House MD Fanfiction

Goodnight, travel well

Hilson, mad!Wilson, 5,981 words
By: Firebirdsong

Lisa Deacon, 46, the first death that caught his attention.

A patient in common. The tumor in her breast had nothing to do with her illness, caused by a stroke, but it was advanced enough to cause her death. She wasn't his patient anymore; still, House felt heavy.

Wilson, on the other hand, acted oddly. He looked hurt and sad, as expected, but there was something strange in his lips.

 As if he was on the edge of smiling. 

Seven weeks later, House was in the morgue, with his head in his hands.

 A corpse lied on the table, and there was nothing left for it. It had once been a person, it had lived, and then, after death, it had proven him right. Everything was ended for Michael Pratt, 38, whose bone cancer had been treated by Dr. James Wilson, and unfortunately died after some hours of excruciating pain.

 Not because of the cancer. Morphine overdose.

 Just like the last eight Wilson's ex-patients.

 House had to accept it, but reason was fighting against reason. The evidences were clear, he couldn't deny it any longer. But how could it be possible? In what world? How did it begin, and when? "How come I didn't see it?" He didn't know what to do. His whole world has crashed upon him and he struggled to remain whole beneath the ruins. 

Sighing, with his face hidden in his hands, he tried to understand. The room felt colder than it ever did. 

The door opened silently, but Wilson was already aware that House had listened to him. More as if he had heard each one of his heartbeats. But they weren't racing. Wilson stepped way ahead the floor. His mind was way ahead of his skull. The only thing fully there was his presence, able to take the room over in that moment. All it meant, all it had built and all it had destroyed; it all coexisted, consuming the place to its top discreetly and powerfully, like carbon monoxide. 

“I was expecting you'd be here.” His voice was a hoarse echo, also too far away. “I even think it took too long.” The door being locked made a huge, metallic sound in the wide room, as if echoing in every single shadow, traveling through each molecule of that formaldehyde-filled air. “But, I mean... life. You never cared about life at all.” 

That sound stabbed House’s stomach mercilessly as the fear shot adrenalin to his brain, and he got up.Pure survival instinct, something that was ironic for someone who killed himself a little every day with the pills as the pain in his leg increased. He couldn't demonstrate fear. He had to act naturally, as if... 

God, what is happening? Did he really think Wilson could do him any harm? But something had happened, and it changed everything. 

 He straightened his position and faced Wilson looking for a physical sign of that changing. “I care about life, I thought you of all the people would be able to tell. After all, we know each other so well... Or so I thought." Taking two steps to his side, away from the table, he went on. "I don't care about death, but what it leaves behind. Tell me, Wilson... After all these deaths, what's left of you? Are you still here?” 

Walking in, Wilson had his hands on the pockets of his trousers. His eyes crossed House and caught him for one second, much as if it has just seen a shadow that shouldn't be there, but that disappeared in the moment after. He laughed acidly. 

“What death leaves behind, you say. Tell me, you, any name of your last dead patient's relatives.” His laughter closed in an expression of contempt. “I know the name of theirs. Each sibling, children, parent, spouse, even cousin or friend. So don't tell me about what death leaves behind.” He clenched his teeth and the next sentence went out between them. "Don't tell me, when I have death growing inside my guts.”