VI

Wilson is roused awake in the middle of the night with a still figure next to him, breathing quietly, blue eyes wide open. He turns slightly to face him, running his eyes over his features, which are hard and chiseled and worn with past grievances. "Hey," Wilson says, softly, still half unconscious.

"Couldn't sleep," House murmurs, his eyes slowly shifting to find the soft line of Wilson's face, inches away.

"Nightmares?"

"What?" House says indignantly, looking away, "No." He puts a hand to his forehead, rubbing the crease in between his eyebrows and exhaling forcefully. "Just" - he inhales - "my leg hurts."

Wilson gazes at him for a silent second, finally slipping a palm down to House's right thigh. House winces in pain, his expression slowly easing into mild discomfort as Wilson works the knotted muscle out and inches towards his chest. House pulls him in closer, wrapping an arm around a bare strip of flesh from under Wilson's sweater, and bringing his leg across House's calves. Fingertips run through Wilson's locks evenly, ever so often tracing a line from his cheekbone to his hairline. "You okay?" Wilson breathes blearily into House's chest, readjusting so his head is resting in the crook of House's neck.

"Fine. Go back to bed, Wilson."

"Mm," Wilson exhales, hardly cognizant, "Love you."

"Yeah," is all House replies.

***

They get to the place they rented out at eleven PM. If Wilson looks in between two houses in front of him, he can see the sea, scintillating in the moonlight. The night is quiet; the only sounds resonating through their seaside home are the sounds of the ocean, gentle yet evergreen. Wilson half expects the low noise to die out into a state of quiescence when his head falls to the pillow.

But it doesn't. Another sound trickles its way in, compounding upon the rush of water. It's only noticeable because Wilson had been listening, waiting for the sea to evaporate into stillness. But he hears it, quietly, and it sounds like...

He could have sworn - House was upstairs, with him, he watched him go up the stairs - did he? - Wilson stays absolutely still for a minute or two, confirming the noise, and then he suddenly sits straight up in bed, the blood coarsing through and outwards. Dizzy, he stumbles out of his bed, trying to stay as mute as possible. He pads down the stairs, and then he stands there, in their living room...

"House?" Wilson says, unsure.

His best friend is sitting on a couch, leaned forward, working his forehead into his cane. His leg is splayed out to the right of him, and soft sniffs are stifled as he uses the sleeve of his arm to wipe his nose, still not being loud enough to let anything on. Moonlight is casting cool blue shadows across his face, the stubble dark and rough and apparent.

Wilson readjusts to this for a second before putting out a placatory hand and trying to reason with everything. "House..." he starts gently, stuck on the wrong words, "I know that things have been... hard today, but-"

"God," House snaps coarsely. His voice sounds clogged and harsh, like his nose's been plugged up. "You're fucking dead, and you still wanna righteous me."

Wilson's brow creases in the darkness, and he steps back unknowingly. "Yeah," he says. "Because I care. You... matter. To me. You do. And... yeah. Yeah, I want to righteous you, even though I'm practically dead, because you matter to me, and..." Wilson inhales sharply, keeping his voice steady only by force of will. "You push everyone and everything away so you don't have to deal with things like these-"

"Would you just shut up, Wilson?" House interrupts angrily, wincing from pain. "Honestly. You're cutting my life expectancy."

"I get it, okay?" Wilson replies, louder. "Amber died, I was devastated, but I got over it. You'll get over it. You're House, you're - you're stoic, impassive, apathetic-"

"And you're not Amber," House manages to say without his voice breaking. "Do you get it? Or do I have to say it in a way that'll make it easier for you to understand?"

"Why do you always do this? Why... do you always... deflect?"

"How am I fucking deflecting? You think my dad touched me as a little boy, so I'm not reacting the way you want me to to your death? Is there an arbitrary set of rules to dictate how I should react to you?"

"Maybe that's it!" Wilson yells, "I don't know!" He paces forward, waving his right hand around in House's face to illustrate his anger. "But I do know that you're hurting. I know that, and there's no use in hiding it because I'm hurting, too. And you do this with everything. Everything. You crashed through Cuddy's wall because you couldn't bear to confront your own emotions without being destructive. You violated your parole because you couldn't handle acting like a sane adult while your best friend was dying. You called my girlfriend at midnight because you got too buzzed to realize..." Wilson's voice gives out, and he places his right hand on his hip, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his left. "You're a shitty friend, House," Wilson breathes, his voice shaking. "You're a shitty friend, and I can't let you go."

House is stark silent. He looks up, cold moonlight cutting sharp edges across his features, and Wilson looks inside his ice blue eyes and there are no perfect moments. They're bloodshot, moisture painted onto the tan of his cheeks, gleaming and pinkened with a sort of ravenous grievance that Wilson's only seen a handful of times. There are no perfect moments; life is dirty and messy and honestly if Wilson could erase moments like these, he would. House's pupils are blown wide and cavernous, no longer holding scenarios and contemplations, but now emotions that are cool blue, airtight. Wilson can feel it in his hands, palpitating steadily, sucking oxygen out of his capillaries, out of the room; he can't breathe like this. He knows it'll hurt more if he lets on, but, God, he wants to - he could lean in - just steal a second's worth of House's lips to keep with him. In his back pocket, at all times.

There's no such place as utopia, Wilson has to remind himself. "How could you pretend you don't care?" Wilson says, hurt inflected into his voice. "Because you're uncomfortable with misery? House... misery is built into you. I'd say you were depressed, but it's much more simple than that" - Wilson chuckles bitterly, moreso because of the pain of it than from the pleasure - "and much more self inflicted."

House doesn't look away as he hisses, "You think I wanna be miserable? You think I wake up in the morning and I ask myself, 'How can I possibly fuck up my life even more?' "

"Sometimes, I think that's the only explanation."

"Well, you're a fucking idiot. And you're wrong."

"Is that why you're crying downstairs, so I can't hear?" Wilson asks, his voice quietly incredulous, a pitiful scoff hidden in his tone.

"I'm doing that so I don't have to listen to you analyze me!" House shouts, "I'm doing it so you won't make me face the reality of the situation!"

"Don't be so self absorbed," Wilson yells, gesticulating. "You aren't the one dying, you aren't the one in pain-"

"You know nothing about pain!" House roars, "You don't know what it feels like to have everything taken away from you because of a blood clot. You don't know how it feels to watch people in your life abandon you-"

"Because they got tired of dealing with your crap, House," Wilson says, shaking. House stands up from his couch and advances on Wilson, his eyes even glassier than before, hand tight around his cane. "You say it's because of your leg. The truth is: you're a rude, apathetic human being who can't handle having real relationships. You pushed those people out of your life. They didn't abandon you. I'm the only person you haven't lost yet, and now you're losing me, too, and you're afraid."

"Everybody dies!"

"Admit it!"

"No!"

"Admit it! You're afraid of losing me, because when I die, nothing else will matter, and you might as well be dead yourself!"

"Yeah, you're the only thing stopping me from tying myself down to some train tracks. Nice fucking deduction, Wilson."

"You cover everything truthful with sarcasm, you make everything with real emotion into a farce, you turn happiness and sadness into travesties to amuse you - you enjoy being miserable, being able to make others miserable - you're pathetic. Pathetic, House."

"No, Wilson," House says, more hushed, his voice suddenly taking on a different air. "You're hopelessly in love with realities that have no chance of happening. That's why we're in Italy. You want to live out the rest of your life like some goddamn fairytale, even though you know that it doesn't even matter. Your life wasn't worthwhile. Your life meant nothing. There is nothing after this, and when you're dead, no one will care except me, Wilson."

House shakes his head, looking away for half a second before meeting Wilson's tortured gaze with a look so harsh and calloused that it makes Wilson take a step back. "You want to change reality," House says coldly. "That's pathetic."

***

In a different, kinder world...

No. There's no such place.