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Crimson and Cerulean
by Neurotic Cat Goddess
Disclaimer: I don't own House; FOX does. I make no profit from this.
Summary: What if House had done more than OD on Christmas Eve
"I just wanted to say Merry Christmas," he managed, and hung up the phone before goodbye could force its way out, or worse, I love you.
He didn't wonder what his parents would think when they got home (if they hadn't heard by then) and heard the message. Would they listen to it again and again? More likely they would delete it without thinking.
He grabbed the glass, idly studying the patterns of refracted light, and downed the remaining contents. Then he dropped it on the floor, and watched as it shattered into tiny pieces.
A shaking hand reached out, grabbed the pills. He could hear them rattling around inside, but when he looked down into the orange bottle, he frowned. There were only six left- or was it four? He wasn't sure. They were moving so fast.
This didn't matter, anyway. He downed all four (six?) of the pills, not bothering to wash them down with anything. He was out of scotch.
For some reason, the knife was playing tricks on him. It seemed to curve and bend as he picked it up. It shone with a kaleidoscope of colors, and he dropped is as if he'd been burned.
How strange, that the knife was colored. It seemed to be pulling the color through the air out of everything else in the room. Was that why the room was spinning? Because it was losing its color? This made no sense to House, even in his drugged state. He could not shake the feeling that he was missing something, that something was wrong. His brow furrowed as he tried to stay above the tide rushing through his skull.
There was something- he was forgetting something. His lazy smile faded as he tried to concentrate through the hazy blur. Then another swell of contentment hit him, and everything melted away.
He did not know how long he lay there, dizzy, drunk, falling from fantasy to nightmare and back again, a thousand times over.
He was sure of only one thing. The pain would return.
Oh, it was gone now, swept away by the same tide that obliterated his thoughts, his feelings, everything he was. Who was he, then? He tried not to bother himself with difficult questions.
He couldn't remember what the pain felt like, or what anything, beyond the ecstasy of being elsewhere, felt like. At this point, he wasn't sure of anything.
Maybe the pain was just a dream, too?
Even as he thought that, he felt his leg twinge. Just a tiny pain, barely noticeable. If he had been thinking clearly he would have recognized it as psychosomatic. He wasn't thinking clearly, though.
The pain would come back. That was inevitable. No matter what he did, no matter how far he fled into himself, the pain always returned. For now, though, it was gone. He didn't feel any pain in his leg, probably because he had forgotten he had a leg. He had forgotten everything, and it was nice.
He never wanted this to end. Just the thought of it, of the pain, of having to leave this blissful dream, was enough to bring some clarity to his mind.
He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't.
He knew, in that moment, with absolute certainty, that there was nothing left for him there, in that hard-edged, pain-filled world.
He had suffered. He had survived. But this was the end of the line.
Somehow he managed to sit up. A blanket of light seemed to cover everything, and then he could see nothing at all as black spots swarmed across his vision and cxrawled into his mind.
He gripped the edge of the table, hard, swaying and shaking as his vision slowly cleared.
He opened his eyes (when had he closed them? HE could not remember) and everything was strangely lit, flickering and dancing, like the walls and furniture were made of fire. Then everything coalesced into one instant, one point of light, and he looked.
There, on the table was the knife (how did it get there? Had he put it there? He must have, but memory escaped him). The knife was colorless now, except for the moments when it seemed red. No. The red would come later.
It was beautiful. He stared at the knife, as strange bits of light swam in front of his eyes and he felt himself sinking slowly into what seemed like molasses, and it took all his strength just to life his hand.
When he finally curled his fingers, slowly, one by one, around the knife, it felt cold in his grasp.
This more than anything reminded his of why he had no choice, and he felt a an echo of a memory tugging at him.
He was missing something. Something was wrong.
The tide pushed that thought from his mind like a cobweb, and the knife traveled toward his arm, dragging his hand along. When he finally, almost tentatively, brushed the blade across his wrist (it slipped. I didn't mean it) and he tilted his head and wondered at the waterfall of red that slowly seeped out, and-
The shrill ring of the phone pushed through the churning emptiness in his mind, and a part of him knew this was not the first time the phone had rung tonight, but then the roaring in his ears drowned out the sound, and if he could not hear it, it was not there. So simple. So very simple.
The cutting was supposed to make him happy, somehow (he had forgotten how) but he felt nothing.
There was nothing left of him anymore. No thoughts, no emotions, only one simple desire. I will not let the pain return. He ha d lived without it, once. He had made a place for himself in the sharp-edged, brightly lit world that everyone else inhabited with such ease.
No more. The pain would not return because he would not let it, and there was only one way to be sure of that.
The ringing phone threw out a line to him in the shifting sea of nothingness, and the part of him that kept trying to tell him (you're forgetting something, softly taunting) grabbed onto it, but it was far to fragile to hold the pain at bay.
The line snapped, and he knew. There was nothing left for him anymore, in the world of reason and thought and pain.
He touched the tip of the knife against what looked like rice paper, with something under it trying to get out, and he slowly opened his vein with all the precision of a surgeon, and watched as the sea flowed out of him, and onto the floor.
The color was back in the air again, but it seemed to be converging on one point, the widening ocean that was now the wrong color for an ocean.
He opened his mouth to admonish someone for using the wrong crayon, because weren't oceans supposed to be blue? Or was it green, he wasn't sure. This, this was a red that looked almost purple in the fading light, but he knew, when the sun rose, it would be a bright cherry red (would there be paramedics? Cops? No one?" He liked the last choice best. To simply remain here, untouched, unnoticed.
At rest.
Clearly someone had trouble coloring between the lines, because the red was spreading now, until everything around him was red, and then it all started to get dark, darker and darker as coat after coat of black paint was layered on and he could swear he heard his mother playing Beethoven.
He knew, with a certainty that had evaded him until then, that he was dying.
Everything was dark now, but the point of the knife seemed to be glowing, and he was drawn to it, studying the strange pinpoint of light as the world went dark, and everything seemed to be fading away,
Breathing seemed like such a chore now, and he
tried to remember
he knew he had to-
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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 NBC/Universal, 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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