April Fools (1/?)

[mmorgan317.livejournal.com]

Title: April Fool’s
Author: mmorgan317 (LJ) or pisces317 (FF)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What happens when House plays an April Fool’s joke on Wilson and it goes wrong?
Spoilers:
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them.
Author's Notes: Got this idea from the question on LJ about April Fool’s jokes that had gone awry

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“Ow!”

 

“Hm, that felt squishy.” House replied before he tentatively jumped on the floor, “Nope, that’s not squishy. Do you think there was a sponge on the floor?”

 

“House that was my foot!” Wilson groaned as hesitantly placed weight on his foot. Hissing in pain, he retracted the leg quickly.

 

“What’s with you?” House accused questioningly. Normally when he’d do something like this, they’d be able to joke about it even if Wilson was grumpy and/or hurt. He was annoyed that things weren’t going according to plan.

 

“I told you this morning that I’d hurt my foot while jogging,” Wilson scolded annoyed, “how did you think it was a good idea to put all your weight onto your cane while placing it on my already injured foot?”

 

“I wasn’t listening this morning; tuned you out at the first whine.” House answered, grabbing a fry from Wilson’s plate.

 

“How could you not have been listening, you asked me what was wrong?”

 

“Come on, you’ve known me how long and you still can’t tell when I’m just being polite?”

 

Wilson stared slack-jawed at his friend. It had never occurred to him that House hadn’t actually cared. He cocked his head minutely to the right – then again, House’s eyes had held more boredom than concern. Why is it he always finds himself in relationships with people that he cares about but that don’t give a crap about him?

 

“Fine.” He said with a hand showing he surrendered. Wilson didn’t speak to House for the rest of lunch, which was fine with the diagnostician. They ate in comfortable yet angry silence with each knowing that Wilson would forgive House before the meal ended.

 

Sure enough, as soon as they began limping out the doors of the cafeteria, Wilson caved.

 

“You coming over tonight?” House asked casually while they headed in the direction of the diagnostics offices.

 

“You paying?” Wilson countered.

 

House laughed mockingly, “Yeah, sure.”

 

“With your own money.” Wilson added knowing exactly what his friend was referring to.

 

“Oh, then no. But I can provide good porn and wonderful company.” The older man bargained, blinking his eyes innocently at Wilson.

 

“Fine, yeah I’ll come. You provide the beer and call in the food.” Wilson countered before he veered in the direction of his office.

 

“Where are you going?” House asked confused.

 

“I need caffeine and since my coffee cup is in here, I thought I’d grab it before I tried pouring the coffee.” Wilson reasoned sarcastically.

 

House just rolled his eyes and headed for his office. Before he’d left, the elevator dinged open allowing a bald-headed resident to exit then head straight for Wilson’s office. House inwardly snickered. Wilson wouldn’t be getting a cup of coffee anytime soon which was good since it would give him enough time to plan his next move.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wilson collapsed into his desk chair, scrubbing his hands over his head. He’d just escorted his last patient, Mr. Tyler, out of his office and felt exhausted.

 

Last night had been spent tossing and turning so when his alarm had squawked that it was time to get up, Wilson had been tempted to throw it against the wall and take pleasure in seeing the machine smash into pieces.

 

Alas, he didn’t do it. Instead, he dragged his overly exhausted body out of the warm, comfortable bed and got ready for his morning jog. Over the last couple of years his health had begun to decline so when he’d had a heart attack last year, freaking everyone including himself out, he’d begun to get healthier including changing his diet, though he did have the occasional fry, and exercise.

 

He soon found that he enjoyed the early morning jogs. They helped energize him for the day, clear his mind of any problems he might be having and feel a little more confident in bed.

 

Due to lack of sleep he hadn’t been watching where he was going this morning and had stepped half on, half off the curb, twisting his foot and spraining his ankle. Since he knew House wasn’t about to get out of bed, only to have to drive a couple of miles, Wilson began his slow limp back home more than grateful that he’d been on his way back when the accident had happened.

 

House had been, amazingly enough, awake by the time he’d gotten home, noticed the limp with what seemed to Wilson to be disgust then asked what happened. The oncologist had waved off the accident, managing to avoid the embarrassing taunts from his friend for the reason, then downplayed his injuries. House didn’t seem to really care that much anyways.

 

Thankfully half of Wilson’s job is sitting so it had been easy to keep any inquiries to a bare minimum, most of them happening only when he hadn’t already been sitting at his desk which, given the amount of paperwork that was stacked on top of it, hadn’t been all that often.

 

As his eyelids began to droop, Wilson shook himself hoping to wake his body up. He stood up, grimacing when pain shot through his foot and ankle, then grabbed his coffee cup and headed next door to fill it.

 

He walked in to find House pushing a chair towards a bookcase. “What are you doing?”

 

“I need a book so I thought I’d grab it.” House answered, sliding the chair up against the case.

 

“Yes because you’re equipped to stand on a chair and reach for a book,” Wilson scoffed, “let me do it.” He nudged his friend out of the way then stood on the chair and grabbed the one and only book that had been askew. “Why did you put a book up here anyways?”

 

Little did he know that House had heard him coming so, he’d fixed the chair so that it was weak on the right side. As the oncologist fell, his right leg slipped out from under him, landing hard on the carpeted floor with a sickening crunch.

 

Wilson cried out in pain as the bones in his ankle broke. With tear covered eyes he looked up at House as the pieces of the puzzle fit in place, “You did that on purpose?!” He demanded, panting in heavily in pain.

 

House painfully knelt down next to his friend, “Oh quite being a baby and let me see.” Automatically he could tell that the shoe and sock had to come off, so with one quick yank, he pulled. His heart shattered into pieces at Wilson’s pained cry but he kept the stoic mask of indifference on. There’d be time for emotions after they got Wilson taken care of.

 

Gently he palpitated the ankle, wincing when he felt the bones grind under his touch. He’d guessed that the ankle had been broke from the eggplant bruising and size alone but he wouldn’t be a doctor if he hadn’t checked.

 

Wilson whined and groaned under House’s touch while tears fell down his face. The chainsaw of pain threatened to cut through his reserve but he tried to keep it together. Briefly he wondered of something else was wrong; he’d broken his ankle before and it had never hurt this bad. Maybe he was just getting old and his tolerance for pain was beginning to diminish.

 

House pulled out his cell phone and sent Chase a text telling him to grab some pain meds, a couple ice packs and a wheelchair then slammed it shut and focused his attention on his patient and friend. An unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling akin to guilt stabbed the broken pieces of his heart, stringing them up for display.

 

Mentally he berated himself. He should have known better than to pull of this prank. Had Wilson not already been injured, things may have been fine but he’d told House, twice in fact, that he’d hurt his foot and, judging by just how much bruising and swelling there was, he’d also injured his ankle.

 

It was just supposed to be a harmless April Fool’s joke, no one was supposed to get hurt; least of all Wilson.

 

Though he’d rather die than show it, he cared about and loved the oncologist with all that his Grinch Heart could give. He knew that at times it wasn’t enough for Wilson but no matter what, he stayed with House.

 

It had been over a year since they’d begun their relationship and while it was never a smooth ride, there were more good times than bad. House guessed that it had something to do with the fact they still kept their own apartments but Wilson speculated that it was just because them in a relationship and them being friends wasn’t all that different.

 

A puzzled but concerned Chase entered the conference room doors, blue eyes scanning anxiously for his boss thoroughly expecting him to be on the floor in agony. He was taken aback when he found House kneeling next to Wilson, who seemed to be the one in agony.

 

Without comment, Chase handed his boss the ice packs which House promptly wrapped around his friend’s ankle, securing it with the ACE bandage he’d taken off the ankle earlier to examine it.

 

“What happened?” Chase asked, the concern he felt coming through loud and clear along with his Australian accent.

 

“He fell.” House summarized, pushing Wilson’s right shirt sleeve up before plunging the contents of pain medication from a syringe into his veins.

 

Chase stepped around them to inspect the chair that had obviously caused the fall. His eyes slit when he’d noticed that two tiny, new screws were loose in one of the legs. “Did you trick him?”

 

House met Chase’s eyes with a smirk, “After all these years, I love how I can still shock you.”

 

“He’s your best friend,” Chase began while pointing at a barely conscious Wilson, “and you tricked him, knowing he was already injured?” His question was disbelieving but his tone was disgust.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I'm a bad friend. Can you save the lecture for after we get Wilson into the wheelchair?” House snapped.

 

Together, they managed to get a groggy and pained Wilson into the chair. The oncologist managed to help by keeping weight off his injured foot then balancing on his own while Chase brought the wheelchair over and House cleaned up the mess he'd made.

 

Wilson hadn't been very coherent due to pain then pain meds but he'd managed to hear Chase lecture House about his actions. The memory made him smile. Sure, he and Chase weren't close friends but knowing that someone else seemed to give a damn helped cheer him up despite the pain.

 

The trip to Radiology hadn't been fun. Not only did people keep staring at Wilson, openly none the less, but every bump jarred his injured ankle, sending short bursts of pain through his leg. The ice had helped dull things considerably but it was starting to melt and therefore the numbing effects were wearing off.

 

Surprisingly, House stayed quiet throughout the whole trip to, during and from radiology. Wilson began to worry that something was truly wrong, House was never silent for this long. Chase was known for his ability to keep silent, particularly when it came to anything to do with House and Wilson outside of work. It was one of House's favorite qualities about the Intensivist.

 

Settled back in his own office on the couch with his right leg elevated on top of two pillows, a splint on his ankle and two ice packs surrounding it, Wilson picked up his first batch of paperwork to review. Unfortunately, he had assumed right. The ankle had been badly broken; one of the broken bones had been grating on his nerve which caused half of the pain. The other half was caused by a ruptured Achilles tendon which had been the result of his previous sprain being aggravated further.

 

He had an appointment for a week from now in which he'd have to baby the ankle extremely by keeping it constantly elevated so that the extreme swelling would go down. If it went down enough, the podiatrist would schedule surgery to repair the damage done then when the incision was fully healed, they'd cast the ankle.

 

A knock on his door brought Wilson out of his thoughts. Chase entered, albeit hesitantly. “How are you doing?”

 

Wilson smiled. Though Chase tries to hide it, he cares just as much as Cameron does, he just knows when to express it. “I'm okay.” Wilson told him sincerely.

 

Chase raised a questioning eyebrow, “Really?”

 

“Yeah,” Wilson chuckled. He didn't blame the man for not believing him. With all his years as House's best friend, he'd learned how to lie pretty well, especially when it came to his own health. “My ankle hurts but it's more a heated throbbing than the white-hot pokers it was earlier.”

 

“Do you need anything?” Chased asked after nodding his head. Inwardly, he was a little worried about the heated throbbing but medically, he knew there was nothing to be concerned about. He wrote it off as him being concerned for a respected colleague and friend. Mentally, he shrugged; Wilson probably didn't consider him a friend but that didn't mean that he didn't consider the oncologist one.

 

“Nah, thanks Chase.” Wilson answered with a sigh. The papers he'd been trying to read for the last thirty minutes fell out of his hands then slipped onto the floor with the grace of a feather floating on the air and landing in water. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back then brought his left hand up to his forehead to knead his temples where a headache had been building.

 

Chase stepped further into the office and picked up the papers. Handing them to Wilson, he frowned when he noticed the slight grimace of pain on the older man's face and the way said man massaged his head. “I'll get you some Tylenol for the headache.”

 

Before Wilson could argue that he didn't need it, Chase was gone, shutting the door softly behind him. Awkwardly, he shuffled down further on the couch so he could lean his head on the pillow which lay supported by the arm. He let out a groan when the balcony door opened, the April breeze caressing his face and the smells of flowers filling his nostrils.

 

“Sleeping on the job?!” House exclaims with a loud, fake gasp. “Won't your immunocompromised kiddies die if you take a break?”

 

“You should have thought about that before you decided to try an break my ankle.” Wilson grumbled.

 

“I don't care if they die. In fact, it'd probably be better for all if they went ahead with it-”

 

“House!” Wilson's sharp scold had the desired effect of stopping his friend from continuing his diatribe. Unfortunately it also made his headache kick up a notch, slowing making its way to a migraine. With a groan, he brought his hand back up to his head and began to massage again.

 

“Headache?” House asked, wincing by how stupid that question had been since it was obvious his friend's head hurt.

 

“Yeah.” The oncologist answered simply too tired to play verbal tennis with House.

 

“Chase going to get you something?”

 

Wilson opened his eyes and turned his head to look at House. “How did you know he was here?”

 

“Jimmy, you should know by now that I stalk you intensely. Besides, after the mini-lecture he gave earlier I guessed that he'd be in here to check on you shortly after we got you settled.” House explained absently. “Actually, he lasted longer than I thought he would.”

 

“Jealous?” Wilson joked.

 

House's eyes flashed briefly in anger, “No. The sap can't help but care about people.”

 

“Well I would apologize for giving a crap but I'm not sure you know what the emotion feels like.” Chase's voice interrupted. While he leaned against the door pouring out relaxation, the tone in his voice indicated that he was still mad at House for his earlier stunt.

 

“Be careful Wombat, I can still fire you.” House warned not happy about the amount of attention he seemed to give his lover. He didn't care if Chase challenged him openly or privately but his determination to weasel himself into House's place in Wilson's life irked him more than he wanted to admit.

 

Chase ignored the threat and walked in to Wilson's office, handing him a couple of Tylenol and a bottle of water. “Here, they should help with the headache.”

 

“I think he already knows that. He does have and MD after his name and everything.” House snarked.

 

Wilson smiled despite the hostility in the room. He thought it was annoyingly sweet the way House seemed to be marking his territory without actually saying anything. “Thanks Chase.”

 

“Yeah, thanks Chase. Now get out.” House added.

 

Chase glared at House but remained where he was. “Let me know if you need anything.” He offered, earning a grateful smile from Wilson, then left.

 

“You should be nicer to Chase.” Wilson lectured, loving brown eyes boring into jealous blue. “He'll be the one saving you from having to listen to my whining.”

 

House winced at the amount of bitterness that had seeped into Wilson's latter sentence. Some part of his brain registered that his words earlier and his refusal to acknowledge that the oncologist had been injured had hurt his friend but the rest ignored the jab. “Well, in that case I should give him a raise and send him to be your personal secretary for the next eight weeks.”

 

“House, I'll be fine after two.” Wilson reminded, not commenting on the idea otherwise.

 

“That doesn't mean that you won't be whining about something. God knows I don't want to deal with it.” House countered.

 

Wilson tried to hide the pain that sentence caused him but it hadn't worked very well judging by the way his friend's eyes softened then looked away. “Don't you have a patient?”

 

House felt his heart plummet into his stomach. Twenty years of friendship allowed him to easily translate that as a dismissal under the guise of concerned curiosity. “Nope, solved it. It actually was Lupus.” He said relaying his amazement. “But you're right, I should get back. Wouldn't want Chase spreading nasty rumors. I'll be back to take you home.”

 

Wilson gave a nod then leaned his head back against the pillow, shutting his eyes against the light and pain in the other man's eyes. He knew he'd hurt House but right now, he didn't really care. Some selfish part of him felt that House deserved to be hurt given all that he'd put Wilson through today.

 

Silently House got up and left, casting a sad glance at the back of Wilson's head before exiting to his own office.