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  Only Thing Left 
 by Lynnafer  

 "He can't take much more of this. He's maxed out on his morphine. Put him
in a coma. He can be out through the worst of it."

"House, he's already said to take the leg. You're right, he can't take
much more of this. The hypercalcemia is killing his heart. We have to fix
this, now."

"Just put him out, we'll decide where to go from there."

House jogged along the tree-lined path, knees screaming from the impact of
the newly frozen ground. It had been five years since Wilson's infarction
and he still replayed the events of those days in his mind during his
morning run. And he used it to push his middle-aged body to the extreme.
He flogged himself for his role with the pain in his knees, the aching
muscles and burning lungs. He hadn't been thinking straight. All he wanted
was to spare Wilson from the pain after the bypass. He'd forgotten about
Bonnie. Wilson's second wife had also been his medical proxy. Too stubborn
to listen to House's plea to wait it out and too vain to listen to
Wilson's demands to take his leg, she'd gone with Cuddy's suggestion to
cut out the dead tissue. If only. If only House hadn't put him in that
coma. Maybe he'd have recovered, or he'd walk tall on a leg of plastic and
titanium. Or maybe yet, Wilson would be dead. If only someone had
diagnosed him properly in the first place.

He showered in the hospital locker room, turning the water as hot as it
would go and fiddling with the shower head to increase the pressure. The
water beat down on his, violent and scalding, further punishing his flesh.
He scoured his skin roughly with the wash cloth but couldn't seem to get
clean. Somedays, he managed not to think about the uncleanness, his
unworthiness. Middle age found Greg House alone (Stacy had left him
somewhere in the drunken haze after Wilson's infarction) and
professionally stunted. God knows why Cuddy kept him on. He worked alone,
out of a small office tucked into a corner of the fourth floor. He
continued to take on the strange cases that seemed to plague the hospital,
just like before. Most of the time, he managed to save them at the last
minute just like before. House knew though, that it was not like before.
He'd missed the most important diagnosis of his life and hadn't been as
confident since. No one blamed him for the death of the OTB woman. How
could anyone have figured it out with all the self-medicating she'd been
doing? House hadn't even considered Munchausen's. Everything had pointed
to aplastic anemia. And so he'd fried her immune system, a death sentence
once the infection took hold. He should have thought of infection. He
should have thought that Wilson's pain was more that just a pulled muscle.
He should have thought of the consequences of that coma. 

Dressing in his usual uniform of jeans, T-shirt and rumpled button down,
House made his way to his personal hell. He knew today would not be one of
the good days where seizures and heart attacks could make him forget, if
even for a moment, the events of those days. Today, it would play through
his head in vivid detail and five-point surround sound. He couldn't
remember if he'd brought in the mail this morning, but the image of the
white, strained face of a man in excruciating pain and the jagged purple
line of a fresh surgical scar just wouldn't fade. Bonnie hadn't made it
through that first year. Whether guilt or disgust at the remnants of her
husband, it didn't matter. Wilson hadn't opted for the amputation out of
deference to her. House assumed he kept his leg now out of spite and
probably some form of personal guilt. He supposed it was easier to tell
innocent children and teary eyed women they were going to die if they had
a visual cue as to how awful your own life was.

On his way to the dungeon that was his office, House saw Wilson coming off
the elevator. In his left hand was a state of the art, ergonomical cane,
complete with little white rubber tips, lest he mar the newly waxed
floors. His mobility was surprisingly good. He'd gone through six months
of physio with that stupid optimistic smile on his face. He did yoga now.
Everyday. Like a religious obsession. House was not an idiot though. There
had to be pain. Wilson would never show it though. There were days,
however, when a couple ibuprofen wouldn't come close to cutting it. On
these days, Wilson would not emerge from his office. Not until he heard
the squeaking steps of House's sneakers in the hall. He would invite
himself into House's car, his home. He never said anything about the pain
on those nights, but maybe he drank a little more than usual. Not that
House noticed since he in turn would drink a lot more than usual so he
wouldn't have to see. And in the morning, he would run even harder and
further. Run until he threw up and everything hurt like hell. He'd never
feel Wilson's pain, but he could create his own easily enough.

Wilson approached him with a smile and gossip from the nurse's station.
House made the requisite crude remarks about Nurse Brenda's reported new
beau from radiology. When Wilson dropped some papers while trying to
juggle them and his cane, House merely stepped over them and continued on
his way. He couldn't treat his crippled friend any differently than anyone
else. Even if that strange, limping gait and cleverly concealed pain were
his fault.

In his office, he sat down, muscles burning, and opened the file a nurse
had forced into his hands as he'd passed. He stared at the ER's test
results. It didn't add up. White count was up, but blood and urine
cultures came back clean. Kidneys were functioning normally, but the
patient was still going into congestive heart failure. He ruled out his
first diagnosis for every case. It definitely wasn't an infarction. He
pushed himself back out of his chair and felt his knees shift in their
sockets, bones grinding. It hurt like mad and he relished it. To further
his torment, he headed in the direction of the patient's room. He'd have
to do his own tests and break the patient's spirits until he figured out
what he was lying about. House could tell that wouldn't satisfy his guilt
today. He'd find Wilson for lunch. He needed to watch the man limp down
the hallway, maneuver his way awkwardly through the cafeteria line and
carefully lower himself into on the orange plastic chairs. An accidental
bump against Wilson'' right thigh should be enough to bring that flash of
pain to his wide brown eyes. That look would give House the crushing chest
pain of a full-blown panic attack that he needed to make it through the
day.

House cut out of work early. There was nothing interesting about an idiot
who ordered cheap Viagra online and ended up with a lethal combination of
crap in his system. Once home, he stripped down to his boxers and grasped
the metal bar affixed across the doorjamb in his hall. As he hauled his
body up over and over again, he caught a glimpse of himself in the
bathroom mirror. In five years his hair had thinned and grayed slightly,
but he was in better shape that he'd been in a decade ago. His punishing
regime had hardened his body. He could see the flexing definition in his
biceps, pectorals, deltoids and triceps as he continued his pull-ups,
ignoring the stabbing in his hands from freshly broken blisters. Sweat
dripping down his face, he held himself in the up position and watched his
abdominal muscle ripple as he lifted his knees up to his chest repeatedly.
He didn't stop until the trembling kept him from gripping the bar. He ran
a bath and settled into the shockingly cold water. Before he soaped the
day off, he sunk down into the tub and submerged his head. He wondered how
long he could stay under water and if the burning in his lungs would get
more intense with every second.

Wilson knocked at his door. He knew it was Wilson. The knock was too
confident, not the meek, scared tapping of the delivery people who knew
all too well what waited for them on the other side. House waited while
Wilson yelled at him to open the damn door since his hands were full of
Thai food. House opened the door but made no move to help. It wasn't
expected of him, and when Wilson struggled with his cane and the bags,
House's quick in drawn breath seared his still aching lungs. Wilson's diet
contained more spicy food of late. He was using the endorphins released
from consuming capsaicin as a pain reliever. House just consumed the whole
chili peppers to revel in the sting they created on his tongue and the
stabbing flames of the ulcer he was developing. The beer he chased the
peppers with soothed his tongue but licked at the raw hole in his stomach
lining with delicious pain. House noticed that despite Wilson's capsaicin
intake, he was still reaching for his fourth beer and looked away from
House as he shifted on the couch to his the flash of pain in his eyes.

Several hours spent on House's couch watching lesbian dramas had likely
done nothing to help the pain Wilson was undoubtedly in. House could hear
his breathing. It was shallow and quicker than usual. He was uncomfortable
knowing there was nothing that could be done and there was no beer left in
the fridge to numb his guilt. He turned his head from the television.
Lesbian sex was doing nothing for him and Wilson was in his peripheral
vision. He formed a fist and dug his nails into the flesh of his palm.
Lost in his need to draw blood, House was startled by the hand that
slapped down on his thigh and gripped it hard. His head jerked back to
stare at Wilson. The man's face was flush with pain and House could see
only that in his eyes and none of the intoxication he was sure Wilson had
been aiming for. Wilson's eyes met his and seemed to be begging him to
take the pain away. House's heart raced and his nails dug deeper. He'd
done this to his friend. Broken him and put the pieces back in this
painful order. He watched as Wilson's lips parted with a small gasp. The
hand on his thigh was relentless, squeezing. House would have a bruise to
watch Wilson's scar. His mouth twitched up at that thought. As if he'd
been waiting for a subtle ok, Wilson crashed his mouth down over the
slight smirk. House's mind whirled for a moment before it caught up with
the situation. Wilson's tongue was invading his mouth, skimming his teeth
and tangling with his own. And yet, the violent clamping on his thigh
continued. When sharp teeth bit down on his lip he groaned. The teeth
moved away at the sound, but House reached his hand up to hold Wilson's
head in place. Soon he tasted blood in his mouth.

He didn't understand what they were doing, but the crash of his shoulder
blades against the wall and Wilson's nails on his scalp felt so good he
couldn't bring himself to stop it. He could taste the mingling of Wilson's
sweat and the blood from this split lip as their mouths battled. When he
finally opened his eyes, he was shocked to see the dark sanctuary of his
bedroom surrounding them. His tired muscles trembled as he was pushed onto
the bed. He could feel the matching trembling in Wilson's thigh and felt
satisfaction with today's self brutality. He ripped the safe, boring shirt
from Wilson's shoulders after he'd been divested of his own T-shirt.
Wilson straddled him in a move he knew must hurt and House said a prayer
of thanks to yoga as the hardness enclosed in their pants dragged against
each other. Only a few inches above the searing pleasure, the sliver
buckle of Wilson's belt dug into the flesh of House's stomach and he
sighed at the sensation. Soon hands were forcing past belts and zippers,
pushing fabric down to their knees. The room filled with the sounds of
their combined hiss when their flesh met, but House could only hear the
rush of blood in his ears. Squirming on the bed, he wriggled out of his
jeans. He wanted to feel Wilson inside him now. He felt as if he'd been
craving this all these years, even though the thought had just occurred to
him. It had been so long since he's been touched, and Stacy had been so
gentle before she'd left, afraid to break him further. He wanted to be
used, taken roughly. Wilson. He'd caused Wilson five years of pain and now
he'd pay and he'd do it gladly. He tried to roll away to offer his body as
Wilson's means of physical release. An insistent hand on his shoulder
stopped him and his fingers were drawn into the wet heat of Wilson's
mouth.

He found himself holding Wilson tight to his chest, working his saliva
slicked fingers into the broken man's body. Sweat dripped from Wilson's
brow and his grunts echoed throughout the apartment. House was trying to
be gentle, to not cause Wilson any pain. But when the man in his arms bore
down on his hand and grunted again, house understood his place. The
trembling in Wilson's leg had subsided and while his jaw was clenched and
his breath was coming in short gasp, he was still hard against the forearm
House held him with. House understood pain. He sought it out daily to draw
his mind from the unbearable distress of his guilt. He would give that
gift to Wilson. He pulled his fingers free and spat on his hand,
slathering it over his cock that was aching to drive into a warm body. He
didn't hesitate against that urge and thrust hard into Wilson, bracing the
arching body against him and digging his teethe into the salty flesh of a
shoulder. Pleasure coursed through his veins and dumped fresh waves of
guilt into his nervous system. Wilson was sweating and groaning under him,
teetering on the edge between pain and pleasure and House could feel only
the pleasure. He wanted that burn and sting. He yearned to hoard it all
for himself. It was the only thing he'd kept for himself.

Now it was all he had to give.	
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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.