Title: Bad Leg Day
Chapter: Pill One
Author: hang_monet 
Pairing: House/Wilson
Word count: 1000
Rating:  PG-13
Warnings: Language, Timmy/ sad, graphic-ish discriptions of pain.
Spoilers: Season 4
Summary: Ever wondered what goes through House’s head as he waits for the vicodin to kick in?
A/N: I’m about to rush off to the doctors, but if my bad mood persists I’ll probably write the rest of this today and post it over the weekend.

He woke up crying. The clock read nine am; and he hated his life.

There was nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing but pain to coat every hour. Nothing to feel, just to lie here numbly, waiting for relief that will never ultimately come.

There was a time once, he knew, when this didn’t happen every day. A time he could wake up and spring out of bed with no effort, a time when he got a little chubby because he couldn’t be bothered with the running routine. Now he feels muscles still there sag pathetically due to enforced misuse, he sees patterns of disgust flow throughout his skin from every glance in the mirror. Wilson was wrong; it wasn’t all about the scar. It was the feel of cellulite upon the leg of a man, the texture between a healthy leg and a ruined one, the oddity of heavily built calf muscles contrasting with the direct pressure of bone underneath skin.

He makes mistakes every now and then, finds himself with the contemplative and curious hell-predicting moods which lead him to sit naked before a mirror inspecting what’s happened to him, in his mind a reality from thirty years ago that would never be again. An athletic body which drew the eye of many a woman, rather than the upper body of a manual wheelchair user and attraction linked only to pity. It was all very easy to turn Cameron away because of this, so why it didn’t turn him away from Wilson he would never understand. Wilson made it his life mission to pity, right down to his baldies, and yet where House was concerned pity never shone in those eyes. He never quite knew if he liked that or not.

There was a time when he wanted to be an oncologist, but he’d never told anyone that. It wasn’t the death that put him off, because the quicker the damn things died the less chance of him liking them, although it was linked to that in a way. He was sick of falling for people who left, be it in love or in like. He was terrified of falling for someone who didn’t leave by their own choice. He had to blame them, he always had to blame them, because to look inside himself would be unthinkable. Gregory House had worked out how to operate at the age of seven, and despite the odd waver in thinking in the 40-odd year run, the philosophy had worked well for him so far.

Damnit, he just wished the pain would leave him alone. A memory of an enforced placebo floated through his mind, and if he had been able to waste such breath he would have scoffed aloud at the thought. As a doctor he had always firmly sided with the placebos, and as a doctor he knows the nature of chronic pain can be easily cured as long as the brain thinks it’s being cured.

The knowledge didn’t make it any less embarrassing though. Placebos didn’t fit into his personality. To Cuddy it must have been as amusing as Barack Obama in a pink leather jacket. Work or not, that’s the thing about Placebos he truly hates. Of course, once he knew it stopped working, which he hates even more. All the smug bitch had to do was keep her mouth shut and let him think otherwise, but she just couldn’t resist the win.

He hated Cuddy for that almost as much as he hated this moment.

An arm battered his eyelids as his gasped for air, finally giving in and grabbing his pills from the side like a lifeline. It was so easy during the day, there was no point stopping once he’d already started, and by leaving the ‘right’ amount of time in between pills anyway he’d end up like this at work. That was the last thing he needed to share – the difference between handicapped and weak felt immense.

Addiction, right. The truth was he could stop any time, he could go through the detox any time, which was why he had little sympathy for drug addicts. He just couldn’t go through that on top of this pain. It wasn’t a matter of will, it was a matter of reality.

Reality sucked.

The truth was he was shit at this – well, shit at everything that wasn’t medicine. He’d never understood the so-called brilliance just because he’d set himself the task as a child to memorise facts. Hopkins taught him the lesson to know all before beginning, to close his eyes to avoid that strangling panic, the prelude to the cheat.

The news was bubbling in the background, some pathetic fuck complaining about the pain of losing a pet. It made him so angry; stupid people moaning that hell was gracing the surface of what he lived with every day. Children crying over absence of sweets, Wilson crying over Amber. Amber. Young, unscarred, nice, normal body. He presumed she didn’t have some disfiguring birthmark covering every inch of skin covered by clothing, anyway. It would be just like Wilson to find that attractive, though.

The clock tells him it isn’t long now until the vicodin finally kicks in. Thank Christ, he’s dying here.

Wilson and his fucking vanity. He recalls waking up to the sounds of a hairdryer and lying with a lazy smile in spite of the pain, before it became unbearable and forced him to take it out on Wilson. In truth he couldn’t imagine anyone else seeing Wilson when he wasn’t impeccably dressed to the nines, although sense begged he obey the idea that his wives would have seen him like that.

He can’t keep like this for long, anyway. Eventually he’ll lose his looks as well and be able to get no better eye than that of a cripple built like a paralympian.

Ah, there it is. The pill’s finally kicked in.

He can wait.



A/N: Pill Two

Tags: bad leg day, hilson