Title: A Thing with Feathers
Rating: T for language; gen
Summary: I don't trust myself anymore, but I do trust you.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, make no money from this, and promise to put them back when I'm done.

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She wants to know what's wrong and I don't tell her the details. Delusions. I've imagined things, I say. I don't say what.

I'm not sure if I said aloud, Take me to Wilson, or if she just knows. I don't care, as long as I get to you. I want her with me because she still lives in reality; I could end up in the fucking morgue and think it's your office. Probably not, but I truly don't know.

I can't be left alone.

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I make a stop on the way. Into the bathroom, to vomit.

There are two pills in the puke. Two pills I don't remember taking.

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When the door opens and you look up at me, I can tell that you know. You know how far I'm gone; for once, you really know.

Her mouth is moving, but whatever she says, I don't hear it. She hands me off to you like a sick kid at the grade school clinic. I think of lying on that orange vinyl table with its butcher paper wrapping. But that sour old nurse never believed anybody, and you do. I wait until we're alone before I tell you.

I'm not okay, Wilson. I'm sick.

Tell me what you need. Anything.

This can't be your job, I say. I'm ... cracking up, is what. I'm cracking up and your arms are around me like you could make it stop. Hold me together. You're stupid that way. I love you for it, I think. Not sure anything I feel is really happening.

Except all the sudden my leg hurts like hell again. That's probably real.

No, not my job, I hear you say. My friend. Your arms are still around me and it's weird how I can feel the warmth on my skin but my insides have been reamed out with a giant apple-corer. I'm guessing this is real, because the unreal world felt so fucking much better. Tell me what you need, you say again. Like I actually know, which I don't. I just don't.

Take me somewhere. That's all I can think and I guess it's enough for you.

You take me home, and you spend two hours -- I time you -- looking for a safe place where I can go. They'll let me have one bag, and you pack that. Because I can't.

You make soup and quiet phone calls and you let me lean into your shoulder on the sofa because you know. And for once, now that I'm really crazy, you don't play shrink with me.

I think I love you for that.

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You've been up all night but you're not making coffee. You're scared to give caffeine to a crazy man, and you're not cruel enough to make me see and smell it when I can't have any.

You're not eating breakfast, either. I mumble that you should, and you shake your head. My sick brain has given you a sick stomach. I can tell.

You're here and your clothes aren't, so you can't even get changed before you take me in. You look okay, but I know I've wrecked you.

If you were all right you'd at least try to find my iron.

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When I hand you the last of my stuff, I can see the question on your face. The worry.

You're afraid this might be my last will and testament, the things I'm leaving for your inheritance because I'm not planning to come back. Don't be stupid, Wilson. Please, not now. If I wanted to leave, I'd have left. You fell asleep for half an hour last night. There's a gun in my apartment; you don't know it, but there is. I could've gone and you couldn't have stopped me, but I didn't.

I give you a long look because I can't talk now, and I think you get it. You look more determined, less afraid. I'll tell you everything later, I promise. When I can. You've earned the right.

I feel like I'm walking to the gallows. Taking a carry-on bag to my own execution.

At the top of the stairs I can't help myself. I need to know, don't want to know, have to know. I look back before the door closes.

You're standing there like a camel-coated superhero. A statue. For half a second I see bronze wings on your back. That might not even be because I'm crazy.

It might just be you.

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The admitting desk sits five yards from a great big dingy window. Papers, a few papers. You helped me do some of them by fax this morning, so I wouldn't have to stand here so long. I'll never thank you for that. I'll forget, but it won't mean I didn't notice.

With my watch gone, I'm not sure how long it takes to do the rest of it, sign my name half a dozen times and hope it really does say Greg House and not John Hancock or Freddie Mercury, although that would be sort of cool. If I knew I was doing it, it would.

I look out the window and you, you idiot, are still standing like a monument in the rain, suffering for me like it would do any good. Watching for me. Because you love me, and you're so fucked up that this is how you love.

I'm dawdling over the very last form, just a few more seconds.

I'll wait as long as I can before I have to lose sight of you.

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~*~

Note: the title of this piece is from a poem, Hope is the Thing with Feathers, by Emily Dickinson.