House MD Fanfiction

I promised

Hilson, cancer!, 531 words
By: vanishing_time

House’s heart rate jumps high on the chart as soon as Wilson's pulse is rapidly slowing down and the oxygen mask slips off his face.

No, no, no.

His fingers release the sweaty hair he's been stroking to feverishly reach for a hand, closing around a wrist, looking for a heartbeat.

It’s so, so faint at the juncture of tiny blue veins, throbbing through pale skin.

But it's there.

House lets out a huge, shivering breath he didn't realize he's been holding. Wilson’s just passed out. At least he's not in pain for a moment.

He groans deeply, shakily. Desperately. His fingers are not letting that wrist go, holding onto it for dear life. Holding onto it for Wilson’s life, and his own. He has to feel his pulse. He has to will Wilson's heart to keep beating.

His friend looks so unusually small, so fragile between his arms, smelling of sweat and vomit and blood, smelling of terror and fear. The tips of his ice cold fingers are still cupped in House’s other palm, and he caresses the back of Wilson’s hand with his thumb.

The heartbeat is weak but steady, so House lets go to awkwardly reach for a tissue, to carefully wipe the tears off Wilson’s cheeks, the blood off his chapped lips, the sweat off his temple. He leans down to listen to his breathing, almost normal again, before putting the mask back on him.

Maybe he’ll be fine. Maybe he’ll live...

I’d rather die here, Wilson said, crying, pleading with blackened eyes; and he promised to keep him here.

Fuck, he should be calling the ambulance right now.

But Wilson wanted to die here with him, and House has to respect that. And it hurts more than all the cruel words, it makes his throat clench and his chest ache in a way he can't explain.

If he believed, he would call out to God now. He’d bargain and make promises he wouldn’t keep in exchange of just this once’s and please save him’s. Who knows, it might even make him feel better.

He rubs his eyes. God, he’s so exhausted.

He’s still kneeling, and it hurts like a bitch when he shifts into a position as comfortable as possible on the floor, entwining the fingers of their right hands even tighter. He buries his face into the curve of Wilson’s waist, inhaling his smell of sickness and chemicals, feeling the gentle rising and falling of his side as he's breathing. Only when sobs shake his body he realizes he's crying, without any tears, with ugly, sharp, dry gasps. It's okay. It makes him feel relieved. And Wilson won’t know about this anyway.

Don't you fucking dare die on me.

His mind wanders to the pills that are secretly stashed in a hole in the wall behind his mirror. They’ve been sitting there for years now; a last present from his mobster friends. Better than a Corvette. Way better than Vicodin. After all, one has to be prepared in case things go south.

But Wilson is still breathing, and until the morning comes, House can find comfort in the thought that he has a plan B.