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When he's tired
by gena
When he's tired......
It's when he's tired that she notices things House doesn't want seen. Like the way he moves, any other time he doesn't even seem bothered by his leg, his cane, he moves like an athlete or a dancer but when he's tired he moves like a man in pain, a cripple. It's startling then to see him so - fragile. House is not a man one associates with vulnerability of any sort but from things Stacy Warner had said and looks James Wilson has given she knows that perception must be wrong. House seems invincible; his acidic wit and razor tongue more than enough defense against anything that might try to harm him. It is nearly inconceivable to picture him dying in a hospital bed, his heart ceasing to beat, his brilliant blue eyes dulling with death, but she knows, too, that this has happened. House is more than he appears in so many ways.
She watches him now, slumped in his yellow chair, eyes closed and looking every year of his age. He has already shaken out the small white pills that keep so much of what he battles at bay, and swallows them without even looking. He leans back and she thinks she can hear a sigh but it might just be the door opening beside House. She can see Wilson's solid form move closer, and he sits carefully beside House's propped leg. There is a closeness between them she can feel through the cold glass and, like glass, it rings with a clear sharp tone inside her chest when she sees it. She both admires and despises Wilson. His calm, stable demeanor, handsome face and professional dedication make him a man any woman would find attractive on some level but inside he carries a twisted dark spot that mirrors the disease he tries so hard to stamp out. He is both healer and sickness, and she knows it is his presence that allows House to remain out of her reach. His friendship, the cancerous defect in his perfect persona feeds the same trait in House. It holds them together in a symphony of need, a gluttony of maladjustment that sets Cuddy on their heels and tongues all over the hospital wagging.
She wishes she were in there, it was her hand casually laid on a bent knee, fingers and thumb splayed over the indentation of blue denim in a manner that suggests complete acceptance. She thinks maybe it is this that Wilson gives and House can take; unconditional acceptance of what he is, was and will become and she longs to offer the same. But there is a traitorous part of her that wants to ease his pain, to part him from his anger and misery and make him smile with the gentleness she knows is inside him. It is this part that House sees when his eyes meet hers and he's tired and it is this part that makes him close his eyes and sit in the dark until Wilson glides in like a white-coated fog. There is nothing in Wilson's eyes that says he wants to make House smile and yet he can do it with little effort at all. She has seen House, in the midst of his anger, fight to keep his lips from quirking up when Wilson makes some scandalous remark, some flippant comeback. There is no pity in Wilson's look, no sorrow for what has been changed or subverted; there is only wry amusement and intimate understanding.
She is forced to watch House struggle to his feet, knowing she would rush to his aid, prop his slender body up with her own and hope to bask in a grateful smile. In reality he grunts with effort, staggering under the mantle of exhaustion, his body swaying dangerously close to Wilson's and making the probability of them both falling seem imminent. Wilson gazes on with impassive dark eyes. She feels a heat rise within her that has nothing to do with the vision of his lanky body draped across her shoulders, this heat comes from embarrassment and is in turn fueled by the anger Wilson ignites within her. How can he stand there and watch without feeling - something? But House rights himself, cane in hand even as Wilson melts out of his way, moves to the desk, retrieves the backpack and lobs it in House's direction. Her heart skips a beat as the blue bag sails towards House, a litany of prayers cascading through her brain as she envisions it slamming into the precariously balanced figure. Somehow Wilson's careless throw deposits the bag precisely on the footstool and House needs only to grasp the strap to pick it up. She notices it appears slimmer than normal and her gaze settles on Wilson as he pockets the iPod, TV, and Game Boy into his own bag before turning to House.
When he goes back to House's side it's hard to follow the shifting between them, they move together and apart, a complicated interchange that appears to have been practiced for years. She doesn't really understand the mechanics but the result is that Wilson maneuvers around House and his cane without incident, so close their arms brush, their shadows blending on the far wall until they appear to be one creature. Their gazes lock in the familiar way they have, some unknown exchange making them both smile and she sighs. How he knows when House is tired is something she has never worked out. Wilson appears out of nowhere long after he is thought to have gone home. She has often wondered if he does leave and some sixth sense draws him back or whether he loiters in his office, observing subtle signs that herald House's need for a ride home. Whatever it is, it is uncanny and makes the hair on the back of her neck rise but even that is not the most telling characteristic when House is tired.
The most important of the things she notices when he's tired is House's eyes. Normally hard as sapphire, they twinkled with a mischievous light that can just as quickly turn to blue fire. They reflect back all trespassing gazes, impenetrable as a layer of ice on a pond. But when he's tired they take on the illusion of deep water; shadows swimming just beneath the surface, faint shapes that give the onlooker a vague sense of the life teeming below the surface. She sees that now, as he and Wilson share a look, a thaw in his defenses that comes only when he's tired and, she hates this thought, only when he and Wilson are sharing one of those communions in which they indulge.
They do it quite often, she realizes, share silent conversations that say more than their words every will, the look that locks out the world and leaves anyone on the outside feeling lonely. She gulps a suddenly needed breath, blinking in the dim office as the two men prepare to leave, not even realizing she is there watching. As they begin their familiar routine of gathering their belongings, she sees Wilson's hand hover over House's lower back, and it is then that she realizes the one thing she's never noticed when House is tired - the look in Wilson's eyes. There, belying the implacable faade of indifference, the carefully constructed shell of acceptance, and the mocking veneer of black humor is an emotion she doesn't recognize at first. Only as they walk out, when he has turned partially away from House so that House can not see his expression, does she see it clearly and the love in Wilson's eyes takes her breath away.
She averts her own gaze away, unsure if it is because the emotion is too pure to look upon or because she knows her own is flawed, damaged in a way that House can never truly diagnose. She loves but it is not unconditional, her love depends on her power to heal and change and make better even without possessing the power to heal herself. And in that brief, blinding glimpse she has seen that Wilson loves without condition and without the desire to change what he had chosen to love. He loves because House is who he is and when he is tired that is plain to see - for the right set of eyes.
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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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