Fetch: Ch 2/4

[verbal_kint]

Fetch: Chapter 2

 

It’s 6:30PM, and his leg is under the impression that it’s actually a cannibalistic chainsaw. Since there are no other chainsaws around, it’s decided to settle for eating House’s hip and back and sanity instead. So he’s flipped on the television, stripped down to his boxers, shirt, and socks, whipped out the morphine (just in case), the bourbon (just because), and ensured Cuddy knows there’s not a chance in Hell he’s coming to work tomorrow, but there’s still the matter of the dog.

“I’m talking to a dog.”

This is the first thing House says to Hector, and therefore it’s not really necessary. But from now on, it will be. Because the thing is, talking to dogs is inevitable. Be it, “ya hungry?” “wanna go outside?” or “play ball?” no one is immune, and if there’s one upside in that for House, it’s that Hector isn’t likely to talk back.

The dog sits and watches him watch TV, and that’s when he’s compelled to say something. For the first time in his life, he’s the conversation starter…and carrier…and, most likely, the ender. At least until Wilson finally steps through that door and collects his mistake.

But until then, the extra body makes silence uncomfortable, and five minutes into Law And Order, he’s got to speak again.

It’s only fitting therefore, that House asks, “What are you looking at?”

Dunno, but it’s not the corndog in your hand. Nope, definitely not the friggin’ corndog.

House realizes, before he’s able to cower in shame because he’s just created an imaginary voice for an animal that does nothing but sleep and poop, that Hector’s “voice” sounds an awful lot like Wilson’s. In fact, it’s downright difficult to imagine anyone else’s voice accompanying this dog, because he and Wilson are so obviously the same prematurely miserable, self-righteous soul shared between the two bodies.

So, by the time House looks back to Hector, the rather doggish thought of, Are you gonna eat that, or conduct Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony with it? no longer seems so odd.

House sits up on the couch and lets the rest of his corndog slide off the stick and into Hector’s strategically-placed mouth, which is fine, because he’s not all that hungry today.

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Hector lies beneath House’s feet where they form a bridge from the couch to the coffee table. He’s curled up in yesterday’s dirty t-shirt, not seeming to mind the smells of latex, sweat, or Old Spice.

The Vicodin is on the end table next to the phone. The morphine sits innocently on the coffee table. House spends about half of his time watching TV and the other half pondering romantically about the syringe without actually using it.

He changes the channel while still engaged in a staring contest with the green metal box. Soon after, Hector begins to whine. House looks up to find someone selling something, a horror only amplified by the letters HSN in the bottom left corner of the screen.

House is beginning to think that Hector has good taste until he looks at his watch. It’s 7PM. That’s the time Wilson said Hector needed pills, or was fed, or…something.

Hector whines louder, despite his pitiful little howls getting soaked up by House’s shirt. House points a finger at him. “Hey,” he says, “shut up.”

Hector doesn’t, and it seems just as well, seeing as he shares a soul with the one man House can never get to shut up.

House puts his left leg to the floor and sits up, leaving the right one on the table. He gives Hector the most challenging look one can give to a dog and asks, “What do you want?!”

House pries his right leg off the table and sets it on the floor like a mug filled with hot tar. Meanwhile, Hector has managed to further entangle himself in the t-shirt.

“You want food? Will that shut you up?”

Yes, I’ve just had a huge corndog in the middle of the day and I want food.

House leans over to get a better look at Hector. More specifically, the way Hector’s leaning on his left side while his right front leg apathetically skims the ground. Hector, of course, sees this display of interest as a proper invitation to rest his head on House’s lap. House scoots over, allowing Hector’s head to drop onto the couch, and allowing his own leg to get in a few good punches as well.

“Poor you,” he says. “Your pain relief requires the opposable thumbs of a cripple twenty paces away from your meds.”

Hypocrite.

House swallows two pills while glancing enviously at the morphine box, and then looks back to Hector. “Relax,” he says, “just means you’ll have to wait until these kick in.”

They spend the next nine minutes watching the home shopping network in silence.

House looks at his watch again, reinforcing the idea that the drugs are in effect, because until now he wasn’t sure. He glances over to the hallway, managing a look at the bathroom and the medicine cabinet inside. Then he looks at Hector. Stupid, stupid Hector. Hector, with his stupid tongue and stupid eyes and stupid half-floppy ears. And stupid leg. “You owe me for this,” he says.

He pries himself off the couch and uses his left leg to roll around the end table. He leaves the cane, opting instead to support himself with the hallway walls.

Twenty-one paces later, he’s staring at his own sweat in the mirror while breathing like a McDonald’s addict. He looks at the reflection of the living room, expecting at the very least to see fire and brimstone, perhaps a genetically engineered T-Rex or two, but it’s as he left it. He even sees a fluffy white tail sticking out from the side of the couch, lapping clumsily at the side of the coffee table.

So as he opens up the medicine cabinet and removes a bottle of Rimadyl labeled Hector Theodore Wilson—NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMTION, he allows himself to (very briefly) hope that Hector’s stay will not end in multiple insurance claims. And this hope seems well earned by the time he shuffles back to the welcoming couch and the small white dog that still waits there…without valuables or pieces of furniture in his mouth.

“Alright, Theo,” says House, eyeing the pill bottle as he struggles with the childproof cap, “open up.”

Hector doesn’t even look.

House spills two pills into his hand instinctively, plopping one back in when he remembers that Wilson’s specific directions spoke of one pill, and one pill only. He looks back at Hector, and pours the second pill out again.

“Theo,” he says, tapping the dog on the shoulder like a lost old lady. “Hey, Hector.”

Hector perks up his ears at his name and sits up on his back legs. House holds the pills flat in his palm and waves his hand just below Hector’s mouth. “Eat these,” he says. Hector doesn’t. In fact, he grants the pills no more than a passing sniff before burying his head in the t-shirt once more.

“Fine. Suffer,” says House, leaning backs into the sofa once more.

It’s two minutes before Hector starts to whine again. With a vengeance.

House gives a Wilson-worthy sigh in the direction of the Wild Turkey bottle on the coffee table, and considers pouring them both a glass. Hell, it’d probably be like drinking with Wilson…with less gossip and more drool.

He refills the glass on the table, but doesn’t drink. He leans over and looks into the kitchen, as if to reassure it’s still there. Then he narrows his eyes at Hector, the corners of his lips making upward turns in something vaguely resembling a smile. Hector doesn’t know he should be scared.

House pries a cheeseburger chew toy from the depths of the couch cushions and tosses it in Hector’s general direction. “Stay.” He rises with a grimace and hop-skips to the kitchen, where he stumbles around by the dim window light to find Hector’s bowl. He finds it, or rather his sock-cloaked big toe finds it, and he picks it up for the trek back to the sofa. It’s red and plain, despite House’s firm conviction that it’d have a paw print and perhaps an atrocious pun in Comic Sans.

He slumps into the couch and leans over the coffee table, using his elbow to shield the bowl from Hector’s tongue while he pours in some bourbon. He plops the pills in before setting the bowl down in front of Hector’s adventurous tongue.

“Cheers,” says House, reaching for his own glass, the glass that’s no longer on the table.

He jerks his head around, looking for anywhere else he might’ve set it down. He checks the end table, seat cushions, even Hector’s mouth before deciding to embark on a serious search and rescue mission.

He stands up for the third time that night, a fact made incredibly apparent by the fact that he’s in three times the agony he started in. He turns to his left this time, and takes a step.

He finds the glass under his left foot, or rather in his left foot. In 2/3rds of a second he’s on his ass, his right leg not even trying to support his hissing and cursing weight.

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Seven different grammatical usages of “Shit” later, the glass is out of his foot, the bottom of his sock is red, and not all the bourbon in the world will move Hector from his hiding spot beneath the coffee table.

House pulls off his sock with a grimace, giving himself a moment to catch his breath before prodding his wound and cursing some more. It’s not deep, not as deep as he thought it was, anyway. It could probably do with a stitch or two, but House’s minimum is four and he doubts he has the patience or energy to reach a suture kit, needle and thread, or even a Band-Aid. So the scar will be ugly—it’s not like that’s some foreign concept to House. So he won’t wear flip-flops and he won’t go to the beach. No changes required.

He groans and flops back against the carpet, debating whether to make the giant scoot back up to the couch, back up to the morphine. That is, if Hector hasn’t eaten the syringe and spit it up on some hazardous patch of carpet. He wishes he cares enough about this carpet not to drip blood on it, but he doesn’t. He can’t will himself to stop bleeding; his left sock is a murder scene similar to his foot, and there’s a large, diabolical creature preventing him from even considering the removal of his right sock. To many, this creature is called a leg.

He twists around until his weight is on his left hip and he sufficiently feels like a deformed mermaid, then he starts sliding.

He reaches the side of the couch. Screw it.

He’s almost even with the coffee table now, and at perfect glaring height for the likes of Hector, who stares back at him from beneath the table.

“What’re you looking at?” says House. “I try to help you out and you try to put me in a wheelchair.” He leans against the outer armrest. “We’ll see how much food you get tomorrow when you have to get it from the top cabinet yourself.”

Hector eye-replies with, Help, you’ve fallen and you can’t get up.

House is glad nobody can see him shaking his head menacingly at a dog that’s done nothing but knock over a glass and make eye contact with him. He lays against the carpet once more, leaning his head back until he’s staring at the upside-down laundry basket on the floor, the one that’s overflowing and smells of pure sweat.

“Bad dog,” he sighs. “Bad…” He trails off as soon as his eyes hit a pair of relatively clean socks perched at the edge of the laundry basket. Hell, they even match.

He sits up, giving a right-side-up look at them before granting a glance to his still-bleeding foot. Then he looks at Hector, and whistles.

Hectors crawls out cautiously from beneath the table, tilting his head at the unexpected beckoning. House whistles again and he teeters closer, greeted not by scowls or yells or mocking barks, but a gentle pat on the head.

House grabs Hector by the collar and makes sure he’s looking at the basket. “Hector,” he says, pointing, “get the socks.”

But Hector just sits and stares dumbly at House. House taps the floor before him and points again. “Go get it,” he says. The words come out in a maximum of two syllables, and he’s frightened by his own realistic impression of a dog owner.

Hector, meanwhile, continues to stare.

House sighs, wiping a hand across his forehead. He points just once more, jadedly indicating the laundry basket with his arm. “Fetch.”

Hector lurches forward and marches swiftly, if gimpily, towards the basket, where he grabs the topmost t-shirt and turns around, tail wagging ferociously behind him.

House shakes his head and points again to the socks. “Socks,” he repeats, as if Hector will learn to match the sound with it’s corresponding command simply by hearing it enough.

Hector grabs another t-shirt, this time bringing it back, close enough that House can tell which one it is. It’s blue. Not a pretty eye-matching, day-brightening blue, but a more falsely aesthetic blue, the blue of novelty picture frames and motocross jerseys. It has an American Red Cross logo on the square of the back, indicating House’d gotten it for free. Figures.

House shrugs and pats the carpet next to the couch. “Sure, bring it here.”

Hector does, hobbling fast enough to make House slightly jealous. He drops the shirt on House’s lap and nudges him in the side, making sure he knows it’s there.

House takes it without thanks and wraps it around his foot, resisting the urge to smile as he knows there’s no way the blood’ll come off in the wash. With his ass still glued to the floor, he tests his weight on the shirt and the foot within it, deeming the patch job one of his better impromptu fix-its. He leans against the couch and stands up, only to fall into the sofa once it’s attainable by gravity alone.

Suddenly, the morphine’s at eye-level again. Then the syringe is in his arm. Then House’s eyes become heavy. Then he doesn’t care that every light in the apartment is on.

Hector makes his way back to the other dirty t-shirt, kneading the sleeves into a bed of some sort, and making that trademark dog circle before collapsing into it and settling down.

The last thing House’s sees before the weight of his upper lids becomes too much for him is Hector’s bowl. It’s completely empty, except for two very soggy pills at the bottom of the dish. “Clever.”

“Still a bad dog,” House mumbles. And they both drift off to sleep.

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