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Falling Down Drunk
by Evilida
It had been six months since the infarction that ruined Gregory House's life. Six months of unrelenting pain and misery. House still loved Stacy; he knew that he would never stop loving her, but that didn't matter. He couldn't live with her anymore. She had made the decision to go with the treatment that had left him crippled and in pain permanently. She had substituted her own judgement for his. Though he knew intellectually that she had had the best of intentions, emotionally it still felt as if she had betrayed him. He had forgiven Cuddy, who had provided Stacy with medical advice, so he ought to be able to forgive Stacy. He'd tried to forgive her, knew that he would be happier if he could forgive her, but he just couldn't. Finally, his resentment had driven her away.
His friends and co-workers, initially supportive, had also drifted away. They avoided him, unable to cope with his pain and anger. Only Wilson remained. The oncologist put up with House's bile without complaint. Wilson spent hours encouraging House to continue his physiotherapy, monitoring his treatment and above all, listening to House. Other people thought he was a saint.
House knew he wasn't. All this concern had nothing to do with House at all. It was entirely selfish on Wilson's part. He needed a purpose in life and caring for House supplied the purpose. House made it a point never to thank Wilson for anything he did. He wanted Wilson to know that he was only allowed to help on House's sufferance not because House needed him.
The physio had had some effect, and House was back at work, walking with a cane now. His mind was as sharp as ever despite the painkillers he had to take to get through the day. Wilson had done his duty: House was fixed. He was still unhappy, but unhappy in a steady unchanging way that he could cope with. Wilson could go away now and find someone else to help.
Dr. Alvin Stark, who had practiced as an oncologist at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, was retiring after twenty-five years, and a retirement party was being held in his honour. House hardly knew the man, but what he knew of him he didn't like. The man was too conservative in his practice and he gave up too easily. He let patients die rather than try anything risky or new. Still House decided to go to the party: the prospect of free food and drink was too tempting to resist.
House had never gone out of his way to make friends, and since the infarction he'd been the nearest thing the hospital had to a hermit. Cuddy and Wilson he knew well, and he could have named perhaps a half dozen more of the people at the party. He recognized many more that he had seen around the hospital, but he'd never cared enough about them to learn their names.
For some inexplicable reason, Wilson had married Bonnie, a pretty enough woman but an idiot. This evening, Bonnie had trapped Cuddy in a corner and was talking to her, no doubt under the impression that she was helping her husband's career by buttering up his boss. Cuddy looked desperate, but no one rescued her. Wilson had much more tact and sensitivity than his bird-brain wife, and could usually be counted upon to rein Bonnie in when she became unbearable, but he didn't intervene this time.
House spotted Wilson across the room, near the bar. The younger man had a glass in his hand and was swaying slightly. Although it was still early in the evening, Wilson was already drunk. He was acting like a frat boy at his first kegger, rather than a respectable physician. Wilson was telling a story to the barman with an enthusiasm and energy he seldom displayed when sober. Wilson was a different person when he was drunk or angry. His posture was looser, his gestures wilder and more theatrical, but his speech, strangely enough, actually became more precise and articulate. House always found the transformation amusing.
Since the infarction, House had never solicited Wilson's company, since that would imply that he needed the younger man. He had always let Wilson come to him. However, House decided that under the circumstances the rule could be relaxed. No one else at the party was eager to speak to House, who seemed to be surrounded by a three-foot wide "no-go zone" in all directions. As he limped toward the oncologist, the other partiers made way for him without interrupting their conversations or meeting his eyes. House had chosen his social isolation, so he ought to have been satisfied that other people were respecting his wishes. Instead, he felt like an outcast.
Wilson did not back away. Instead he greeted the diagnostician delightedly.
"House!" he said, throwing his arms wide. For one alarmed second, House was afraid that Wilson was going to hug him. The barman, released from conversation, went to serve someone else.
"Wilson," House said cautiously. He gestured for a drink from the barman, who was studiously ignoring him.
"You are such a great friend to me," Wilson said, "and I want you to know I appreciate it. You have a brilliant mind and the most beautiful blue eyes in the universe. I thought my mother's Siamese cat had the most beautiful eyes but I was wrong."
House nodded. He was not used to being in more control than Wilson. It reminded him of when he had been a child and his upright and authoritarian father had a bad case of influenza. To see that strict military man delirious with fever had really shaken him, as if the foundations of his life had trembled slightly. After that, the way he saw his father had changed. He'd seemed just a little bit more human. Now, the same thing was happening with the way he perceived Wilson.
"Do you think Bonnie has pretty eyes? I thought they were pretty, but now I think I was wrong."
"How drunk are you?" House asked. "It's only seven-thirty. Stark hasn't even given his retirement speech yet."
"I have to be drunk to listen to Stark's speech," Wilson said reasonably. "He's a pompous prick and once he starts talking he never shuts up. If I get really drunk now, I won't even remember his awful speech tomorrow."
House couldn't argue with Wilson's logic. He'd endured many staff meetings and speeches he'd love to have erased from his memory.
"I'll get Bonnie to take you home," House said.
He looked around. Bonnie and Cuddy were still talking, and House caught Cuddy's eye, letting her know that relief would soon arrive. He tried to steer Wilson in that direction, but he refused to budge.
"I don't want to go home with Bonnie," he said. "We just sit there and watch television and never talk. Before, she used to have all these problems, and I'd nod my head and tell her that she was smart and pretty. She used to like that."
Wilson was immovable. House gave up and decided to go get Bonnie. Wilson anticipated his move and grabbed his arm.
"I try to make her happy, but I can't. I tell her stories to get her to smile, but she won't smile. She doesn't think I'm funny. Do you think I'm funny, House?"
"Hilarious."
House limped across the room to get Bonnie. Unfortunately, Bonnie refused to co-operate. Wilson's disgraceful behaviour was no concern of hers and she had no intention of leaving the party.
"You can look after him," she said angrily. "He's more your responsibility than mine. You spend more time with him."
She turned back to Cuddy, but the Chief of Medicine had taken advantage of Bonnie's distraction to make her escape.
House looked around for one of his colleagues to help him with Wilson, but the problem with choosing to be a hermit is that when you need help there is no one to ask. Cuddy had disappeared. House reluctantly recognized that Wilson was his problem. Everyone else seemed to be ignoring the fact that the oncologist was determined to drink himself into unconsciousness.
Wilson enjoyed helping other people, but House definitely didn't. He couldn't drag Wilson out of the party, he had to be coaxed. It was slow going.
"Do you know Naomi in the gift shop?" Wilson was standing so close to House that he was almost whispering in his ear. Every time he swayed, House braced himself for a collision.
House shook his head slightly. He concentrated on manoeuvring Wilson past an inattentive waiter carrying a tray full of appetizers. House stared longingly at the free food he was obliged to give up in order to help a self-pitying drunk.
"I think Naomi likes me. She likes me way more than Bonnie does." Wilson made a far-reaching gesture, almost hitting House in the face, to indicate the extent of Naomi's affection for him. "Poor Naomi. She's alone in the world and her dog's sick."
"Tragic," House said. "Every day I thank God that I don't have a sick dog. Or at least I would thank God if He existed."
House and Wilson had finally reached the door. Now came the tricky part. Stark's retirement party was being held in the banquet room of a local restaurant. The banquet room was on the second floor, and the flight of stairs was steep. House could make it up and down the stairs himself, painfully and slowly, but there was no way he could help Wilson. He didn't trust Wilson to navigate the stairs on his own.
"Stay here. I'll get Cuddy to help you," House ordered.
He turned his back to look for the Chief of Medicine, who was emerging from the ladies' room. House wasn't sure what happened next. Had he brushed against Wilson, putting him off balance? If House hadn't been holding on to the banister and his cane, he might have steadied Wilson. Instead, he watched the younger man fall down the whole steep flight of steps, collapsing bonelessly at the bottom.
The noise alerted the other party-goers, who surged past House to the fallen oncologist. House was making his way down the stairs as quickly as he could, but by the time he reached the bottom, Wilson was already being attended to by a couple of his colleagues. The same colleagues, House cynically noted, who had left House on his own to cope with Wilson. A crowd of people peered down from the top of the stairs to see what had happened. Bonnie wasn't among them.
"Are you okay?" asked one of the pair attending to Wilson.
Wilson nodded. He didn't like being fussed over, and got to his feet to demonstrate how well he was. Perhaps he got up too quickly, because he looked alarmingly pale, even in the subdued light of the stairwell.
"No business for you today, Birnbaum," House said. "He's perfectly fine."
Wilson's colleagues left, and as soon as they were gone, Wilson sat down on the stairs again. He was trembling slightly, his body's reaction to the fall. House sat down next to him.
"Lucky for you you're dead drunk. If you were sober, you'd probably have broken your neck."
"If I weren't dead drunk, I wouldn't have fallen."
House didn't tell Wilson that he might have caused Wilson to fall. Wilson was getting his colour back. He was going to feel absolutely horrible the next day, but for now he felt fine.
"You need water and aspirin now," House said. "I don't want to drag you all the way back to your house, so you'll have to sleep on the couch in my apartment. You have to promise not to miss the bucket when you throw up."
"Word of honour," said Wilson.
House thought that the two of them probably looked quite comical, Wilson's erratic gait somehow matching House's long limping strides perfectly.
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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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