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pocket/change: ten drabbles about things in pockets
by phinnia
five things greg house carries with him all the time:
leatherman pocket tool.
Dense, heavy, a finely tooled world inside a folding handle: pliers, knife, screwdrivers, scissors, fork, spoon, bottle opener, half a million other things. It replaced the boy scout knife that went missing his second year of pre-med (the tip of its blade blackened from hot-knifing hash). Never mind that he did camping at the Holiday Inn these days. He told himself that with a minibar bottle of gin and a lighter he'd be prepared for anything (like surgeons in Clint Eastwood movies) but really? It was just for the gadget factor. Came in handy picking Cuddy's desk drawer locks though.
bottle of vicodin.
The pills (blessing and curse for a man that believed in neither) were all about time: they kept time with his steps (shake rattle roll, symphony for narcotics in G), marked time by the pain (dull grey ache to bright white fire, crossfading there and back again), took time from his body (erasing seconds, minutes, hours from his years left walking this rock). They were constant, yet they changed: the amber bottle is emptied, filled and emptied again with these little white pills. In America white was the colour of innocence. In China white was the colour of death. Interesting.
keys.
It's not love, but these pieces of metal and plastic that tie the world together: keys for his apartment, Wilson's door key (and the key to his desk, of course), his locker, bike, car, mailbox. Keys for his office, Wilson's office, Cuddy's office (long may she live in ignorance of this). What's better are the keyfobs. The first metatarsal of his Gross Anatomy cadaver, wearing whiter and shinier with each passing year. Carabieners. A faded glitter keychain from that one hotel in Vegas. Stacey's keys left long ago, but he still has keys from every hole Wilson ever crashed in.
iPod.
Modern technology birthed the hold queue, but it also let you hold the blues in the palm of your hand, and that was slightly redeeming. The devices were ubiquitous enough these days that he could accidentally (on purpose) get a glimpse into someone else's head by click-wheeling his way through their playlists: the monotony of Chase's trance and dance beats, Cuddy's peculiar affection for Celine Dion, Cameron's surprisingly trashy books on invisible tape. He was disappointed that Foreman had nothing more adventurous than Billie Holiday. But finding Ace of Base buried in Wilson's show tunes was an unexpected, gleeful bonus.
shark tooth.
Swimming in the Sea of Japan (far away in both distance, time and mind) he would see them circling: salmon sharks, the occasional white - always far away enough to hold no risk, just a feral thrill of fear. Stray teeth would wash up on the beaches, arrowheads among smooth pebbles: some afternoon he palmed one, hasn't let it go since. Sometimes it appeared, the smooth ivory point engraving circles in his hand before it disappeared again. He thought about taking up scrimshaw in those dark hours between night and morning, in case he ever wanted to show Wilson his etchings.
five things james wilson carries with him all the time:
badge.
The picture's outdated these days. He doesn't look at it much but when he does it's like seeing the Ghost of Residency Past, himself with shining eyes and palpable hope that stood in the place of confidence. He remembers the crisp snap of his first white coat and how the then-new namecard shone unscratched under the fluorescents.
He can't remember what woman he was coming home to then without counting backwards, but he remembers one of the older residents sending him off to find a left-handed scalpel and how he'd macguyvered a pair of scissors and a surgical blade together.
mints.
He prefers altoids but in a pinch life savers or tictacs will serve - for late night vigils sometimes he'll splurge and get the new ones with caffeine. He tells himself that it's for the patients, that the sick and dying don't need to know he had onions for lunch, don't need to be distracted by the stench of their doctor's humanity, but he only remembers they're there on his way upstairs as he's smoothing the evidence of his indiscretions out of expensive cotton and silk. Julie thinks he's being kind, but Wilson knows better. Minty fresh - the taste of infidelity.
comb.
House may tease him about it (and does, at every opportunity) but Wilson likes looking good - he can't help it, it's knit into the DNA strands at this point. What Greg doesn't realize is that it doubles as an impromptu instrument: toothed black plastic plus tissue paper makes the perfect thing to distract the wide-eyed waifs in his ward, just offhanded and ridiculous enough to turn chemo-soaked tears upside down into giggles. Anderson didn't find it so funny at the end of last month's board meeting, but he was an ass: Wilson had caught a sly twinkle in Cuddy's eyes.
chai.
In Hebrew it means 'alive'; at Starbucks it sounds different, means tea with spices - an interesting juxtaposition, although on jittery days when he can't take coffee on an empty stomach he can see how they could be the same. The hebrew characters form something that is almost, but not quite, entirely like pi - they've been in his pocket longer than anything else, since his bar mitzvah, in fact. The silvered clips are entangled in his keychain, these days: their original intent was as a tallis clip but he's barely a high-holidays Jew these days. Things are busy. God understands, forgives.
pen.
Another one of his expensive tastes: fountain pens. Wilson has a fetish for office supplies that is at odds with his smeared, slanting handwriting - his thoughts border on the irrational at this point, almost as if a more expensive instrument might make his chicken scratches more legible. It doesn't work; his hand twists awkwardly around the barrel and he thinks writing in Hebrew might be easier. Sometimes Wilson lets the pen flow across his fingers after he's done writing, over and under each finger like a magic trick, and he wonders why House is staring so intently at his hands.
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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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