Prompt #112 – Eidetic – No Miracle Happened – Talullah Red – House MD

[talullahred.livejournal.com]

Title: No Miracle Happened
Fandom: House MD
Prompt: #112 - Eidetic
Warnings: None
Rating: PG
Beta: Many thanks to jaiden_s. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Summary: All’s well when it ends with steaks and beer.

Hi :)

This is my first post to the comm so if I've messed up somehow, please do let me know and I'll fix it and try to avoid it in the future.




"Hey, House!"

House turned at the call, lifting a quizzical eyebrow as he watched Wilson jogging down the hall. "Wilson," he replied tersely, waiting for him to catch up. "To what do I owe this honor?"

Wilson cleared his throat and made a visible effort to meet House's eyes. "I have a patient I think you should see," he said, pressing his lips together in that Wilson way of saying 'I still want to strangle you.'

"Ha! Of course," House replied, stressing all the syllables as much as he could until they stank of sarcasm. He wanted to strangle Wilson, too. Still, he could not resist the bait. "And what would this patient have that is so interesting to see?" He started walking in the direction of his office and Wilson followed.

"Well, medically he has an astrocytoma, or rather had, as we have successfully removed it. He has responded well to surgery."

"Right. A patient who has responded well to a relatively easy-to-intervene situation. Are you sure this is not an excuse to talk to me on a professional basis since I'm snubbing you on the personal level?"

"You're not snubbing me," Wilson protested all too angrily. "I was the one who told you our friendship had its limits, if I recall correctly."

"Oh, yeah, right," House stopped by the door of his office, pushing it slightly ajar with two fingers. "That’s why this is the third time in two weeks that you have tried to push a case of yours on me. So what is it this time? He sneezes too loud, might have a rare allergy?"

"House!" Wilson irritably cut through his sarcasm. "I didn't make those cases up, and you'd know it if you took your head out of your ass for a minute! This guy, he doesn't need your help. He has developed eidetic memory after the surgery and my team is putting an article together on their observations. I just thought that you would find this interesting, and I am only telling you as a professional courtesy."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Wilson!" House pushed his door open and limped inside. "There is no such thing as eidetic memory. I'm surprised that you could even consider it. Go read Minsky or de Groot, or go bug somebody else."

Wilson caught the door with his hand as it closed behind House and pushed inside. "Why is it that when you have a crackpot theory, we all have to hear you and play along, and when it's me – not that this is a crackpot theory – It's just my being gullible or incompetent or whatever you have just insinuated."

House dropped to his chair and pulled his leg up with his hand, resting it on the desk. He let his head fall back and closed his eyes, letting out a tired sigh. "Wilson, sit down."

To House's surprise, Wilson did sit down. Through a tiny crack between his eyelids, House studied him, watching him hiding his face on his hands. He waited.

"Listen, I'm sorry, okay?" Wilson finally said. "What you told me, I needed time to deal with it, but I want us to be friends. We've always been friends."

House shifted in his chair, giving himself some time. Wilson sat back and stared at him.

"Okay, so what you are telling me is that you cut off a piece of this man's brain and all of a sudden, he's actually using better what he has left." House knew it was below him to change the subject like that, but he couldn't bear to dwell on the unspoken subject, not just now when he was having the first real conversation with Wilson after The Incident.

Wilson nodded with slow, tired movements. "Yes. He had no records of remarkable memory before the surgery. Then, three months after, he started noticing some differences and mentioned it in the follow up appointment. It's been six months and his abilities just keep improving. We gave him random tests, things that had no emotional meaning to him, medical jargon that he would have hardly ever heard, lists of musical arias, stars by their catalogue codes, random photographs, we even held olfactory and gustative tests... He's been flawless so far, save for the gustative tests but that is probably an effect of the medication he's taking. And there have been so many records of people with eidetic memory that I am not convinced that it's not real - just look at Napoleon, Tesla, Roosevelt, Euler, Ampère, I don't know..."

House sighed. "Okay," he conceded. "I'll take a look at his file."

Wilson rose from the sofa and dropped the file on House's desk before walking to the door. Before he reached the door, House made an effort. "Thank you," he said to Wilson's back.

Wilson stopped but did not turn. "You're welcome."

House watched him, waiting, knowing the ball was in his field, but it went the very grain of his being to apologise for something he did not felt to be wrong. He didn't want to lose Wilson's friendship, though, even if the price was so hard to pay. "Wilson," he started, hoping that Wilson would do more than just turn his face slightly back in his direction. "Steaks and beer tonight? To talk, just that."

After a long pause, Wilson said, "Yeah. Eight o'clock?"

"As usual," House confirmed. "Bring a pie or something. I'm out of ice cream."

Wilson snorted. "I knew there was a reason for you to invite me for dinner." He waved his hand over his shoulder and left House's office, leaving behind him the impression that whatever that had made them best friends had just been glued back together.

He absently rubbed his leg, wondering if that was a good thing. He had made himself an expert at aloofness and it had worked fairly well throughout his life. All the New Age, love one another, you aren't living if you are not loving crap had never felt right until he had met Stacy and then he had been too busy loving her to guard himself. He had lost her twice, both by his own fault, and he wondered what was wrong with him to force him to chuck away that even if it had felt like having open chest surgery with no anaesthesia.

Funny thing is, he had been fine. It had hurt, yeah, but he had been fine. Pushing Wilson out of his life had not been as easy. He had made such a grave mistake, had behaved like a teenaged boy thinking of want and need and mixing both up. It was not like him at all, but he had pushed the line and broken the rule that says 'you don't try to get into your friends' pants,' especially if your friend has never shown great interest in the same sex, quite the opposite.

Worse, Wilson had not even understood that a drunken, sloppy kiss had meant so much to him. House had failed completely to transmit to Wilson more than loneliness, hunger and unbridled lust. He winced inwardly as the image of Wilson pushing him off, saying what he had needed to say... And now it was like nothing had passed, everything slipping back to normality. Why was he so disappointed? He had his friend back. That had to be better than nothing.

House brought his leg to the floor and forced himself to rise to his feet. He needed to leave early. He had steaks to buy.

Finis
September, 2008

Comments

[tamingmods.livejournal.com]

Liked this!

Welcome to the community! If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. We have a designated post for that purpose and that's linked on the side bar. Of course you can always just message one of the mods otherwise if you don't feel like asking your question on the thread.

The only thing we ask here is to tag your own posts with the prompt in question and your username. We do go them through occasionally and add any missing tags but it makes it easier if people tag their own posts. Your username should now be in the list. I've tagged this post for you.

tamingmods (piksa)

[talullahred.livejournal.com]

Thanks and thanks! I'll make a note about the tags for next week.