snowblindrpg | [log] Don't Try to Save Me [closed]

[ House's voice is ... not familiar, but the language use is familiar. It carries a different pitch to the sound of his usual hallucinations and he turns his head towards the stag.

The animal steps past his vision and walks towards where the voice came from, ducking it's massive antlers as it moves through the doorway to the bedroom. ]

I don't think you can threaten your own hallucinations. [ He remarks in a conversational tone.

From within the room he hears the stag snort.

Pushing up from the floor, Will withdraws the large butcher knife he took from his previous location and sets his bag down on the floor. He walked, soft footed towards the door, appearing in it's frame looking particular bedraggled and ... holding a large butcher's knife. ]

You're new. [ He remarked in a calmly conversational tone, before turning his head to look directly at ... the wall. For Will it was the stag, in the corner of the room, larger than the space should allow. ]

Well, you can threaten them. It's whether or not they listen.

[House pulls off a long piece of metal from the frame he's working on and stands up, facing Will. His eyes drop briefly to the knife, his own tone casual to match. He looks over to the wall that Will's examining. Hallucinating. Okay. Encephalitis was treated, so either a recurrence or the guy's just delusional. Fun.]

And no, I'm not. You are, Graham Cracker.

[The accent says New Jersey with some Pennsylvania Dutch thrown in for good measure. House's white-knuckle grip on the piece of metal in his hand betrays how not casual he's actually feeling. He's much better at regulating his tone and expression than the rest of his body language.]

[ Graham Cracker.

There was only one person who called him that. ]

House? [ He asked. His own accent was a little hard to place, Virginia Tidewater, via New Orleans. It was a little more clear, when spoken in person than through the tiny speakers of the tablet. Softer too.

Will looked at the weapon in House's hand almost bemused as to the purpose of it's presence. The stag snorted before slowly and deliberately walking between them. It paused when it blocked Will's view of House entirely and turned it's head towards Will, dark eyes meeting the ex-profiler's gaze.

To House it might seem as if Will were staring at a space just off beyond his right shoulder.

The stag moved on away, disappearing in a blink as Will turned his gaze down to the knife in his hand. He lifted it and then brought it down on the back of his own hand, slicing a small cut into the delicate skin. Watching the blood well, he tilted his head and then shrugged before looking back up and blinking owlishly at House. ]

Guess you're real. Sorry, it's been almost a year and I haven't seen a single soul in all that time.

Edited 2017-10-24 04:12 (UTC)

[Well, since he seems to have come out of that...

House sets his weapon aside and reaches down into his pack. It's as organized as the disassembled bed on the floor around them. He pulls out a bottle of hand sanitizer a washcloth, and a large bandaid.]

Pinching is just as effective and costs me fewer supplies. F.Y.I.

[The doctor looks Graham up and down, soaking in what details there are to be had there before stepping forward and holding out the supplies. Will will have to take a few steps, himself, to take them. House's eyes shift down to the knife, the glint of the blade drawing up unwanted memories. A scalpel, another scalpel, scissors. He wants to go back to taking apart the bed frame.]

[ Will tilted his head at the supplies, weighed his options and looked down at the cut again. ]

I've had worse. [ He said quietly. ] Save those for someone who isn't used to getting knifed.

[ He stared at House for a moment longer, eyes squinting as if he wasn't quite sure what to think of the man's presence. After a moment, he took a step back through the doorway, hesitated as if he should say something but then look lost as to what.

He hadn't felt this disassociated since the time he had been sick, though he didn't have the headaches or the fevered chills that had come with the encephalitis. He'd just been on his own for so long, and his only clear memories of home were images of the unthinkable. He looked at his hand, watched the blood well -already thickening to congeal- only Will saw his arms soaked in the stuff as Hannibal bled out.

Giving House another bemused look, Will began to walk back out to the living room. The good news, at least, was he headed for his pack to put the knife away. ]

[House isn't going to badger him. He doesn't want to take what's offered? Fine. It's nothing that he's going to bleed out from. The doctor just stands and watches the other man, head cocked, body tensed and ready to dodge if he decides he wants to share the knifing love. When he steps all the way out and retreats, House seriously considers closing and barring the bedroom door. They can talk over the network. That's where they talk best.

Both of them, apparently.

But he's curious about Will, and that puts paranoia and caution squarely in the backseat.

House puts his supplies away and returns to the bedframe. As he continues, though, he begins to sing. He's a baritone and perfectly on-key, if a little rough.]

[ Two fairly anti-social men now trapped in a house with one another.

Most people would take this as an opportunity to enjoy the company of another human being. Instead, Will had retreated to one room, appearing prepared to leave House to his territory in the other.

He had put the knife away and begun to move around the house, studying what was carved into the wood, blinking his eyes as the words tried to float around, changing to spell out taunts of his mind's own making.

Hsiaoke Pass fluttering about to His death is your own and then back as Will rubbed at his eyes and tried not to hear the sound of Hannibal choking on his own blood. The rough coughs, the gasping of his own panicked breaths, slowly giving way to the sound of House' baritone lifting from the other room.

For a few minutes, Will swam from one reality to the other, the one where Hannibal's body rested in his arms, jerking in its death throes, threatening to overwhelm him, even as House's singing drew him back. Hunkering down on his heels, Will waited for a pause and then began to sing a song he'd heard long ago as a child. His voice was a tenor, lighter than his speaking voice and a little more accented as a child of New Orleans.

He wasn't entirely sure what was the meaning of the words he sang, he'd never bothered to learn them, just remembered them, the way children are prone to do. As he sang, the image of Hannibal's death, the snorts of the stag, faded further and further away and when he opened his eyes, the words Hsiaoke Pass stayed resolutely in place.

Small mercies.

[House lets the other man sing, brows rising at the Italian. And not just any Italian. The Divine Comedy, the words of Dante. Well, they've found the lowest level of hell here, that's for sure.]

Questo misero modo
tegnon l'anime triste di coloro
che visser sanza 'nfamia e sanza lodo.

[He's wondering if Will actually speaks Italian, and if he knows what he's singing.]

Edited 2017-10-24 05:27 (UTC)

[ Still staring at the vandilized -all in a good cause- interior of the house, Will answered back. ]

Ciao, la stazione di polizia? Hai visto questo uomo? Il bagno?

Those are really all that stuck while I was in Italy [ Will paused, because here is where he usually got cagey, but now ... what was the point. ] ... looking for him.

What I was singing, I learned as a child, but I read Dante in English, not Italian.

[ So a sort of non-answer. He doesn't really speak Italian, but at least he does know what he'd been singing. ]

Just as well. I do Spanish better than Italian. [House keeps working away at the bed frame as he carries on the conversation across the house.]

Donner Party must've had some connections... if he could check whether you were on a flight to come visit him.

[That conversation feels like it was months ago, but the clue still holds in House's mind.]

I have passable French, but no Spanish. [ What a mundane topic of conversation, but Will was okay with it for the time being.

His inspection of the room only held his attention for a brief period, before he found himself coming back to the doorway of the bedroom. This time, without a butcher's knife in his hand. ]

The Ripper could be very charming, when he put his mind to it, and like most successful psychopaths he was an expert at manipulating people into doing what he desired of them.

Besides, we both knew, I'd be coming to visit. I went to kill him and he was laying in wait to kill me.

[ There was a brief pause and then, in the same conversational tone. ]

Do you want help with that?

[Will's voice draws closer as he speaks and the hairs on House's neck rise. He glances over when the other man stands in the doorway, but the absence of the knife settles his nerves marginally.]

Sounds like you two were made for each other. You're not bad at manipulation, yourself. It was fun watching you piss some people off, though. Not bad at that, either.

Not really looking to speed up the process here.

[He pulls off one of the major rails for the frame and the whole thing collapses with a crash, upsetting House's orderly pieces already on the floor. He lays the rail out parallel to the wall and starts fixing everything else.]

Edited 2017-10-24 18:57 (UTC)

I suppose not. [ Will remarked, addressing the other man's statements out of order. Hands in his pockets, he walked into the room moving towards the corner where the stag had stood earlier. There wasn't anything to sit on so he tucked himself into the corner and leaned back against the cold walls.

He didn't mind the ice at his back, it felt real. ]

Better to toil at futility on your own. Makes a better horsehair shirt that way. [ His words weren't spiteful or even superior, just soft and matter of fact. Will even moved to deflect from them but voluntarily turning the lens back on himself.

After all, Hannibal was dead. What was the point to playing out a story any longer? ]

There was a time I would have taken a swing at you for such a suggestion. But seems ungraceful to punish someone for being smart about it.

So many of the men and women around us purposefully kept their blinders on, wanting only to see what fit their view of each of us; the Ripper and myself. They're the ones who usually got caught in the middle.

[ He does sound genuinely regretful about that.

Then there was a chuckle and the wry tone was back. ]

It's not that difficult. Everybody in this place is a raw nerve, waiting to be pressed. All you have to do is listen and it all comes spilling out, like pus from a lanced wound.

Edited 2017-10-24 19:32 (UTC)

[House shifts subtly so that he doesn't have his back fully to Will. It's a small thing, but one that's not likely to be missed. He'll play it off as being an easier speaking position if he needs to.]

Medical metaphors. For me, Graham Cracker? You really shouldn't.

[It's interesting how much more casual Will is about revealing things off the network. Or maybe that's just the whole being alone for months thing. One of those questions he hadn't answered... 'alone for a year or constantly in people's company for a year.' House knows what he'd choose if he had a choice, but Wilson had always been of the opinion that he needs people. Maybe just to keep him human.

Not that Sherlock Holmes particularly helps his humanity.

He's not sure Will Graham will, either.]

Anyway, you wouldn't be the first person to take a swing at me here. Won't be the last. Just leave off the knife when you do it. Dying outside the plan's more of an inconvenience than anything, but I don't like to be inconvenienced.

I'm sure you don't, either. [He's shifting his lines of nuts, bolts, and screws to one side to make room for other pieces.] And people getting in the way when you're just trying to murder a guy are incredibly inconvenient. I imagine, anyway.

[ This really was absolutely the worst introduction anyone could have asked for. Just two days earlier, Will would have been a lot more domesticated, would have reflected more of his tablet personality.

Now his already unstable mind was being messed with, he was suffering the nightmare images of Hannibal dead, ever part of the nightmare as real to his imagination as the dreams where he'd been drowning. They left him waking up feeling even more devoid of anything left to lose than usual.

And his self-destructive streak when normal was already pretty high.

So when House discreetly shifted himself so that Will wasn't at his back, the younger man smirked. He saw the move for what it was and a quick jerk of his eyebrow suggested that he approved of House' choice. Will wouldn't turn his back on himself either. ]

What do you expect people to do when you so expertly bait them, House? [ He asked, still lounging in the shadow of the corner. ] You'd be disappointed if they didn't take a swipe; just means more self-flagellation work for you later.

[ He watched the near compulsive manner in which House laid out the pieces, it made his lips twitch. ]

If you're so slopping in your murder habits to allow yourself to be inconvenienced, you deserve the trouble.

Is that how you practice medicine? Every little nut and bolt in it's place on the tray beside the body?

[House is going to ignore the mention of self-flagellation for the moment. His own self-destructive impulses aren't exactly hidden, certainly not from people who have been here for any length of time.]

Some would say you just deserve to be inconvenienced for murder, full stop. A former FBI profiler, you'd hope would say that.

I already told you I don't do surgery, though. [He holds up a hand and waggles his long, thin, pianist's fingers.] Nothing small. [But he's perfectly capable of it when he needs to be, small delicate work.] And we try not to take the nuts and bolts out or put anything in, if we don't need to. That's the difference between our jobs. Figuring out the cause of death because they died is cheating in my line of work.

It's considered morbid to the point of disturbing if we try to figure out the cause of death before they die. [ Will pointed out, eyebrows lifting in an innocent puppy expression, despite the macabre tone of the conversation.

He moved out of his corner and began to pace along the wall, keeping the bedframe between himself and House. ]

Doctor. FBI profiler, retired or not. None of it really matters does it. This place is like death, the great equalizer. Keep us all here long enough and none of us have anything to go back to; even if we survive.

You'd probably stop more murders by being morbid. And hey, nothing wrong with a little morbid humor.

[House returns with a small shrug. He watches Will pace for a moment as the other man's words wash over him. One thing, in particular, makes the doctor's brow furrow. A light flickers in his mind, the start of a realization.]

Been dreaming of trouble on the homefront?

Except the US Attorney General tends to label that entrapment. Who knew? [ The way he says it might suggest that he has a little more experience with this situation than just having read about it through an interoffice memo of 'things not to do'.

At the question, Will reached up with both hands and scrubbed them over his face. With his eyes closed, all the images from his nightmares surged forward and for a couple of breaths, he tasted the coppery tang of too much blood.

He teetered, on the edge of tumbling towards the dark lure of nightmare and the last moments of his friend's life. It took more effort than he was comfortable admitting, in order to bring himself back to the room, with House.

Will's hands fell away, dropping to scrub anxiously at the fabric of his slacks. ]

Doubt anyone else would call it trouble. More like, cause to rejoice; break out the party hats and streamers.

[ His pacing paused once more and he gave his face a single handed brush over, before he continued. Because he understood the question House was asking. ]

It's like an anxiety dream. Where you know what you have to do, but you come up short of the mark and everything falls apart.

Like being gone caused it all to go to hell.

[House closes his own eyes for a moment and rubs a thumb over his brow. He knows it's dangerous to show any kind of vulnerability to this man. Will is the kind of person House avoids purposefully so he doesn't have to be quite so on all the time, can just let himself fade out in...]

But the world keeps spinning--kept spinning--without you there. Even while the bodies piled up.

[He fishes a bottle from his pocket and pops the top so that he can shake one pill out and dry-swallow it. That's his only dose for tonight. God, he hates this. He should have been done with detox months ago.]

[ It is a risk, and even Will can't be sure which way he'll go; help the bird or crush it. For the most part, his heart still leans towards help, particular the birds who do not deserve to be crushed.

House was many levels of an asshole, a rude asshole at that, but the man's bite was defensive in design and even Will could see that. He read and studied the doctor's actions rather than allowed himself to be riled by his words.

His hands came down and went back into his pockets, a deceptively relaxed position, even as he paced. Will watched the dry swallow of the pill, as he took a moment to flick the lens around. Because in truth on his end, Hannibal's capture and death meant less bodies, but he realized quickly that despite the use of 'you', House was looking inwards. ]

How many bodies? [ He asked, his voice soft, a whisper from the shadows. ] I've been here for what feels like years now, so you're even longer. How many bodies does that equate too?

I have an extremely... specialized practice. [The road of last resort.] Depending on how interesting the cases are, I have anywhere from two to four new patients a month. I'd say 70% of them leave through the front door. So that's 17 to 34-ish extra a year.

[The furrow at his brow deepens as he returns to rearranging.] My team isn't complete morons. So, maybe 20... 25% success on their own.

It's less the bodies that bother me and more that the evidence is there and no one will see it. It's always there. You just have to look for it, listen... smell. Tasting's suspect. Dry vomit's pretty gross, but it tells you a lot about what someone's been eating. [He offers Will a wry smirk and shrug before returning to his work.]

It doesn't really matter what happens in dreams, though, just reality. Can you still tell what's real?

Edited 2017-10-25 00:38 (UTC)

What is it with you doctors and your desire to smell everything. [ Will groused, though he was listening to what House was saying ... maybe not too closely to the idea of tasting someone else' dry vomit because; gross.

As for the question, Will shrugged. ]

My reality gauge has been suspect for a very long time. I've learned to ... compensate. [ He paused and turned. ]

For instance, you're real because none of my hallucinations ever sing at me.

Boring hallucinations.

[Probably not, but he's being flip for the sake of it now.]

Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory. It helps the process.

[And really, he's diagnosed more than a few things thanks to smell.]

My process, anyway. What exactly is your process? You said you saw the past, more-or-less and step into the killer's shoes. [He can't help being a network stalker, really.] How's that work exactly? Just close your eyes and go into your head?

[ Will glanced over and offered House a small smirk as he read the flip in his tone. He let it go, figuring it wasn't really bait from the other man. ]

It's invasive and more than a little creepy. [ He groused. As someone who has been sniffed ... often, he feels he can say this.

Ah there it was, the more subtle bait laying a hook that looked so innocent. Will eyed it pensively, swam lazily around it's temptation and considered swimming away. But what was the point anymore?

After a moment he shrugged and walked over to the side of the bed. Sinking down on his knees, he reached out and picked up a bolt, rolling it around in his fingers. ]

Depends upon who you ask. [ He said after a moment. ] Jack always said I made unique intuitive leaps, to which I always told him that the evidence made the leaps, he just had to be willing to see it.

The Ripper diagnosed that I had an overabundance of neurons we have in childhood, meant to encourage our associations. Which I think was just a ninety-nine cent way of saying I had an overactive imagination.

[ Will looked down at the bolt in his hand and then reached to set it back in place, careful to make sure it lined up perfectly. ]

The reality is somewhere in between those two extremes. I walk onto a crime scene, take in all the evidence and then my imagination allows me to recreate the scene in my head. Then I take the evidence of what was done to the body and I allow myself to recreate doing it, in my head.

All the sounds, the tastes, the scents ... the feel [ He looked down at his hands, flexing long fingers. ] the beauty of it, as perceived by the killer's mind. What he was thinking, in that moment, what he felt, believed, ached to produce.

[ He looked up and had to blink a couple of times and even then, suddenly the room was filled with them. Hobbs, Budge, Wells, Gideon, Tier, Brown, the unnamed man, Dolaryhyde. They circled them, Dolarhyde crouching down beside House and watching him curiously, his tail lashing slowly; Francis always had been a curious creature.

Wells stood off against a wall, looking achey with the cold, disgruntled. Gideon stood over House, imperious but also a little inquisitive. Budge was already circling the room, like a trapped shark. Tier was crouched by the door, scratching the frame with a long claw, Hobbs ... Hobbs sat next to Will, smiling at him knowingly, Brown on his other side, looking adoring.

Will cleared his throat and reached up to rub at his eye. ]

Like I told you, months ago. You let people like that into your head, they never neaten up before the leave. Always a dirty sock or that mildew laden toothbrush left behind. Can't get rid of those smells.

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cw: self harm

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