Author: Regency

Title: Knee-Jerk

Fandom: House, M.D.

Pairing: House/Wilson friendship

Spoilers: None.

Rating: PG at most for a few words.

Word count: 1,920

Summary: After an accident, Wilson learns all he needs to know about living with chronic pain.

Author’s Notes: Written for the comment_fic prompt House, House/Wilson, Wilson experiences House's pain for a day.

AN II: Bring on the constructive criticism. (I hope the ending isn’t too confusing, but if it is, I’ll explain.)

Disclaimer: House, M.D. is the property of David Shore, the Fox Network, et al. I own nothing and have made no money in the writing or distribution of this story.  No copyright infringement is intended.

~!~

The doctor—not House, not Cuddy; immediately not someone he trusted—told him that it was temporary. The limb was functional and could support some of his weight. But there would be pain.

                Wilson vaguely recalled nodding in response.  He’d still been a little dim from the incident then, and he wasn’t much clearer now, but he remembered nodding.  His leg had been tightly bound and he’d been sent on his way care of an orderly and a wheelchair. He wasn’t totally sure how he’d gotten home, yet here he was.

                There’d be pain. The hack had gotten that right.

                He lay on his couch, curled protectively around his bandaged leg. It prickled like threatening danger. His knee was locked, his toes curled. He was afraid to move for fear of how bad it would be. The drugs hadn’t dimmed that recollection, that memory he had. He’d felt it in his sleep, a growling soreness emanating from underneath his skin.  It left him breathless when he so much as stretched; therefore he didn’t stretch.

                The sun was rising. He spied an exhausting illumination assaulting his blinds for entry. He hoped they wouldn’t give. He couldn’t cover his face without releasing his leg. Releasing his leg meant an increase in circulation and he was not prepared for what that would bring.

                I don’t even remember where the drugs are, he thought, making a half-hearted attempt to see.  He couldn’t lift his head more than six inches. He was immediately overcome with fatigue and put it down once more. He thought of all the appointments that filled the neat square spaces on his day planner. He had patients that were desperate for an answer; most who were desperate for a cure, some who were simply dancing the old dance steps but this time to a funeral dirge.  They would all need different things from him today. None of which he had to give.

                At least, not until he found his pills.

~!~

                He’d never considered the act of flying to involve plummeting, but plummet he did.  To the floor of his rent-controlled apartment, he’d all but soared from the protective cushions of his couch.

                He swore the air blue and clutched his leg like the fucking golden ticket. I will not cry, he told him. It’s just pain.  Five minutes of determined blinking later, he nearly believed it.

                Bracing himself on the coffee table, he dragged himself onto his one good leg.  It trembled under its grand new burden, but he hesitated even to let the other touch the ground. Traveling from the living room to his bathroom was akin to dragging a sunken anchor to the Indian Ocean from the Rio Grande.

                By the time he’d collapsed on the lowered toilet lid, Wilson had a whole new appreciation for amputees.  Phantom pain has to got to be better than this.

                He shaved without the aid of the mirror he couldn’t stand long enough to see.

~!~

                He would have fallen on his face stepping out of the elevator if one of the specialists from neurology hadn’t reached out to catch him just in time.

                “Are you all right, Dr Wilson,” he’d said. “Can I help you get to your office,” he’d asked, sincerity, solicitousness, and pity amalgamated into such a smog that Wilson wanted to vomit.  He’d grimaced instead and waved away the other man’s generous offer. He’d gotten nothing but generosity today, so much generosity that he would gladly bludgeon a bag of kittens if it meant he could travel the building unmolested, regardless of his greatly impaired mobility.

                He didn’t want to be touched or caught or supported. He was tired of being the center of attention every time he walked into a room.  He just wanted to sit in a chair with his files and work, preferably with a dozen Percocet on hand.  He’d found that sitting or staggering around on his bad leg for too long were the quickest ways to find himself face down on the floor.  When the leg had had enough, it simply gave out.  As House would have and had already said, “Warnings are for sissies.”  Wilson thought his leg clearly subscribed to House’s newsletter.

                He leaned on his medically prescribed crutches and continued his trek down the hall.  He felt every step like a sledgehammer to the teeth and he was gaining a new appreciation for dental defenders. If he gritted his teeth any harder, he wouldn’t have any, and how ever would he grin and bear it then?

                House had already accused him of being the happy martyr for the handi-capable cause once today. Given his growing penchant for slamming his crutches into the hospital’s very expensive glass doors, Wilson didn’t think he’d qualify as a happy anything for much longer.

                More than he wanted to heal his patients, more than he wanted to antagonize his oldest friend, he wanted to curl up in a dark corner and die. If death would be the end of whatever cataclysm had overtaken his leg, he was just about ready to sign on the dotted line and get it over with.  Although it was supposed to be temporary, the doctor had never actually specified how long ‘temporary’ was supposed to be.  It felt like forever.

                It had been thirty-six hours.

~!~

                He spent lunch on the floor of his office.

                The leg had gone on strike and Wilson had been dragged along for the ride, what remained of his meal scattered and splattered across his previously-pristine carpet.

                He didn’t try to reach for the phone or swipe at the mess. He was too tired to make the effort at normalcy.  He hadn’t wanted to get up today, but he had, because somewhere people had needed him. He hadn’t wanted to order lunch for him and House, or pay for it, but he had, because that was what best friends did.  He had because that was what House had expected, and who was he but James Wilson, Rational Man himself—Mr. Fucking Predictable, he mused.

                He tried not to contemplate whether he was more upset that House had blown him off or more upset that he’d fallen on his ass and House hadn’t even been around to laugh.  That would have been routine and Wilson could have handled that. He could have handled being poked with a cane and being the recipient of a dubiously long-suffering sigh as House shuffled off to find some able-bodied soul to do his bidding. The production House would have made of that would have been fine, the day would have continued and Wilson would have had another thing to scowl about when the day was through.

                It was pathetic what happened instead.  He could smell the marinara sauce staining the fabric on the base of his couch.  He thanked God that he’d opted for water instead of tea and wished for scotch right now.  He wanted to wash it down with a Percocet or two or six.  Medical learning be damned, he imagined it’d feel good.  He envisioned the rosy haze for a cool forty-five minutes before his back began to ache.  He clung to the image for a quarter-hour more before anyone came.

                The anyone in question was the last anyone he was in the mood to see. He considered smacking his bad leg with the crutch that was surprisingly within reach. He’d lain on the floor for an hour, not for a lack of assistance, but for a lack of motivation. He’d surrendered to his defects because it was so much easier than defying them.

                This day had been too long.  He couldn’t do this again tomorrow.

~!~

                He spent that night on House’s couch, leg elevated on the armrest and a much-appreciated beer at the tip of his fingers.  He sipped it all night—he was a lightweight, but his leg felt lighter.

                He wiled away the hours in his head, picturing the jogging path near the hospital, picturing the physical therapy room, picturing anything that meant that he was Mr. Predictable again, that he was Mr. Whole.  He even saw himself on his hands and knees scrubbing the tomato stains out of his carpet with an old trick his mother had taught him.  He was a good man with two good legs in his head.

                He wanted so much to be that man again outside of it.

                While he drifted, the TV played like intoxicating background noise, courtesy of House: the Playboy Channel.  Bouncing blobs and giggling amoeboids had captivated his friend for the majority of the evening.  One of the most brilliant minds in medicine and this is what he considers entertainment. 

He might have laughed were he not afraid of shattering the fragile peace he had brokered with his injured limb.  If he was still, if he never breathed too deeply, he could be free of pain.  A statue with a beating heart, but free.

                He took the deal.

                It wasn’t something he could have done forever, he thought, forgoing movement or convenience for the sake of relief.  Although it would have been easiest just to reach for the remote and change the channel, he knew better.  Although it would have been just as painless to have House replace his lukewarm brew as to get it himself, he drank slowly to save them both the bother.

                Wilson may have just joined the club but House was the founder.

                He could hear the rustling of denim as House rubbed at his mangled thigh. Phantom pain is very real, Wilson reflected. There was still something to be said for amputees.

                He had the sudden urge, need, compulsion to move, to sit upright and face his friend.  Here he was, a day in and wilting under the weight of his new companion called pain. House had done it for years, had borne the burden with a trademark grimace and stoicism that would impress Neanderthals.  He had endured.

                Wilson had the urge to clear the cobwebs in his head and see his friend.  When he moved to sit up suddenly the world went gray and his leg howled.  He dropped onto his back, grimaced and bore it. His knee twitched as neurons fired and misfired, his toes curled, and he momentarily blacked out.  He couldn’t breathe.

He’d forgotten in his bliss that immobility was as big an enemy as overuse.  He’d forgotten that he wasn’t whole. Hell, he’d forgotten that he wasn’t House.

Another ‘temporary’ day of this, Wilson thought might kill him.

House would be feeling it for the rest of his life.

Wilson wanted to face his friend and explain all the things he understood now that he never had before.  He wanted to give back every pill he’d ever hidden, take back every—well, most—ignorant declarations he’d made.  He wanted to be the support that House was, albeit broodingly, acting as right now.

These were all things Wilson would have leapt to do if he could have done. Except, he was too tired now, and maybe even too scared.

His leg spasmed again and, just as pain-induced floaters filled his vision, he felt another bottle, sweating glass, land in his hand. The first sip was greater than he’d remembered, but he thought it would have been better with meds coursing through his veins.

He’d tell House everything tomorrow, he swore, if he could survive another night of this.

He passed out to the echo of staggering steps and a playmate blowing a kiss.