and looked over at him, “I know.”
”James? I… have bad news….”
“…Oh God…”
“He’s gone, James…”
“…No….”
“There was an accident…”
“No, no…he just… he went for milk…”
“I’m so sorry…”
“He just went for milk…no…no…please, no…he can’t have….”
House rested his hand on Wilson’s shoulder… Jimmy’s shoulder… as the other man sat at his piano. There was a glass half full of watery scotch in front of him as he let his fingers drag across the keys without any kind of rhythm.
House squeezed his shoulder and sat down beside him.
“Do you remember me, yet?” Wilson’s voice was quiet… broken.
“Yeah… I remember you.”
“I miss you, Greg.”
“I know,” House smoothed his hand along Wilson’s shoulders, bringing his body closer to his own, “I miss you, too.”
“This is where we first kissed,” Wilson looked at him, choking on the words, “you were playing… it must have been two o’clock in the morning. I’d crashed on your couch… you had this watery glass of scotch on the top of the piano…I don’t know why I remember that…but, you must have been sitting here since I’d gone to sleep. And I must have been drunk, otherwise I don’t think I would have slept through you playing… I sat down beside you, and you put your arm around me and kissed me. Just…kissed me, like I was the most important person in the world. It seemed so… right, so natural…”
House tilted Wilson’s jaw towards him and kissed him softly, “It was.”
“Is it better there?” Wilson looked at him, meeting his eyes, “Wherever you are?”
“I guess it is,” House shrugged, tracing Wilson’s lip with his thumb, “I haven’t really thought about it much.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No,” House shook his head, “I… don’t feel anything.”
Wilson nodded, looking down at the piano keys, “I love you, Greg…”
“I know you do, Jimmy. I love you too.”
“I’m not going to forget you… I’m sorry… I’m sorry I walked away from you. I’m sorry for what I asked you to do… I’m sorry I never said thank you, and that… that I put her before you. I’m sorry I never told you, when I had the chance.””
“I know.”
“Would you mind playing for me?” Wilson looked at him, resting his hand on his thigh, “One more time, before you go?”
“Nah, I don’t mind,” House shifted to reach the keys betters, pressing his fingers against their cool surface, “what do you want me to play?”
Wilson sniffled, leaning against him despite his request that House play the piano, “Our song. Just one more time.”
House started to draw the notes out of the piano, comforted by the feeling of Wilson pressed against his side, and by knowing that it was over.
The whole thing was finally… just over.
It should have terrified him that he couldn’t feel anything, when he couldn’t taste the watery scotch when he reached for it and took a drink. It should have terrified him when he realized that he was no longer sitting on the bench of his piano, but on one of the cold vinyl seats of a city bus. It should have terrified him when he realized that he could feel nothing, taste nothing, hear nothing…
Nothing, except the voice of the blond woman in the driver’s seat, “Are you ready to roll, House?”
“Yeah.”
Amber smiled at him and pulled the lever that closed the doors to the bus.
…and absolutely no pain….
There was nothing.
And House was in Heaven.
End.
Or, you can choose which one you want to read! Or, if you're lazy like the author... hit back and click here!
"Spotless"
“That can’t be right. I’d remember dying.”
“I think that ‘dying’ would fit neatly under the category of ‘traumatic memory’ and thus qualify for repression.”
“Yeah, well, by your definition of traumatic, I should have repressed my whole life,” House looked up at the woman who had come to visit him from the psych wing. She was attractive for being middle aged, bearing a vague resemblance to the picture in his hand of a woman named ‘Stacy’.
His whole life was spread out across his lap, in the form of photographs and videotapes and other pieces of memorabilia.
“I think that’s the issue we’re trying to deal with here, Dr. House,” she crossed her long legs and picked up one of the photographs, “you have repressed your whole life.”
“Do you have any proof that my memory loss isn’t amnesia?”
“You’ve had several MRI’s, Dr. House, that show that your brain sustained no damage in the accident… there is no physiological reason that you should be experiencing this kind of memory loss.”
House set the photograph of Stacy down and looked at the woman, “Then I want my case forwarded to diagnostics, because obviously there is something wrong. There has to be a physiological reason for my amnesia.”
“Dr. House…”
“Repressing your whole goddamn life because of one car accident doesn’t make sense!”
“Dr. House, your file has already been looked at by the diagnostics department,” she chewed her lip, betraying some anxiety, for a split second, “Dr. Foreman—“
“Then I want someone else to look at the goddamn scans!” House shouted, “I want someone other than doctor Foreman to look at the results from the MRI, because he’s obviously missing something!”
“Doctors Hadley, Kutner, and Taub all looked—“
“Are they neurologists?”
“They’re all in the diagnostics department.”
“Fuck this,” House looked away from all of the pictures spread out over his bed, “this doesn’t… this doesn’t make any goddamn sense.”
“Dr. House, I am going to suggest that you go to therapy, and discuss this possibility of repre—“
“Repression is a theory, not a diagnosis,” House snapped, “it isn’t even widely accepted in psychology. That’s a crap diagnosis. I want something better.”
“Dr. House, repression fits.”
“Are there definitive tests for it?”
“No…”
“Can you prove that repression exists physiologically, and that it isn’t some neat label made up by some asshole obsessed with his fucking mother?”
“Dr. House!”
“Your profession relies heavily on theories and vague symptoms, not concrete evidence and tests. It isn’t even really a science! Social science my ass… I am not going to let you come in here and tell me you think I might be repressing my entire life! Get the hell out of my room and don’t bother coming back until you have a definitive answer.”
She left in an angry whirl of high heels and a skirt no doubt purchased at Express. Jimmy entered the room, giving her a strange look as he passed.
“You chased off the psychologist? Of course you did…”
“Did you come back to yell at me some more?” House looked at him sharply, “Or do you have another trash bag of my life with you? I loved the delivery method of this one. Do a lot of ding-dong-ditch as a kid?”
Jimmy sighed and walked over to the chair by House’s bed, throwing his weight down into it, “Yeah, actually. My brother Daniel and I. The game sucks when the whole neighborhood knows you, though. What about you?”
“Wouldn’t know.”
“You’re still doing this.”
“This isn’t an act, asshole,” House grumbled, picking up a picture of himself standing next to a monster truck, “if I love monster trucks as much as you’ve told me I do, why the hell wouldn’t I want to remember this?”
“Continuity,” Jimmy shrugged, “you know, Greg…. I honestly don’t claim to know why you do anything.”
“It’d make things damn convenient if you did, because then you could tell me,” House picked up another picture, “this. You’d think I’d want to remember this.”
Jimmy looked at the picture. House had a sarcastic smile on his face, some cheap party hat slapped on top of his head and… well, the primary view of the picture was a stripper’s ass.
“Yeah, you probably would. You hate parties, though, and that one… that was a bachelor party you put on for me. You left half way through and I went home drunk off my ass with a duck. I still have no idea where the duck came from.”
“What kind of duck was it?”
“I don’t know…. A brown one.”
“You might have picked it up off the ground. The duck might have been entirely unrelated to the party.”
“Why would a duck let me pick it up?” Jimmy sighed, picking up a few of the pictures.
“Rape flights,” House set the picture down, “after ducks pair off to get jiggy with it, there are often mallards that are left without a partner. These loner males will sometimes group up and chase after a loner female… rather than just asking for her number… and pester, peck and chase her until she’s too weak to fly anymore. At that point, the group of males will take turns mating with her, then leave her in her weakened state. They’ll fuck the dead, too.”
“…You remember that, but you don’t remember me, or your life… I don’t buy it.”
House shrugged, “There isn’t necessarily a rhyme or reason to what I remember and what I don’t.”
“You’d prefer to remember duck sex.”
“I don’t think preference has anything to do with it,” House picked up another picture, “maybe duck sex is relevant in some way.”
“In what crazy world would duck sex be relevant?”
“In what crazy would I have intense dreams about a dead woman, who was apparently your girlfriend, night after night?”
“Maybe you need to address your guilt about her death.”
“My guilt about her death. Ok. Here, let me address it. As I’ve come to understand it, she died of amantadine poisoning, after her kidney’s failed, due to trauma sustained in a bus accident,” House looked up at the ceiling, “let’s see. Did I prescribe the amantadine?”
“No.”
“Did I force her to take an extra dose?”
“No.”
“Was I driving the bus?”
“No, but…”
“Was I driving the garbage truck?”
“She wouldn’t have been on the bus, if…”
“If what? If she hadn’t followed me onto it? Well, gee, if she hadn’t gotten on the bus, maybe I would have just died and you wouldn’t be sitting here right now accusing me of being a liar.”
“Because you are a liar, House! She wouldn’t have followed you onto the bus if you hadn’t ditched out on your tab and forgotten your cane!”
“She also wouldn’t have followed me on the bus if you’d come to pick me up.”
“What, you’re trying to pin this on me, now? I was working, House! She tried to do something nice, and died for it! If you hadn’t been in the bar---”
“I wouldn’t have been in that damned bar if you had paid any fucking attention to me!” House found himself shouting, “If you’d just… paid me a minute’s notice, instead of ditching out on me every time I needed you, or letting the stupid custody battle go on…you were mine first, you were just too stupid to realize it!”
“...Are you remembering this, House, or are you slipping up?”
“Shut up!” House continued to shout, “What’s more, during that whole fuck up, I risked my life for her and I didn’t even like her. I risked my life for her, because you asked me to. You asked me too, and then you walked away from me. I could have died!”
“You didn’t! She did!”
“Fuck you, Jimmy! Just… fuck you!”
Jimmy looked at him in silence, biting his lip, “…Greg…”
“Get the fuck away from me,” House snarled, throwing a handful of the pictures at Jimmy, “just… get out.”
“Greg,” Jimmy stood up and reached for him, “Greg, please. Just… stop. Alright? I think I get it. I think… I understand this.”
“Well, please enlighten me.”
“I think… this… all of this, is because we never really talked about Amber, or what happened after and… some things got brought up, in the first twenty-four hours after the accident…” Jimmy held out his hands beseechingly, “why don’t we both calm down, and just… talk about it?”
“Calm down? Fuck…”
“I’m not going to accuse you of lying, anymore. I’m just… we’re going to talk about this.”
“Fucking talk, then.”
“Alright… Amber was…” Jimmy sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, “Amber was the perfect wo--”
“You’re seriously starting like that? Thanks.”
“How else do you want me to start?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just let me finish, ok? Amber was the perfect woman for me. She didn’t need me like the others did, and she taught me a lot about myself. It… ruined me, when she died. I didn’t know what to do with myself and… I did a lot of selfish things.”
“I’ll say.”
“Greg, please…”
“Fine. Go on.”
“I have trouble letting go, and she… she was gone. I was trying everything to try and hold on to her. You’ve been such a permanent fixture in my life, I didn’t even… you’ve always seemed like you were immortal, like you could do anything and come out without a scratch. When you started to seize… and then went into a coma… I didn’t know what to do. I ran.”
“You took a hell of a long time to run.”
“I know… I didn’t know how to let go of you.”
“So you devalued me.”
“….Greg… I came back…”
“That doesn’t matter, does it? You… you’ve never told me once, that you were sorry for asking me to kill myself for your dead girlfriend. You’ve never told me once that you were sorry for walking out of my life. You’ve never given me the chance.”
“…I’m with you now. I love you.”
“That doesn’t mean that you’ve forgiven me. For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t even my fault.”
“If it wasn’t your fault, why do you need me to forgive you?”
“Because obviously you think it was my fault.”
They both fell silent, Greg staring at Jimmy and Jimmy looking down at his expensive French shoes.
“Fine. I forgive you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Greg, I forgive you,” Jimmy looked at him, his brown eyes watering, “please… can we just stop this? I don’t want to deal with this anymore…”
“I didn’t want to have to be reminded of Amber’s death and how it was my fault every time I turned around, but there we are. You know what’s real sick about all of this? You… you tormented me about it, without even really saying anything, you just… wouldn’t let me live it down.”
“Greg, that’s not true…”
“And I’m supposed to feel better because you’re with me now? You love me now? Boy, it feels great to be the consolation prize.”
“Greg…”
“Emotion’s one hell of a good trigger for memory, you know that, right? Fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said quietly, “I’m sorry I hurt you, I just… didn’t know what to do.”
“So you chased me around until I couldn’t fight anymore.”
“What?”
“Quack, quack, Jimmy. There is a good reason to remember duck sex.”
“You’re trying to say I raped you now?” Jimmy looked at him, aghast, “Greg, I never…”
“Not physically. Emotionally.”
“….Jesus…”
“He’s not in today. Hi, Greg House. How can I help you?”
“Fuck you, Greg,” Jimmy stood up, wiping his eyes, “I thought everything was alright, and now you’re… you’re doing this? What about our life together?”
“If this was what my life was like, why would I want to remember it?” House looked up at him, “Why would I want to remember being blamed for something that was out of my control, every time I turned a corner? Why would I want to remember constantly being questioned about whether or not something was all in my head, and constantly be treated like a fucking lunatic? Why would I want to remember being in pain, all the time? It just doesn’t seem worth it.”
“I love you, Greg. Wouldn’t you want to remember that?”
“Not if love came at a price.”
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 09:52 pm (UTC)I'll put some different music on and get right on that.
**Alternate ending now included at the bottom of this section.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:03 pm (UTC)There was a request above for an alternate ending that didn't end in you destroyed, so... hopefully I'll have that up in... an hour. I'll probably attach it to this post because I'm a lazy bastard.
**alternate ending now included at the end of this section.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:12 pm (UTC)Until now. This fic has done it. This fic has achieved the previously unattainable. I have wept for this ending. I didn't expect it, I didn't see it coming, and honestly, I don't think I even understand how this ending works, but it was done so. Damn. Well. That I cried, despite having no idea what was going on. It was gorgeous. Sure, I wish the ending would have been happy, because we all want happy endings, but life isn't like that, and neither is this fic, but it's beautiful anyway.
Thank you. It was great.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:22 pm (UTC)I don't think I even understand how this ending works...despite having no idea what was going on.
Ahhh. Right there. I get how this works, but that's because I understand my own rambling way of story telling. Because of this 'not working' issue, and a request up above, I'm writing an alternate ending to this right now and hope to have it up in the next half hour to an hour.
**alternate ending now included at the end of this chapter
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:10 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading. I'm glad that you enjoyed it, and that it was unexpected. Thank you for your compliments.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:11 pm (UTC)There is now an alternate ending included at the end of this section.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:17 pm (UTC)Thank you. :)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:45 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I'll write more on this because it puts my muse in a generally bad mood and was getting to the point of being like pulling teeth if he wasn't yelling at Wilson. I may write something else entirely different tonight.
We updated the RP (we, being Shelly, because she does that) so you have more to read!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 11:46 pm (UTC)Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 12:43 am (UTC)Yeah, I am mean. Never claimed to be anything but.
Thanks. ;) I'm glad you've enjoyed this story. Poor Pixie!Wilson. *noms him*
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 01:50 am (UTC)No. Sorry. I did two runs at it already, and happy doesn't seem to be in the cards.
It is what it is.
I may or may not write some fluff or smut this evening/tomorrow morning, depending on how I feel.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 02:23 am (UTC)Obviously mine, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 03:28 am (UTC)I really hope to see more stories from you in the future. <3
no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 03:45 am (UTC)There'll be more. I can't promise fluff, but I can promise more writing.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 03:43 am (UTC)Thank you so much for writing and sharing.
(One tiny thing... I found this: Jimmy sighed and walked over to the chair by Jimmy’s bed,...)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 03:46 am (UTC)Thank you for commenting, and for corrections!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 05:53 am (UTC)both ending were extremely sad.
but the second one UGGHHH ending it THEEERRRRRREEEEEEE!?!?!?
*spazzes out*
no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 08:24 pm (UTC)