Title: Dark Hour
Characters: House, Wilson
Rating: G
Genre: Angst
Word Count: 800
Summary: The night of Wilson's injury, no one's sleeping well. The previous vignettes, in order, are: Visiting Hour, Happy Hour, Midnight Hour, Fifty-Minute Hour, Random Hour, and Painful Hour.
I drove blackmare_9 and
misanthropicobs a bit crazy with this one, I'm afraid. It was written at 6:45 this morning, and I bugged 'em to get it in shape so I could post it today--enormous thanks to both! They actually have lives and jobs, but they put up with my insanity anyway--amazing!
DARK HOUR
Wait’ll House hears that! In his book, I’m a moron for what I did.
House doesn’t own anything as traditional as an ice pack; he’d probably offer a package of frozen carrots for the stinging in the shoulder. Or an icy beer, referring to it as ‘dual purpose first aid’. And he’d perch uncomfortably on the edge of the coffee table, watching Wilson with hooded eyes until he’d decided that Wilson was okay; wouldn’t matter what Wilson’s own opinion was. Then he’d stand up and run a hand roughly over
Finally, he’d toss an extra pillow in
House would head off to bed then, yelling over his shoulder that if
And then House would get up a few times during the night, and if
House stands in the darkened living room, gazing towards the vacant couch. Good thing
House closes his eyes hard against the sudden image of the rusty, jagged metal piercing
But House discovers that his closed eyelids provide the perfect backdrop for rivers and sheets of flowing crimson, deathly white faces with impossibly large, impossibly frightened brown eyes. House decides he’d rather stare at the empty couch.
After a while, House sighs, and picks up the telephone. The switchboard operator connects him to the infirmary. The nurse who answers his call is patient with him. Yes, James is receiving antibiotics prophylactically for infection. Yes, he seems to be resting comfortably, and his vital signs are fine. Of course they’re treating him for the pain. She’ll let him know, in the morning, that Dr. House called, and was concerned. No? All right then, she won’t mention the phone call.
As the nurse hangs up the phone, she makes a mental note to tell
House slowly recradles the phone. He limps to the closet and rummages around. He tosses a comforter and a pillow impatiently onto the couch. It’s a dumb, human thing to do, pretending that
In the morning, the couch isn’t empty anymore—although, for the life of him, House can’t remember how he wound up there.
And the inevitable happens: Desperate Hour