It's THC again... decided to post my newest piece here since it has been a while. I've been on LJ the last month or so. It's the usual: House + Wilson strong friendship, angst, tissue worthy depending on how soft you are and PG-13. It contains heavy spoilers for 5x23 "Under My Skin"... that means insomnia and hallucinatory Amber!

Enjoy!


He needs to sleep.

Inside his office lies a bunker of Energy drink cans, sleeping pills and blankets and pillows and teddy bears and warm milk... birdsong entwined with new age music is drifting across the background, the blinds are drawn.

He would've slept here easily if she hadn't been haunting him: doesn't she ever shut up? How can have Wilson lived with that willingly? When House talks to much, which he doesn't really do in Wilson's presence because are equally verbal in casual, inside conversations, he'll get reprimanded instantly!

There was nothing wrong with that bus, nothing on this side of life rivals that bus! And he could have slept there. She should've stayed there too!

Her heels tap along with the music as a tired, spent man drags himself through the hallway. People have noticed and House can't deny it and it has rendered him twitchy, skittish and confused.

His genius is lost in his ever wakeful eyes, the black bags under his them and the way all medical terms have been sounding like Chinese lately, which, even though House is fluent in mandarin, is too much to comprehend for a brain so thoroughly deprived of sleep.

With a leaden limb, he pushes against Wilson's door with his head hanging and legs about to fold on him.

"Still not sleeping?" Wilson rises from his seat ready to catch his friend if need be, which seems highly likely at the moment.

House shakes his head.

He collapses onto Wilson's couch and almost immediately closes his eyes.

Amber comments on Wilson's choice of clothing. House shivers.

"Wilson..." his voice wavers and breaks at the end. It doesn't matter anymore. He no longer thinks himself sane. And he isn't.

"We know, House."

"That I've finally gone insane?"

"That you... have reached your limit. We're all surprised it took you so long..." Wilson leans against the wall next to the couch, brow furrowed in concern as he observes his friend.

"There's more..."

"Tell me." He leans in.

"I'm hallucinating... Amber."

Wilson stands, definitely taken aback by this confession.

"What... what's she doing?"

"She's herself. She's annoying me. I can't get any sleep with her here!" House presses his palms onto his temples.

Something within Wilson shatters.

"The whole thing around her... how do you feel, House?"

"I... The only reason she was on that bus was because I couldn't take it anymore. You needed to be happy. You didn't notice it getting worse... I called you."

"You wanted to show me? Show me... how bad it had gotten?"

House nods.

"I didn't want to... reach my limit alone."

"I should've been there. I'm your friend; you had the right to call me, to want to talk to me... that's... not easy for you."

"She likes your tie."

"What?"

"Amber likes your tie."

"O-okay,"

"She didn't have to know how bad it was, she wasn't..." House tries to continue, eyes moving behind his eyelids.

"Me. And your pain is... yours. I know that. And you are on my couch right now because you trust me. Trust me to understand your pain?"

House nods again, eyes opening to the tiniest of slits.

"I do now." Wilson says with certainty.

His friend doesn't respond. He's not sleeping either.

"The DBS... you didn't care about me. If I'd told you exactly what would save her life so you could go on and eventually get divorced you would have frolicked out of the room to let me seize and die." It's the fact that it has been inside him for so long that forces this sentence out. House falls more or less limp, ready to lose consciousness to escape the answer, the light and the predatory smirk with which she encircles her living lover. His voice is hoarse but blatantly emotionless: this is a fact.

He takes Wilson's disregard for his life in the light of someone else that might enter as a proven fact.

"That's not true! You... you never told me you felt this way!"

"I never do! You should have known!" House is getting wound up... he can't use that now. The room begins to swirl... he can't show that too! That will be his last microscopic grain of self-respect rushing down the drain!

Wilson pinches the bridge of his nose when he realizes the truth in House statement. He also recognizes the signs of lifelessness (yes, the signs of utter and total exhaustion have already passed long ago), and that's why he goes to get a blanket while he tries to formulate an appropriately apologetic answer.

He covers his friend with overdone affection.

He's terrified to lose this man, terrified of eating alone, terrified of whole meals, terrified to miss an episode of General Hospital.

He wants to be amazed and upstaged and annoyed and exasperated, be it by this lump on his couch that he cares for so much they could have been a couple! And they would stick together this time!

He so deserves this man, this man so deserves more than him.

"I know. I was an idiot." He's reliving it now... in high contrast actually.

House on his doorstep... naked,
House in his office... wounded,
House on the road... terrified.

Idiot.
Idiot.
Idiot.

"Yeah, you were."

Tears appear in Wilson's eyes and he grips House's shoulders firmly to keep him awake enough to register these all important words:

"What happened was a pure, unfortunate accident. It was not your fault, okay? And this... don't let her get to you, don't let this make you lose yourself. I can't watch that. I don't give a flying fuck about your gift right now, okay? This entire hospital can die right now if only I don't lose you... you're not your gift, not your cane, not those stupid pills..." He stutters, regaining his composure. "You're just tired, Greg. And I loved Amber but she's in the past now... with the bus and the knife and your dad and..."

"Not in my past. I can't shake them... and by telling you all this... things won't ever go back to normal."

"Yes they will."

"I'm so fucking scared, Wilson..." A hot tear travels down House's face... it's so foreign to his skin it shocks him.

Wilson heart implodes, but his face is expertly stretched into a clumsy smile at House amazement over his own emotion.

"That's okay... it's okay, I promise."

"Wilson?"

"What?"

"I'm going to throw up..."

Wilson smiles, he fetches the trash can and rubs his friends bony back while he retches...

"Admit me." says a breathless voice.

Wilson nods.

When House's body finally gives in and his eyes flutter closed, the last thing he hears is:

"I love you."


The End.

So how was it? I'd love to hear from you!