Coming Into Focus (The Director's Cut Remix) [House M.D.; House/Wilson, House/OFC; R]

[steelydanrydell.livejournal.com]

Title: Coming Into Focus (The Director's Cut Remix)
Author: bironic
Summary: House is looking for meaning, but maybe it's been right there beside him the whole time.
Rating: R
Fandom: House M.D.
Pairing: House/OFC, House/Wilson
Disclaimer: Not mine. *sniff*
Spoilers: Takes place between "No Reason" (2x24) and "Meaning" (3x01), with spoilers for "No Reason."
Original story: Looking Right Past by topaz_eyes
Notes: Section titles taken from Bruce Cockburn's Bone in my Ear.
Betas: Big, big thanks to nightdog_barks for sticking with me all week and answering question after question, daasgrrl for enthusiasm and beta on two drafts, perspi for providing the last-minute tie-breaking vote on the ending, and synn for encouragement as always.



There's a bone in my ear keeps singing your name

Morphine, ketamine, gunshots, drug-dreams. Moriarty, swollen tongue guy, Cameron and sharp steel. Wilson. Anger. Epiphany.

The fog slowly clears, and two weeks after the freak assault, House is left flexing his pain-free thigh under the hospital blankets, hiding his smile from visitors. The itch of healing wounds barely registers against the memory of pain; he dials down his drip and almost cries with the forgotten joy of a clear mind unfettered by agony.

The labyrinth of hallucinations from which he so recently emerged has left him subdued, in the mood for brooding. They don't trust him yet to run his damn department (not that it stops Chase and Foreman dropping in for consults), so he spends his days teasing apart the puzzle of his own brain. Dissecting his hallucinations. Analyzing his new philosophy.

Meaning through relationships, faux-Wilson told him. House has more than enough time at the moment to think about his relationships, or lack thereof.

First to mind, every time: Stacy. Stacy... is no longer an option. What the two of them had he'll probably never have again; if he'd been holding on to the belief that they could overcome the memory of their last few months together and try again, last year proved him wrong. She hasn't come up from Short Hills anyway, hasn't made the drive to confirm in person whatever Wilson or Cuddy told her over the phone.

There's Cuddy, who, spurred on by guilt and tense with hope—as though the success of this experiment will absolve her for what happened six years ago, not to mention the more recent lapse in hospital security—visits a few times a week, carefully keeping things polite, formal, professional. No; too much water under the bridge. For all their flirting and clash of wills these days, whatever chance they might have had was left behind at Michigan.

Then there's Cameron. Cameron, to whom he woke that first morning exactly as he had in his hallucination, rising from her plastic chair with eager eyes and unwashed hair. She's visited every day since then, impervious to her colleagues' teasing and his own indifference. Deflecting her questions and tuning out her chatter, he subtly appraises her more attractive features and imagines (not for the first time) what it would be like to take her to bed. But every time he closes his eyes he sees the robot—cold metal sliding down taut skin—a sterile operating room. Nothing but simple lust, tempered by the age difference and naïveté and irritating moral righteousness. She can't give him what he needs; he can't give her what she wants. Finally, he can't stand it anymore and sends her scurrying.

Which leaves Wilson.

Wilson, who has always been there since they've known each other. Wilson, who is always a few steps away at work whenever he needs a consult, a companion or a conscience. Wilson, who is always there now, once or twice a day, bringing food and gossip and journals with trashy magazines tucked inside. Wilson, who's there even when he isn't there. Lecturing him in his hallucinations. Little angel-Jimmy sitting on his shoulder when he thinks about doing something reckless. Phantom voice in his head when he's drunk or high enough to jerk off to thoughts of liquid brown eyes and sure, steady hands.

Wilson, who won't always be there. Not for certain. Not unless House makes a move.

He touches his leg gently beneath the blanket. Too soon after the treatment for hope to outweigh failure, so he isn't hoping. He isn't.



Sometimes it's like pleasure, sometimes it's like pain

She introduces herself as Desirée, and she's desirable enough, all right: long-legged, high-breasted, slim and smooth-skinned, eyes wide and green with naturally dark lashes, her black hair just long enough to brush her tight nipples as she kneels to part his thighs. He's been out of the hospital for a month and ready as hell for some stimulation that doesn't come from his own hand. Ready, too, to enjoy sex again without the burning pain or numbing Vicodin, even if the girl's gaze still lingers on his scars.

His dick, however, has other ideas.

She tries her hands, and then she tries her mouth. She tries with lube and without. She tries relaxing him with a massage and exciting him with filthy words and sinuous moves. He tries to do it himself while she watches. They try half a dozen different positions. They even try a few of her tamer toys.

Nothing.

A voice in his ear sings a name he doesn't want to hear. When he starts to think that the girl's coloring is wrong, that her hair is too long and her hands are too small and her voice isn't deep enough, he throws her money at her and shouts until she flees.

It's one a.m. before he accepts that plinking out the melody to "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" with his right index finger while sipping from the generous glass of whiskey in his left hand isn't what he needs tonight.

It's one-thirty before he admits that hookers and alcohol and an apartment reeking of self-pity aren't what he needs, period.

It's well past two before he picks up the phone.



It's a small voice and quiet but I hear it plain

Wilson's at his doorstep by three, rumpled and concerned as he pockets the key House never reappropriated and runs a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. He's wearing jeans and sneakers and what looks like the tee shirt he was sleeping in. His gaze seeks House's in the dim apartment, but the moment they make eye contact, House looks away.

"House, what's going on? Are you okay?" Wilson takes a step towards where he stands between the couch and the coffee table. "Is...the ketamine...?"

The leg. Of course. Wilson would think there's no other reason for House to call him here in the middle of the night. House turns and sits heavily, then stares at his hands. This was not the greatest idea he's ever had.

"House?" Behind him, Wilson's voice is a little closer, more anxious.

By the time House answers, Wilson has moved around the edge of the couch and is hovering at the end of the coffee table. "I had a hooker here before," House begins more roughly than anticipated. At the risk of losing his nerve, he glances up.

The worry lining Wilson's face shifts into irritated disbelief, all raised eyebrows and gaping mouth. "You... You woke me up in the middle of the night and demanded I come here just so you could tell me you scored with a hooker?"

Yes, he could say, I want to give you the lurid details in person before they start to fade, and Wilson would be furious and storm out, and he'd purse his lips the next couple of times he came over, and then Wilson would forgive him, and life would go on as normal.

It's the easy way out, and House never chooses the easy way, not when it matters. He takes the next step. Says, "I didn't score."

"You didn't score." Now Wilson's holding up his spread hands, the way he does when he's pretending something is incomprehensible. "How could you not—? What, wasn't she hot?"

"She was hot," House says quietly. "I couldn't..." Whiskey and apprehension leave him fumbling for words.

Obviously interpreting his silence as embarrassment, Wilson shifts modes again, this time into surprise and then quickly into sympathy with a doctorly edge. "Oh. Could be a lingering effect of the detox—"

"I don't have E.D.," House interrupts irritably. "Shut up and let me finish."

Wilson, who knows him so well even when he doesn't seem to know him at all, must register the urgency beneath his snappish tone, because he keeps quiet.

After another interminable pause in the dark, House picks his way forward. "I couldn't...feel anything. I didn't trust her. I kept thinking of... She wasn't..."

He lifts his gaze to Wilson's, willing him to acknowledge the unspoken "you" hanging heavy in the silence.

Wilson blinks a few times. Wets his lips. Shifts. "I don't understand," he says. "I thought—you said it didn't matter."

He's hesitating, but he's not balking.

House knows that if he lets this chance pass him by, he won't try again. It's tonight, or it's his late-night fantasies forevermore.

He schools every muscle in his face to convey how serious he is.

"It matters now."

Brown locks on blue. House holds his breath.



In my heart there's an image like looking through glass

House will start forward, and Wilson will meet him halfway; they'll embrace, and kiss, and that will be the final barrier broken between them.

Wilson will move back in and forsake the couch in favor of the bed.

Their toothbrushes and razors and shampoo and Wilson's ridiculous collection of hygiene products will intermingle in the bathroom; white shirts, pressed pants, ties and shined shoes will populate his closets; oncology references will claim their own shelf in the living room; the kitchen drawers and cabinets will fill with gadgets and specialty ingredients that House will mock right up until he tastes what Wilson produces with them (and then he'll mock them a little more for good measure).

Their thighs and arms will press together when they watch TV. Late at night, Wilson's head will loll against House's shoulder, and House will absently stroke Wilson's hair.

They'll still fight over Wilson's precious homemade meals. Wilson will devise increasingly devious methods of protecting his food, and House will crack build-a-better-mousetrap jokes as he dances a step ahead of him. Eventually Wilson will give up and make enough for two even if House says he doesn't want any. House will compensate by eating enough to satisfy someone Vogler's size.

They won't need to fight over his Vicodin use.

House won't be able to stop himself from playing the occasional practical joke and making Wilson do more than his fair share of household chores, but Wilson will have an entirely new and delicious array of options with which to wreak vengeance or convince House to cooperate.

In time, House will learn how Wilson's body fits against his own.

There will be a lot of sex. Oh yes. Some nights they'll play-wrestle for dominance in bed, nipping and twisting and holding each other down until one of them gives in; other nights they'll take their time kissing and stroking and exploring with a gentleness neither will admit he enjoys. His leg won't hurt; arousal will never be an issue; they'll fuck again and again in positions that would make a Hindu god jealous, and they'll fight smiles when they catch each other rubbing sore muscles the next day.

Weekday mornings he'll be startled out of sleep by the sharp sounds of grooming; weekends he'll drift awake to fresh muffins and a hand job.

They'll drive each other nuts and get each other off and know each other impossibly more than they already do, and Wilson will always want to talk-with-a-capital-T, and the bed and the couch and the laundry and House himself will smell of him, and they'll never say the "L" word (though they'll show it in a thousand different ways), and Wilson will break it off a few times in utter exasperation but he'll always come back.

And it will be perfect in its imperfection.



Could be looking at me, could be looking right past

In the end, it's Wilson who moves first. He licks his lips again and jounces his hand at his side, then takes the few remaining steps to the couch and sits cautiously beside House. His eyes search House's for some sign of discouragement as he draws nearer, until finally they're too close to see each other anymore. And then, at last, they're kissing.

Their lips simply press together for a few moments, and Wilson's stillness makes House wonder whether he should pull away and find them both a way out of this. But then something gives—Wilson shifts closer, House tilts his chin up ever so slightly and parts his lips—and the kiss deepens. House closes his eyes; Wilson makes a soft noise as his hand comes up to tentatively cup the side of House's face. The hurdle cleared, within minutes they're touching wherever they can reach: caressing cheekbones and jaws, threading through hair, thumbing pulse points, venturing lower, pressing, gripping, unbuttoning, tugging, lifting, unzipping with all the fumbling tension of a first encounter. If their hands shake and they make sounds suspiciously close to whimpers, they don't say a word about it; their lips and tongues are otherwise occupied, anyway.

House pushes and Wilson yields and they slide down onto their sides, chest to chest, half-undressed, Wilson's weight pressing him back into the cushions. His leg doesn't protest. They kiss all the while; each time Wilson starts to pull away, House follows him, wanting to take as much as he can get in case this never happens again. After a few collisions and some awkward shifting, they get a decent grip on each other and begin to stroke. Wilson breaks away in favor of burying his face in House's neck, panting.

It's weird, but it's good. Though not as skilled as the sort of company House is accustomed to, Wilson proves to be as apt at sex as he is at medicine; he quickly finds a rhythm with his fist that has House shuddering and rocking his hips in a way that makes it patently clear the problem wasn't with him earlier in the evening but rather with his choice of partner. As far as he's concerned, hookers are for taking and not for giving; now he rediscovers the pleasure of touching as he's being touched.

Aside from that one night with Stacy, he hasn't brought another person to climax in years, let alone another man, but he finds that stroking Wilson is a lot like stroking himself, and Wilson seems appreciative, if his hitching hips and the noises he's making against House's trapezius are anything to judge by.

"Yeah," Wilson breathes, voice strained. "Yeah, oh God, feels so good—"

For a moment, House is troubled at not being able to see Wilson's face; he can't tell whether Wilson is here with him or imagining someone else. Whether he's thinking of one of his latest conquests or, God forbid, an ex-wife. If he's pushing blindly into the fist of some nameless, faceless body.

A quick squeeze puts that to rest as Wilson moans his name.

In return, Wilson presses his bare chest harder against House's rucked-up tee shirt and tightens his grip on House's dick. "Yes," House groans into Wilson's hair, yes, this is what he's wanted, this could be the meaning he's searching for.

Then Wilson pushes his free hand between House's legs and does this thing with his fingers, and House stops thinking.



I don't like it when I can't tell which is true

They doze on the sofa afterwards, sticky and sated. House floats somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, Wilson breathing deep and steady beside him.

It would be too easy to think that Wilson has envisioned the same future for them that House has constructed since the shooting (and even before that, if he is honest with himself). This thing between them, then—if indeed there is a "thing" and a "them"—is it a matter of convenience, a friend helping a friend to stave off loneliness? Is it the natural culmination of a decade-long friendship in which so much has gone unspoken? Or is it another manifestation of Wilson's emotional vampirism? House knows more than anyone how much Wilson needs to be needed, in the moment, of the moment, all consequences be damned—that Wilson will give anything, everything, for that thrill. It wouldn't be the first time he's latched onto House for a fix.

If the ketamine—

House shifts.

If the ketamine wears off, what will happen to them?

Reality has fooled him before; will he wake to find that this has all been part of the same hallucination?

As if sensing House's troubled thoughts in his sleep, Wilson murmurs and rubs his cheek across House's shoulder a few times before settling down, tightening his hold around House's torso.

House breathes out a long sigh.

Eventually, he sleeps.



But I wouldn't trade the world for that picture of you

Another six weeks. The ketamine keeps. Wilson shares his bed after all.

House wakes in the middle of the night; a habit not easily broken after six years of learning to swim up to consciousness before the pain got too bad. Tonight, instead of closing his eyes or rolling out of bed to watch TV, he props his head up with the arm he's resting on and looks at Wilson with an intensity he has only rarely been able to indulge.

Sound asleep, limned in midnight gray, Wilson lies on his back with his left arm across his chest and his right arm curled beneath House's pillow. Further down, House can just make out the outline of his own hand under the blanket where it rests on Wilson's warm, soft stomach. Their entangled bodies play host to a silent dance of orange light: breeze-rustled trees backlit by a flickering street lamp. Wilson's eyelids shine in the soft glow of moonlight through the window screen. The Wilson equivalent of stubble shadows his upper lip, and the incline of his head gives him a double chin. His Cupid's-bow lips are slightly parted. House could touch or kiss those lips, now; but he holds back, unwilling to disturb the picture, and contents himself with a slow stroke of Wilson's belly.

Last week of August. Summer's in decline. Outside it's still warm, but the light breeze carries a crisp promise of autumn. He can't keep the windows open at night much longer.

For once, he doesn't want to see the metaphor.


 

Comments

[zulu]

Oh, man. Yeah. I like the inverse time you've given this: it makes the last section all the sadder because we know where it's going. I love Summer Of Ketamine fics, and I love this one for taking some pretty powerful drabbles and showing what's behind them. House's imagined future, like a hallucination: that was excellent. Rock on, mystery writer. Rock on.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ketamine summer is such a fertile field for House-fic; it's a shame the show blew past it (and implied that neither Wilson nor Cuddy had spent much time with House during his recovery). Heh -- "Lie to Me" came to mind a few times as I wrote this, and I tried not to steal any of it.

Anyway, thanks! I'm glad the remix worked for you when the original was so tightly written.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Hello there, mystery writer! Just to let you know, I am thrilled almost beyond words with how you interpreted the original drabble set! (((hugs))) I love how you fleshed out the drabbles, filling in between the spaces, drawing out the story from the framework. This indeed, is the ideal director's cut for the original story. :-)

I like how you echo the original format too, using the lyrics from "Bone In My Ear" for headings, and how you made each section reflect them. Just as an aside, I was considering using these as well, in the original "Looking Right Past", but decided on using the ones from "Spring Song." So I'm tickled pink that you found a way to use the "Bone In My Ear" lyrics. And I really like the foreshadowing at the end, with "summer's in decline": this is very much how I see it too. *nods in earnest*

So, my biggest congratulations and huzzahs! on a very lovely piece well done, and I shall be squeeing and gurgling in my own LJ. Thank you so very much! I am a very lucky person. :-)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Just to let you know, I was thrilled almost beyond words with your reaction and with having "gotten" you as a pinch-hit assignment in the first place. This was a joy to write, thanks to your beautiful drabble set.

[housepiglet.livejournal.com]

Wow! This was astounding, I thought. Quite wonderful! I love topaz_eyes's original, and so I hesitated a moment before I embarked upon reading a re-write, but this is fantastic :) In lots of little ways it mirrors the original -- the way events unfold, and your choice of language in places -- but somehow it seems to me to have emerged with its own identity and stamp: quite perfect all the way to the very last word. I truly loved it. Thank you so much for writing it :) I'm in awe of your writing.

:mems:

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thanks again! Your comments are always so effusive and flattering.

[housepiglet.livejournal.com]

Actually, they're not always effusive, and they're never flattering.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry; poor word choice. I only meant to say that your comments make me smile.

[housepiglet.livejournal.com]

Okay, thanks.

[fairy-tale-echo.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is so great. It's somehow bittersweet and hopeful all at the same time. I love the structure and the tangible sense of longing in House. Just lovely all around. Thanks so much for writing this. It feels summery and delicious and wonderful!!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the dual sense of bitterness and hope -- that's one of the things that struck me about Topaz's fic, and something I really think House struggled with while he recovered over that summer.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Another wonderful story! House's fantasies of the future, and his fears that they would never be realized, are incredibly poignant, and the last line is a killer. It's painful to think that the events of S3 lie ahead.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yes, those last lines hurt to write too. At first I wanted to change the timeline so the end took place in spring, and House was going to think about how he could open the windows up soon, but then I realized it wouldn't work with the season three timeline and would've had to go AU. Alas.

Has it been weird getting replies after commenting to these Remix stories without knowing who wrote them?

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Has it been weird getting replies after commenting to these Remix stories without knowing who wrote them?

A little, mostly because I didn't realize at first that multiple people were using the same sock-puppet name. Thus, I figured that the same person wrote this who wrote the remix of your sestina and "Dissonance."

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was confusing. queenzulu and I and our betas knew, and other Remix authors knew that up to 10 people shared sockpuppet names, but there didn't seem to be a good way to point out before the reveal that we were two different authors.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

In time, House will learn how Wilson's body fits against his own.
I loved that line in the original set, and the shift to future tense in the section here uses it so well.

This is brilliant. Breathlessly so.
Just, oh, mmm.
The reaching and finding and second guessing. And Wilson murmurs and rubs his cheek across House's shoulder a few times before settling down, tightening his hold around House's torso.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

That's one of my favorite images too. :) I do so love snuggly-Wilson. Thanks!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, wow. The language in this story is so incredibly pretty. I'm really impressed. I also adore how you kept the dialouge from the original, and yet managed to do such a different thing with the story itself. Great job.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. That was one of the hardest things about writing this remix -- staying true to Topaz's fic while still trying to make it a story of its own.

[thedeadparrot.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is beautiful. Achey and gorgeous in its bittersweet hope.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thank you! "Bittersweet hope" was definitely how I read Topaz's story, and it's great to hear that it comes through in this remix as well.

[petrichor-fizz.livejournal.com]

I loved the imagined relationship - simultaneously, I was thinking "it could work like that" and "it will never, ever happen". Like idealism and realism fighting it out, which I think is what the story is about, in many ways.

I enjoyed this immensely, even if the ending was incredibly sad. Well done.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

simultaneously, I was thinking "it could work like that" and "it will never, ever happen"

Yes! Yes, exactly.

Thanks so much for the comment.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thank you! But nope, just the one House story for me (and one Harry Potter). Up to 10 people shared sockpuppet LJs, y'see, and we don't know who we shared with. I can't wait to see who did "Harmony" and "Load Cycle"!

[housepiglet.livejournal.com]

Up to 10 people shared sockpuppet LJs, y'see, and we don't know who we shared with.

Cunning stuff! *head spins a bit*

It's a really great idea :)

[housepiglet.livejournal.com]

[Sorry for re-post - left brain on desk]

I was just saying what enormous fun it is to come back here and see who wrote what! Many congratulations on this wonderful remix :)

[no-eden.livejournal.com]

Ow. That last line hurts. Amazing, amazing remix.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hee. Hurt to write, too. It was tempting to go AU and write a happy ending, but it didn't ring true.

Thanks!

[lilapaddy.livejournal.com]

Oh, bironic, I love your writing so much. Please please please quit your day job and move to L.A. and write for "House". Okay?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I would like nothing more than to quit my day job and write lots of fic. Heh.

Thanks!

[lilapaddy.livejournal.com]

Would you rather write fic than professionally for television? Because I mean it, you should try and bust into Hollywood!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Never tried a screenplay. TV writing for drama or a cult series could be lots of fun, but if I were to quit my job tomorrow, I'd have to start with fic or a book. *g* Thanks for the encouragement!

[lilapaddy.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, yeah, of course. When you get there, please remember the little people. Don't abandon your slashy roots in favor of mainstream pandering! /end/soapbox ramblings

You know about spec scripts? You send them out to agents and shows...Agents are better.

[rdlenix.livejournal.com]

Brilliant piece of work. Your descriptions are spot on and they really are what make up the piece. I can see what you are writing about, and it makes my little fan-girl heart squee with joy.

Totally mem'ing this for later, so I can read it again and again. Fantastic job.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much! It's great to hear that you can see what's being described. I'm a very visual person and like to "see" what I'm writing in my head, so it's not surprising that that comes through in the final story.

P.S. Cute icon.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Good stuff! I especially liked the part where we get to see House's quick dream of the future...so sweet!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That part was my favorite to write.

[nakannalee.livejournal.com]

I always love your fics. The word choice flows so well; imagery is effortless. You have a fantastic way of saying a lot with a little, and making the impression last for much longer after the read.

Thanks for writing! :)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting! My former-English-major heart yearns for every sentence to count and for much of the emotion to run under the surface of the narrative, so it's lovely to hear that that's one of the things you like best.

[evila-elf.livejournal.com]

Reading this makes me all warm and fuzzy. Probably should have read it before bed rather than in the middle of the day. Now I don't feel like doing anything except lounge here with a silly smile on my face!

House's dreams for the future was wonderful and it hurts to think that something might end up happening that could ruin all that. House watching Wilson while he slept at the end was also full of awwwww :D

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hee. Sorry to have made you all fuzzy-lazy in the middle of the day. Well, okay, only a little sorry. *g*

I loved the midnight bedroom scene in Topaz's story and definitely wanted to keep it. Sleepy/sleeping!Wilson is second perhaps only to snuggly!Wilson in my heart, so it was a lot of fun to get to include both here.

Thanks!

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

The last lines just killed me. *mems* this is beautiful. Favourite lines are... *goes through*

"Wilson. Anger. Epiphany."

"But every time he closes his eyes he sees the robot—cold metal sliding down taut skin"

"bringing food and gossip and journals with trashy magazines tucked inside"

Phantom voice in his head when he's drunk or high enough to jerk off to thoughts of liquid brown eyes and sure, steady hands."

"She introduces herself as Desirée, and she's desirable enough"

"It's well past two before he picks up the phone."

"He's wearing... what looks like the tee shirt he was sleeping in."

"Wilson, who knows him so well even when he doesn't seem to know him at all"

"Brown locks on blue. House holds his breath."

"In time, House will learn how Wilson's body fits against his own."

"they'll fuck again and again in positions that would make a Hindu god jealous, and they'll fight smiles when they catch each other rubbing sore muscles the next day."

"And it will be perfect in its imperfection."

"Summer's in decline. Outside it's still warm, but the light breeze carries a crisp promise of autumn. He can't keep the windows open at night much longer.
For once, he doesn't want to see the metaphor."


Ok, that was a lot of it. Well it's your own fault for writing something so pretty.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ha! Thanks for the comment, and for pointing out all your favorite lines. Two and a half of those are straight from Topaz's story ("two before he picks up the phone," "House will learn how Wilson's body fits against his own" and the breeze through the window screen), and were so lovely I wanted to keep them just the way they were.

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

I feel I should skip off to Topaz's story now, I'm not sure I've read it. This is a lovely story :) I'd like to see what it sparked from.

oh wow.

[in-a-crater.livejournal.com]

This is among the prettiest ficlets in el mundo. Your chocie of wording and subtle details made me melt, terribly. I will go to sleep smiling now. This was written before S3, was it not? It still feels real and immediate, because House and Wilson don't really change.

Re: oh wow.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I'm so glad to hear that this still feels true to them a season later. You're right -- in many ways, House and Wilson have stayed exactly the same since the show started, despite what's gone on around and between them.

This was written in the middle of season three, and Topaz's original was written sometime after "Meaning," after we knew the ketamine failed, which I think is what adds some punch to the ending.