FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination 
mobile edition
sydedalus
Author of 25 Stories |
Title: Some Days Are Worse Than Others
By: Sy Dedalus
Pairing: Gen; House/Wilson strong friendship, House/Cuddy friendship. The ducks may or may not be involved later.
Rating: This chapter is M, R for language and graphic violence.
Warnings: Extremely dark fic, graphic violence, graphic language, WIP.
Spoilers: "The Honeymoon" et al
Summary: An alternate ending for "The Honeymoon" based on the script sides leaked by Fox in April 2005. Synopsis: instead of going home to his Vicodin, House gets angry and ends up starting a bar fight and nearly overdosing. We go from there….
Disclaimer: The beginning of this fic is written around lines from the sides for episode 21 which very obviously belong to FOX, David Shore, the writers, etc., anyone but me. I do not own the characters or the lines from the sides and make no claim to own them. I am making no money off of this. Please don't sue me. All epigraphs by Modest Mouse, Robert Lowell, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, W.B. Yeats, etc., belong to their respective owners and not to me. Please don't sue over that either.
Credits: Big thanks to Audtrix for tossing House's thinking ball around with me and fleshing the rest of this story out. If it's good, it's good cause of her. (If it's bad, it's obviously my fault.) And Wilson's punching bag is borrowed from moonlashcc's fic "Anger Management," which I highly recommend ( : slash slash wwwdot livejournal dot com slash community slash housefic slash 66556 dot html).
(Old) A/N: In case some of you who haven't read the sides are reading this, they include the bit with the trucker and the hooker and dialogue up to House's line, "He's not finished," which I've modified pretty freely. The show cuts and fades out with House's line. Obviously, I'm picking up where it leaves off, so the rest of this fic is "original," so to speak, or, at least, not based on spoilers.
bagira – Thanks. I hope this new bit doesn't disappoint.
bree/Megan – Yep, the spoilers are something. I'm reading quite a bit into them, obviously. ;)
The man is killing time—there's nothing else.
No help now from the fifth of Bourbon
chucked helter-skelter into the river,
even its cork sucked under.
Stubbed before-breakfast cigarettes
burn bull's-eyes on the bedside table;
a plastic tumbler of alka seltzer
champagnes in the bathroom.
No help from his body, the whale's
warm-hearted blubber, foundering down
leagues of ocean, gasping whiteness.
The barbed hooks fester. The lines snap tight.
When he looks for neighbors, their names blur in the window,
his distracted eye sees only glass sky.
His despair has the galvanized color
of the mop and water in the galvanized bucket.
Once she was close to him
as water to the dead metal.
He looks at her engagements inked on her calendar.
A list of indictments.
At the numbers in her thumbed black telephone book.
A quiver full of arrows.
Her absence hisses like steam,
the pipes sing...
even corroded metal somehow functions.
He snores in his iron lung,
and hears the voice of Eve,
beseeching freedom from the Garden's
perfect and ponderous bubble. No voice
outsings the serpent's flawed, euphoric hiss.
The cheese wilts in the rat-trap,
the milk turns to junket in the cornflakes bowl,
car keys and razor blades
shine in an ashtray.
Is he killing time? Out on the street,
two cops on horseback clop through the April rain
to check the parking meter violations—
their oilskins yellow as forsythia.
—Robert Lowell, "The Drinker"
House stabbed the parking garage pavement with his cane. Step, stab, step, stab, step, stab. That was what the ground did to him most of the time—step, stab, step, stab, step, stab, pain rippling through his leg—so why not return the favor. His bag thumped against his side with each motion. The parking garage, as far as he could tell, was empty.
Step, stab, step, stab, his car, sex on wheels, in sight, hard to miss, step, stab, step, stab, fucking Stacy, fuck-ing Stacy and in an instant he'd dropped his cane, slung the bag off of his shoulder, and hurled it at the concrete pylon.
The echo of his cane clattering, the bag smacking against the pillar, his cry of rage as he threw it and of pain as he stepped down hard on his bad leg—it didn't last long enough. He wanted to do it again and again. He wanted some reckless teenage driver to careen through the garage and run him down on the spot so he wouldn't have to pick things up. His cane. His bag. Worthless weights around his neck.
Why was he still breathing.
He bent, wincing involuntarily, to pick up his cane and hobbled over to the pylon to retrieve his bag. His Gameboy and iPod were in there. He hoped they were broken.
Reaching the car of every man's mid-life crisis, he tossed the bag in the front seat and squeezed himself into the seat. His leg hurt like hell. He put two Vicodin in his mouth and swallowed them.
He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to follow the list he'd made, that he'd followed nearly every day since Stacy came back. Tuesday and Wednesday had been okay, better than yesterday or today. He'd been working hard, tracking the problem, keeping occupied the way he best liked to be occupied. And then when he had gone home, it was to a drink, a few pills, and one of the higher class hookers available in the city for a long, slow blow job that left him relaxed enough to sleep for a few hours. Then infomercials and porn and he felt like he could go back to work without exploding.
But yesterday. Yesterday was bad. Yesterday everything had gotten to him. He'd snarled and snapped at everyone and they all had the sense to leave him alone except Wilson. Wilson started pushing him, saying that this wasn't healthy, that he needed to talk to her, that he needed therapy. Fuck that. He'd done all the talking he wanted to do with Stacy. He had nothing left to say to her. But Wilson just wouldn't stop. Pushing him and pushing him and telling him what to do and finally House went off and started yelling at him. Wilson couldn't handle it either and started yelling back. House didn't remember what was said, but all his part was to the tune of "get the fuck out of my life" and all of Wilson's part was "you need to stop doing this" and getting him into therapy and other bullshit that he wanted no part of. They yelled until Wilson finally got it and stormed out before House could throw anything at him. They'd seen each other in the hall three times today. House didn't look at him and didn't acknowledge him or the anger that burned in his chest. Wilson didn't look at House either. He'd be perfectly happy to never see Wilson again.
So when he'd gone home that night, he'd unleashed on Wilson's punching bag, which was perfect because it smelled like Wilson and all he wanted to do was beat him and Stacy and Cuddy and Cameron until they all left him the fuck alone. He was tired when Candy came over but still angry enough that he pushed her, saying faster faster and bucking into her mouth, fuck propriety, even as she deep throated. He cried out angry and frustrated when he came and rolled over, dick still half-hard and wet with saliva and semen, directing her to the money on the dresser, not bothering with covers or pillows or anything and not caring if his leg hurt later because he'd slept on his side, and fell asleep before she could thank him for the big tip he'd left her.
He didn't like angry sex and he didn't mistreat hookers, but he knew that if he went home to the routine tonight, he would hurt her and end up in deep shit with her pimp. He didn't want that. He didn't want another night of drinking alone and beating the shit out of a bag that smelled like Wilson. He turned the key in the ignition and heard the engine roar and purr. He didn't want any of it.
He popped the clutch and tore out of the parking garage, hearing the engine strain in first gear before he shifted to second, and strain in second before he shifted to third. His apartment was to the right. He turned left.
He drove in a circle around the city before his leg started really hurting. He stopped at an ATM and took out two-hundred dollars. He'd need cash for whatever it was he was going to do tonight. Which, he'd pretty much decided, was going to be getting fucked up in some way. He drove off from the ATM, leg burning now, and decided he'd stop at the next suitable place he saw.
It didn't take long to find a good place. A door in the side of a run-down brick building that had a dilapidated sign announcing its name hanging above it. It would do just fine. He found a place to park, swallowed two Vicodin, and went into the bar.
House took a seat in the middle of the bar. The bartender came over.
"Two shots of Makers and a Guinness," House said. The bartender nodded and got the drinks. House gave him a twenty and waved off the change.
He knocked back the shots and started in on the Guinness, taking it more slowly. A good Guinness was something to be savored ideally, but he wasn't interested in savoring anything tonight. Still, it was cool running down his throat, chasing the burn of the bourbon. He sat for a minute, sipping the beer and waiting for the shots to kick in. They were taking too long.
He tapped the bar and the bartender came over. "Another shot," he said and pressed a five dollar bill on the bar when it arrived. He gulped it down and got to work on the beer.
House stumbled to the bathroom. He took a piss and then staggered into a stall and puked all over the seat. He didn't bother flushing. Someone else had puked in there already.
He felt more sober now. Fuck that. He swallowed two more pills and gimped back to the bar. That made five or six or seven or something, plus or minus whatever he'd just puked up. Damn his body for refusing poison.
He sat back down and ordered another shot and another Guinness, tipping the bartender liberally. He tossed down the shot and started chugging the Guinness, foam spilling onto his face and shirt. He put the glass down, half empty, and swayed as the shot hit him and the beer started doing its work, sloshing inside him, making his blood burn. He belched and picked up the glass again, finishing it off.
He lit a cigarette and took a drag, waiting for the Vicodin to kick in. Nothing about tonight was going to be slow if he could help it and he sucked on the cigarette mercilessly.
Fucking Stacy. Fucking Wilson. Fucking Cuddy. He'd say 'fucking Cameron' too but she was such small potatoes now that he didn't even bother. Fucking Stacy. She would walk right back in and start fucking with his head again. Poor ol' hubby's sick and dying and no one knows what to do, but you, Greg, you're brilliant, could you do this for me, fix him, make him better so I can go back to my life, happier than when I left it, and you'll still be in the same place I left you five years ago? You'll still be so fucked up you can't even act normal and take advantage of it when the hot young babe on your staff throws herself at you. "Do her or you're gay," that guy had said. And he was right. It was seriously cracked that he couldn't just run with it. Stacy'd left him so fucked up he couldn't settle down enough to deal with Cameron maturely. Because he did feel something for her. Or he had. But every time the impulse to feel something came up, he pushed away, because he couldn't do it anymore. Not after her. Not after what he'd gone through. He didn't need anybody and he didn't want anybody. And fuck Wilson for suggesting otherwise. "You have no relationships," he'd said. As if it meant something. Well, it meant fuck all to him. It was enough that he had alcohol, Vicodin, music, work, and a buddy to hang out with now and then. That was all he needed, aside from the occasional blow job. And he had money for them, so he was fucking fine. He didn't want a girlfriend. At his age, having a girlfriend was pathetic and sleazy. He didn't want a wife either. No girlfriend, no wife, not even a friend with benefits who happened to be female, because that never worked out. She always got needy and started pushing on him. He didn't want a guy either. He didn't want anything beyond sex. No love, no caring, no devotion, none of it. Absolutely fuck all. He needed food, shelter, and sex, and he got it and he was fine. He was absolutely fucking fine. So Stacy could step the fuck off.
He took one last drag on the cigarette and it stubbed out as an angry song pounded over the speakers. He recognized it. Rage Against the Machine. Good fighting music. His blood stirred. He wanted a fucking fight. He wanted to fight until he felt something again. Something that wasn't numb.
A few seats down he heard a hooker and a john talking.
"C'mon," the john said, "it's a nice night out. We could—"
The john started saying something in a low voice and scratched his balls. The hooker looked tired and washed out. The john was obviously a trucker. Either that or he was a lumberjack and there weren't a lot of lumberjacks in Jersey.
House heard her rebuff him. Good for her, even if she wasn't his kind of hooker. This might play to his advantage.
"Warden—" he said and the bartender came over. House handed him a ten dollar bill and the bartender poured him another shot and another Guinness. He fished his keys out of his pocket.
He slid them over the bar to the bartender. "No matter how insulting or degrading I am to you tonight," he said, "do not give these back to me." He wanted a fight, not a wreck. A fight he did to himself. A wreck usually involved others and he was fucked up enough already without killing someone while driving drunk.
The bartender nodded and took his keys, putting them away.
House leaned down toward the shot, head spinning, and sipped from the glass until the liquid was under the line and he could trust himself to pick it up and not spill it. He did, hand shaking now that the other two Vicodin were starting to kick in, and swallowed it. He put the glass back on the bar and stuck his finger in the head of Guinness. He licked it. Yeah, he was fucked up.
He had no idea what would happen tonight, but he imagined he'd end up in an alley or the drunk tank. Whatever. He didn't care what happened. Stacy flashed unbidden in his mind again and he growled to himself. The music, the beer, Stacy, Wilson, all of it made him want a fight like nothing else. The Vicodin was holding him back, making him mellow.
"No means no," he heard from across the bar. It was the hooker, shoving away the big guy's hands. Well, one of his hands. The other one was busy scratching his crotch. He said something to her that House didn't catch. This would do. Better than a punching bag that smelled like Wilson. With so much Vicodin and alcohol in his blood, feeling so numb, he could take this guy for a long time.
"Hey," he said sloppily to her, "is Mandingo bothering you?"
"Mandingo?" the trucker growled, "you callin me a—"
"You're a trucker, right?" House said, getting up from his seat and limping over to them. "Piss in a bottle while you drive. The reason you're scratching your penis," House said and he, the trucker, and the hooker looked down simultaneously and the trucker self-consciously stopped scratching, "is because you have a bacterial infection from the container. You should wash it out once in a while. Either that or your—" he looked at her, "little ho gave you something extra for your twenty bucks."
"Who you callin' ho?" she said, head weaving from side to side with her words.
"Sorry," House said, "you're a nurse?" He leaned on his cane and the trucker looked from him to it and back.
"Look, buddy," the trucker said, eyes on the cane again, "we don't want no trouble with you."
Fuck, this guy was a piece of work. Who knew it took so much to get a drunk trucker to fight?
"You threatening a blind man, sir?" House said, tapping him with his cane as though he were blind. His eyes were wide open and everything on his face said 'I'm fucking with you.' Each tap of the cane said, 'I'm fucking with you.'
"You're not blind," the trucker snarled, fists clenching.
House tapped him again. "There's a shape here," he said, tapping, "…it's big…" tap "…stupid…" he sniffed the air "…it even smells dumb."
The trucker's face was red and he was shaking. "Go back to your beer, old man, before you get hurt."
Fuck this guy. What did it take.
"Let me put it in a way even you can understand," he said patronizingly, leaning in, practically on top of the trucker, "she can't love you because she's got twenty other johns." He tapped the guy again, hard, looking straight at him.
The trucker stood, a few inches taller than House and a good hundred and fifty pounds heavier.
"I'll hit a cripple," he said in House's face, sour stink of beer on his breath.
House laughed at him, not backing down. "With what?" he said, nodding to the trucker's hands, "Those? Your little girly hands? You might break a nail." He got up further in the trucker's face. "Bitch," he added.
The trucker punched him swift and hard in the gut and the pint of Guinness rose in his throat. He gagged and spat and sucked in air, winded, but he didn't double over. He hadn't even felt it, except to feel that it was good because it was what he wanted.
He coughed and got his breath back. "You know," he said, "I read my horoscope today. It said I had a very good chance of getting my ass kicked by a big, dumb, son of a—"
The trucker swung with his right fist and connected with House's cheek. Then a left on his jaw and a right in the eye and another left and an upper-cut that made his head fly back, but he didn't feel any it and he didn't move, feet planted hard to keep the force of the blows from knocking him over.
The attack stopped and he leaned forward on his cane, grinning through the blood in his teeth. "I got six Vicodin in me," he said, spitting blood at the trucker, "Hit me again, you sorry piece of—"
The trucker leaned in to comply but suddenly the bartender was in the middle of them, pushing the trucker back. The trucker swept him aside like he was paper and unleashed an attack on House's ribs and face.
Punch after punch after punch. It was good. It was the kind of beating he couldn't give himself.
But he wasn't going down. He was starting to feel it, staggering, blood running down his throat, but he wasn't going down. He wasn't going to go down until he was knocked down and he wasn't going to give up until he was knocked out. He needed this. He needed to feel this.
The trucker paused, breathing hard, his face flushed in the dark of the bar.
House laughed again. "Come on," he yelled, laughing, "do it. Do it again, you pussy."
The trucker started swinging, but by that time the other booze hounds felt like they should step in and keep his crippled ass from getting even more crippled. One-sided fights didn't go down too well, even when the guy getting the shit kicked out of him kept asking for it.
Suddenly there was a mob around him and he found himself in a headlock. He struggled, thrashing, and the guy holding him tightened his grip.
"No, no!" he cried, tears mixing with blood in his eyes that ran from cuts on his forehead. The trucker was wearing a large ring on his right hand that looked like it came from some kind of sports championship. House wiped his face with his sleeve, and looked up at the trucker, "Hit me!" he yelled, struggling, "Do it, you bastard! Do it!"
The trucker started struggling against the people who held him back.
"He's not finished!" House yelled. "Let him up!"
They didn't and the trucker stopped fighting them. House saw this.
"Come on, you filthy piece of shit! Finish it!" he yelled.
He elbowed the guy who had him in a headlock in the ribs and got loose, staggering forward.
"This guy's got an infected dick, don't touch him," he shouted and the crowd loosened its hold on the trucker as he surged forward again.
House welcomed it. More blows to the face and a few solid punches in the ribs and stomach. He threw up this time, blood and beer on the sawdust.
The crowd got a hold on the trucker again, but no one was coming near House. He stepped forward, getting in the trucker's face.
"Is that all you got, pussy?" he spat, breathing hard and wiping the blood and vomit off of his mouth.
The trucker surged again but the crowd held him back. House felt people closing in on him.
"Fucking come on!" he yelled and took a swing at the trucker.
The trucker broke loose and hit House harder than he'd hit him yet. The force of the blow made him stagger to the right and he collided with a barstool and toppled to the ground.
The trucker turned around to get back to his drink, cracking his knuckles in victory.
"That's enough," the bartender said and started to pick House up, handing him his cane. "I'll call you a cab. Go home and sleep it off." He didn't like fights in his bar because he didn't like the cops in his bar. But this guy was done for the night.
"Fuck you," House snarled and grabbed a glass from the floor as he got to his feet. He threw the glass at the trucker before the bartender could stop him.
The glass sailed past the trucker and hit the wall, but it got his attention. He turned and looked dully at House, who was barely standing now, blood on his face and shirt, leaning hard on his cane. "You're not finished," House said.
The trucker stood menacingly but didn't advance.
"Twenty dollar whore won't even sleep with you," House said. "Because you're a little pussy bitch."
The trucker picked up a chair and slammed it into House's left side. House hit the ground hard and didn't move for a second, but then he started trying to get up. The bartender called the cops. Didn't look like the old goat was going to stop fighting until he was hauled off.
The bartender motioned to one of the regulars who'd tried to hold the trucker back. The bartender shot him a look that said, 'Let's get him outside before he does any more damage,' and the regular nodded. Together, they picked House up and drug him through the bar to the exit. House was dazed but not done yet. He struggled and spat and cursed, but he didn't have the leverage to put up a fight. They propped him up against the building and he sunk for a second, dizzy, feeling blurred.
Seeing him subdued, the bartender said, "I gotta go back inside. Watch him till the cops come, okay?"
"I'm not getting involved, man," the regular said, his hands up, "not with the cops." He turned and walked away.
The bartender shrugged and went back inside. The cops would know what was up. If they even showed.
Inside, the trucker was trying to talk to the whore again. He saw the bartender come back.
"Come on, sweetheart," the trucker said, "I know where we can get some cash. I'm gonna treat you tonight." She shrugged tiredly and went with him.
Outside, House was struggling to get to his feet. He was still conscious. That wasn't how he wanted to be. He wanted more until he was finished for good.
The door swung open and the trucker and hooker stepped out.
"Gimme your wallet," the trucker said, standing over him.
"Fuck you," House said.
The trucker hit him hard and he flew into the side of the building and crumpled. He felt a hand in his back pocket as he tried to get up. The trucker kicked him in the gut and he went down again.
"Shit, baby, this guy's loaded," the trucker said, taking the cash out of House's wallet.
"See you in hell, asshole," the trucker said and tossed the wallet at House, who was gasping for breath after the kick.
The pair left and House lay there for a while, getting his wind back. He heard sirens as he tried to stand up.
A patrol car pulled up, lights flashing, and two cops stepped out of it.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" House said, bloody, speech tired and slurred, spitting blood as he talked.
"We got a call about a fight," the first cop said, not paying attention to House. "Step aside, sir."
"You found the fight," House said and charged the first cop. His partner grabbed House as he took a swing at the first cop. He barely connected with the guy's face before he was being held back.
"You're under arrest for assaulting an officer," the first cop said as his partner tried to get House's hands behind his back and reach for his cuffs at the same time.
"Fuck you, pig!" House said and started struggling, breaking free. The first cop clubbed him. He staggered but didn't go down, cuff around one of his wrists. He pushed the second cop as he tried to grab him and charged the first one again.
"You're gonna have to do better than that," he said and spat on him. The cop clubbed him in the head and this time he did go down.
"Call an ambulance," the first cop said to his partner as he knelt to fasten the other cuff, "this guy's on something."
His partner nodded and reached for the radio.
House was unconscious before he hit the pavement.
