snowblindrpg | [log] Titled [closed]

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[log] Titled [closed]

Characters: Gregory House and James Wilson
Location: Building 132
Date: Evening of 271
Summary: House meets up with an old, dead friend... who is older and more dying than he last remembers.
Warnings: Probably discussion of torture, body horror, cancer, death, and PTSD.

[Where House has asked Wilson to meet him is little more than a nondescript, empty storage shed with a nondescript, sealed trapdoor. It's the entry point to the underground tunnels, though, which should make their lives easier for travel. The doctor has been pushing himself, so they're just going to have to sleep on cold, uncomfortable concrete for the night, but this certainly wouldn't be the first time for House.

He's there when Wilson arrives, curled up in a corner of the shed, reading over his tablet in the dark. The most immediate thing Wilson might notice about House is that his fashion tastes have taken a turn for the hobo-esque. He's wearing a pink scarf and there are pink gloves at his side. He's wearing several layers of coats, and there's a heavy pack at his side that has a hammer propped against it.

He's actually been maintaining more of a stubble than letting his beard grow out fully, so that's not too different. House is thinner than before, though, his eyes more sunken into dark circles for the lack of sleep.

When Wilson opens the door, House immediately grabs for his hammer and holds it in a way that indicates he's about two steps off from throwing it. He turns the tablet so that the light is illuminating the doorway, though.]

If you start sprouting tentacles, I'm murdering you. [He's joking. Mostly. He's really waiting to see if this an anomaly opening the door or actually Wilson.]

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[ The outburst and the shove sends Wilson stumbling backwards, and he suddenly realizes just how in over his head he is here about practically everything. No amount of talking to people can prepare him for the hell that is this place, not when it's being illustrated so clearly by House right now.

Whatever House is seeing involves him somehow, because unless he's turned into the worst sort of boogeyman when he wasn't looking, the very sight of him is terrifying to the other man. ]

You- You had a case with a six year old who presented with a nosebleed and breathing trouble. She'd fallen off one of those merry-go-round horses. Her mother was a developmental geneticist who had originally diagnosed her daughter with ataxia telangiectasia.

[ He doesn't know all the details of this particular case since he was busy at the time, but it's one of the first ones to come to mind, and he was at least filled in on the result. House probably won't care if he gets a few details wrong in the telling. If he does, it might distract him from whatever's causing his panic, so Wilson just plows ahead. ]

Chase eventually narrowed it down to a tumor which had broken up and caused reduced blood flow and a stroke, among other things.

[ He cautiously approaches House again, this time not attempting any contact. It's unrelated to any of House's cases, but an idea springs into his head. It might just be the distraction House needs. Or it might backfire horribly, but Wilson decides it's worth a try if talking about cases fails. ]

It's not fair when they're pretty and smart. [House swallows and just sinks down into a crouch with his back to the wall. He watches Wilson warily, trying not to picture his anomaly.]

Give me symptoms. Let me solve it. I just... I need to think. I need...

[He squeezes his eyes shut tight and breathes hard. This is so not how he wanted this meeting to go. They were going to play it off, he was going to just find out what he wanted from Wilson. And they were going to pretend like House was normal. Like nothing has changed.]

Did I mention she was married? Not that that's every stopped you before, but I just figured I should mention it.

[ He pauses, still watching him as he sinks down to the floor. Luckily for him, he read the case file after the fact, or he wouldn't know any of this. ]

Symptoms... Initially, she had the nosebleed, dizziness, and difficulty breathing, but there was also the development of cyanosis in her fingers and toes while she was in for an MRI.

[ When Wilson pictured this meeting, it was not at all like this. But he's glad he found out, rather than being completely unaware that not everything was exactly as it seemed. ]

You had your team do an environmental scan of the patient's house, and they found large amounts of LEX-2 there and no sign of lab rats.

You just told me it was a tumor that Chase diagnosed. I was wrong on whatever it was. I need a different case without the answer.

[A pause.]

How hot was she? Are we talking at least an 8?

Okay, I gave that one away, but here's another one. 30 year old blind male suddenly experiences disorientation when crossing the street; traffic sounds are amplified, blocking everything else out. He can't even hear it when someone approaches him and offers assistance.

He has diabetes, but it's controlled, and nothing showed up on the tox screen.

[ He pauses too, this time to fix House with a look. ]

At least an 8, if I had to pick a number.

[Think. Just think. Focus on the case. Drugs would have been his first guess.]

What's he taking for the diabetes?

[He stares down at his hands and tries to take deep breaths. Even in the dark, he can feel the scars lining his hands, traveling up, running the length of his arms and down to his legs.]

Blind man. Blind man...

[Muttered to himself as he forces his mind away from where he doesn't want it going.]

[ This is the part Wilson's not so clear on anymore. But he thinks House won't be too particular about the details, if it turns out that they aren't 100% accurate. ]

Metformin and insulin injections, if I'm remembering the case correctly.

[ He's looking at House, though, because he should be focusing on him, not on remembering a case that happened a long time ago (for him).

Unfortunately, he's at a loss for how best to help, when it all appears to be something in House's mind. ]

Other than rehash old cases, what can I do?

[ The question sounds pathetic even as he says it. This is a fine way of repaying the man who sat with him while he received a potentially lethal dose of chemotherapy. Not that he remembers that, but still, it leaves a bad taste in Wilson's mouth. ]

I'm having a panic attack. Wait twenty minutes. I'll be fine.

[The words are clipped with a mixture of irritation and fear as his throat stays stubbornly tight and the blood roars.]

Not my first one. Everyone here has PTSD. Get used to it. [He hates that this is happening right now, but he doesn't want Wilson fretting over him. That's just going to be more annoying than helpful.]

Mm... Noise. You said traffic. Noise-induced epilepsy. What'd the EEG say?

House-

[ Wilson's frown just deepens. It's not the first time he's realized he's in too deep here, but seeing it firsthand just confirms that. ]

I seriously doubt that whatever is bothering you is going to fully resolve itself in twenty minutes.

[ It startles him somewhat, the idea that House (and others) might have PTSD from their experiences here. And clearly, they're poorly equipped to handle such things. Unless that's just him. ]

The EEG said everything was normal, but then the patient began to choke, and after being given the Heimlich maneuver, several of his teeth fell out into his hand.

The panic attack will. And then we can play Dr. Phil. Jesus, I'm not- [He has to break as a wave of nausea rolls through him, and he curls up tighter. Don't think about anything but the case. It's the case that's important. It doesn't matter that it's already solved in the future somehow.]

Periodontists with a brain infection is boring. Order broad... broad-spectrum... [Another long pause.] Tell him to floss more. What happened next? Wouldn't be that easy. [Not if it's one of the cases Wilson's giving him to figure out.]

I'm not interested in playing Dr. Phil! I just- [ Want to somehow reverse whatever's happened in the time House has been here? That's a tall order, of course, but Wilson hates seeing House like this. ]

That's more or less what you said the first time, although you suspected it was periodontitis and some sort of brain infection. [ As for what happens next, Wilson recalls something about Dominika and the pediatric oncology playroom, as well as House's mother, but he figures he ought to save that for when House isn't in the throes of a panic attack.

Dominika is someone he'd want to know about and be able to quiz Wilson about. ]

A couple of things happened. You sent Taub with Park, a new addition to your team, to do an environmental scan. While they were gone, the patient had a seizure.

[ He supposes he'll be questioned some about Taub and Park later too. ]

[Taub and Park are meaningless as names. House briefly wonders if they were contemporaries with Volakis. But thinking about her just makes him picture her death in the veterinary clinic morgue. She still isn't back. She won't be coming back, just like the other Wilson won't be coming back. Just like he'll never be going back home. And if he does, what's the point when his life just winds up being crap anyway?]

Environmental... What'd they find? Drugs? Because we're back to epilepsy or brain damage from something else. Tooth loss... [What could explain the tooth loss along with some sort of brain damage? He can hear Cameron in his head chiming in with 'lupus.'] It's not lupus. [That's muttered to himself.]

You said he's blind. Did we check his eyes when he came in?

LSD, for one thing. Park ate some ice cream from his freezer and wound up having a bad trip. You put her up in your office, of all places. Also, she started throwing things at me, thinking I'd stolen her teeth.

But anyway, back to the patient. He said he took LSD either five or six times, and got it from his second girlfriend. Apparently he meant to break up with his first girlfriend and marry his second.

You ordered an MRI and there was a lump there, a clot. Lupus was mentioned, and Behcet's disease. And no, his eyes weren't checked at first, but they were at this point. He was also started on heparin, interferon, and steroids.

[ Trying to remember all the details is giving Wilson a headache, but if this helps, then he's definitely not stopping. ]

Don't care about the lovebirds. And please. You've never had a bad trip? You've been on speed.

[That House gave him... He's getting his breathing a little more under control.]

That's not the end of the case or you'd say it was. What happened next? Patient not responding to treatment?

Yeah, but I never accused someone of stealing their teeth, and never hallucinated that someone was a thieving rabbit.

[ Being on speed wasn't exactly fun, but at least it didn't go to the lengths that Park on LSD did. ]

No, it wasn't. There's still a long way to go. The eye exam confirmed the Behcet's diagnosis, but later on, he suddenly started coughing up blood. The clot from before was starting to break up and getting lodged in places it shouldn't, like the lungs.

Edited 2017-08-27 06:35 (UTC)

You've led a very boring life. At least your death is ironic. Want me to tell them to play Alanis Morissette at your funeral?

[No. Sniping at Wilson really isn't helping this. He'd been coming out of it a little more, but he falls silent now, head dropping down and shoulders starting to shake as House suppresses sobs. After a few seconds, he settles enough to continue.]

Up the heparin. C-CT scan. Confirmed the clots?

The most boring. Oh, poor me. [ He's resisting the urge to roll his eyes, mainly because it looks to him like House is trying to hold back sobs, and that is a jarring thing to see. ]

I'll just put you in charge of arranging the music, because I can picture all the shocked faces when something incredibly loud and inappropriate blares out at them.

[ What? Doesn't House live for moments like those? Or maybe Wilson's just confused because of the imminent death waiting for him. ]

Upping the heparin risks causing more bleeding, but you did that anyway, and had a CT scan done. But then there was the unexpected snag of the patient developing necrosis on his eyes.

Definitely getting "The Final Countdown." And "Ironic."

[Laugh because otherwise you're going to cry. Christ, when did he get this freaking fragile? It's infuriating.]

No heparin means stroke. Heart attack. [He has to pause and swallow a few times, his voice thick.] Not Behcet’s... bacterial, viral, fungal. Tests?

Both great songs. People will just love them.

[ He'd prefer House's method anyway. No weepy platitudes and songs meant to get the waterworks flowing. As far as the question of fragility, it's one he asked himself before. That, and when did he become so pathetic? At least House hasn't seen him like that yet. ]

The team treated for bacterial infections early on in the case, and labs showed no viral markers. Still, when you looked at the CT scan, you determined it was actually fungal: mucormycosis. Unfortunately, the recommended treatment had an interaction with the antibiotics he'd previously been given, and the side effect of that was deafness.

But could this deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure play a mean pinball?

[House rubs his hands over his face.]

He'd be dead without the treatment. He can learn to feel people up if he wants to talk. Sounds like he's already real good at that with two chicks in the bag.

[That sounds like it was a relatively interesting case. Not his most engaging, but enough to keep him mildly entertained.]

What are their specialties? My new team?

Edited 2017-08-27 19:14 (UTC)

Well, he can still talk, so there's that. But yes, he's a pinball whiz.

And actually, he said he'd rather be dead than lose both his sight and his hearing, and it took some convincing, but he eventually went for it. He started responding to the treatment, but he lost his hearing, although I think he'll be fine. There always was a chance that the hearing loss wasn't permanent.

[ It was a relatively interesting case, all things considered. ]

Well, let's see. Before joining the team, Taub was a plastic surgeon. Adams was a prison doctor before she came to the hospital. And Park was in the neurology residence program.

I'm talking dumb in the more traditional sense. [All of his patients are idiots. More or less.] Especially if he took that much convincing.

[House draws in a few deep breaths.]

Is Taub eye-candy? Can't think of a reason to hire a plastic surgeon either. Unless you're gonna tell me I get hair implants and needed a discount.

It's not that surprising that someone wouldn't want to be both blind and deaf. If I were the patient, I'd have to put in some serious thought before just saying yes.

Not exactly the phrase I'd use, but he's a good doctor, just like all the doctors on your team. [ Some of them might be a little green, but they all have potential in Wilson's opinion. ]

Has it been twenty minutes yet?

Blind and deaf versus dead. Hmm... lemme think about that. [His tone is pure sarcasm, even though he can see the other side of it... and would have probably chosen death.]

You're impatient. Sorry my physiological reactions are inconvenient. [House is aware he's crested the worst of the panic, though. Things are getting better, not worse in terms of how his body is responding. Mostly.]

Edited 2017-08-28 17:23 (UTC)

The age old dilemma. Still, he recovered, and he even regained some of his hearing, and you know what else? He got the girl too.

[ A pause. ]

One of the girls, not both, since I know how your mind works. [ At least some of the time. ]

I'm not impatient. It was either ask that or play the hovering, concerned doctor who's so worried about the well-being of his patient. [ Never mind that House isn't his patient, not technically speaking. ]

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