darkdreamer | Used, chapter 55

Title: Used
Beta:

misanthropicobs
Rating: R
Pairing: House/Wilson/Cuddy friendship, slight Wilson/OFC
Warnings: implied and explicit non-con, violence and non-con of a flashback/memory sort, mild language, general angst and trauma and darkness
Summary: One night leaving the hospital, a violent attack leaves House devastated and broken. In the aftermath, Wilson and Cuddy struggle to find a way to help him heal -- while House fights just to find a way to survive.

Chapter 55
Testimony

"I trust you're feeling better, Dr. House?"

The judge's voice was soft but stern, carrying hints of both concern and warning. She gave House a dubiously expectant look as he took his seat on the witness stand once more.

He nodded once, not quite meeting her gaze as he acknowledged her question. "Yes, Your Honor. Much better, thank you."

Wilson barely suppressed a completely inappropriate grin at the irony of House's uncharacteristically polite manner. He was unusually subdued, calm... even respectful. Wilson's tiny half-smile became a grim frown of anger as he thought that if this was what it took to subdue House's rude, arrogant nature, he would quietly and gratefully endure that nature for the rest of his life.

"Ms. Landers, are you ready to proceed?"

Brooke nodded as she paced slowly toward the witness stand, handwritten notes in her hand. She glanced at them briefly before looking up at House, a solemn air of compassion tempering her voice as she proceeded with her questions.

"Dr. House... you were telling us about your first meeting with Mr. Tritter. The two of you... didn't get along, that's correct?"

"That's correct."

"Mr. Tritter wanted you to perform tests you believed to be unnecessary. You refused to do the tests," Brooke reiterated as she paced slowly in front of House's seat, meeting his eyes briefly as she asked, "What happened next?"

House swallowed hard, silent for a long moment, eyes downcast, as he struggled against his own fears, struggled to regain his voice. He drew in a deep, shaky breath, biting his lower lip as he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to steady himself.

"Dr. House?"

Brooke's gently pressing tone drew House from his thoughts, and he looked up with tears of frustration in his eyes, suddenly terrified that even now, he would not be able to go through with it, and all would still be lost.

A soft sound from the quiet audience -- inaudible under ordinary circumstances, barely audible now -- drew House's attention, and he glanced up in the direction from which it had come. Someone had merely cleared their throat, but in the terse silence of the courtroom, the sound echoed, drawing House’s attention fully and completely to its source.

Wilson.

House’s eyes locked onto those of his friend, with a shock of clarity and remembrance. A sense of gratitude filled him at Wilson’s subtle reminder of the plan they had formed earlier, and he swallowed hard, slowly straightening his shoulders, keeping his eyes on Wilson's as he forced his thoughts back into focus on Brooke's question.

“Dr. House?” Brooke repeated gently. “Please tell the court… what happened when you refused to order further tests on Mr. Tritter.”

House took a deep breath, not looking away from Wilson as he answered in a quiet voice of careful calm.

“I… started to leave the room, but… he… kicked my cane as I passed him. Tripped me. I would have fallen, but… I was able to brace myself on the door.”

House glanced away momentarily at the surprise he saw on Wilson’s face, but took courage from the look of smoldering anger Wilson cast in Tritter’s direction. There was a certain comfort in the knowledge that, despite the fact that this was the first Wilson had heard of this particular detail, House still had his full support.

“I… was angry, obviously, and… maybe a little… unsettled. I didn’t want him to think that I… I was… intimidated by him, so I… I told him I would treat him after all, and I… needed to take his temperature… rectally, because of the… the nicotine gum he was chewing. I did, and… and then I… I left the room… left him there… to wait for someone else to… find him, and… take the thermometer out…”

Brooke was quiet, patient, barely wincing at the hushed murmur of shocked disapproval from the jury and audience. She had known to expect this somewhat damaging testimony. She and House had discussed it beforehand, agreeing with Eve’s advice that, since the story would come out during the trial one way or another, it was better if the jury heard it from House than from Tritter.

“Why did you do that, Dr. House?” Brooke asked him in quiet curiosity.

“Because… I wanted him to know that he… he couldn’t just… bully me like he was… like he was trying to do,” House explained, his voice halting and hesitant, and his gaze on Wilson faltered a moment. “I wanted to… to win,” he admitted at last. “To get the… the last word.” He swallowed hard, his voice thick and hoarse, barely over a whisper as he continued with a bitterly ironic smile. “Didn’t work out… quite the way I’d hoped.”

His words were met with a sympathetic nod from Brooke, and varied expressions of mingled disapproval, accusation, and understanding from the other observers.

“How did Mr. Tritter respond to your actions?”

“He… talked to my boss. Demanded an apology.” House hesitated, wincing slightly as he admitted, “I refused.”

Brooke nodded again. “When was the next time you had any contact with Mr. Tritter?”

“He… pulled me over for… speeding. And… arrested me for… illegal possession of narcotics.”

Brooke’s tone was gentle, patient, as she asked quietly, “Why were you in possession of illegal narcotics, Dr. House?”

House looked down again, biting his lower lip, before meeting Brooke’s eyes briefly, and then returning his gaze to Wilson’s. Wilson nodded almost imperceptibly in a silent indication of encouragement and support. House swallowed convulsively, struggling to find the strength to answer the question, painfully aware of how bad the answer would make him appear to the jury. His voice was very soft, subdued, barely audible, as he forced himself to continue at last.

“I’m… a chronic pain patient. And… I’m… dependent on my pain medication. I had… Vicodin on me that I… hadn’t been legitimately prescribed. When Tritter and others on the police force searched my home, they… found some pills I’d… hoarded. Just in case. It’s… common behavior for… for people who are… addicted to medication.”

“What were the charges brought against you?” Brooke asked.

“Possession of narcotics, with intent to distribute,” House replied, his voice low and unusually humble. He shifted his gaze to meet Brooke’s eyes, the expression in his own earnest and solemn as he added, “There was never any intent to distribute. I may have had too much Vicodin – been taking too much Vicodin – but it was never intended for anything beyond my own personal use.”

“And you were acquitted of those charges, is that correct?” Brooke prompted with an encouraging nod, leading him further toward the inevitable and dreaded pinnacle of his testimony.

House nodded. “Yes,” he replied a moment later, remembering that he had to speak his answer aloud. “I was found not guilty of all charges.”

“When was the next time you saw Mr. Tritter?” Brooke persisted.

House was silent for a long moment, his head lowered as he struggled against his own mounting panic, struggled to find the courage to keep going down the dark and twisting path into the worst of his own memories. Finally, he raised his eyes, but not his head, meeting Wilson’s eyes as he forced himself to speak in a low, carefully even voice.

“The night… the night I was… attacked.”

Brooke’s voice was gentle, patient and reassuring, as she softly requested, “Tell me about that night. Take your time, and tell me, in your own words – what happened that night.”

“I was… on my way to my motorcycle, in the… parking garage… and a… a blue car… pulled up beside it. F-five men… got out. Mr. Tritter, and… four others.” House swallowed back a sob, blinking away tears as he fought to go on. “I… tried to fight back… knew that… whatever they were going to do… couldn’t be good… but… there were… there were just too many of them. They were… too strong. They… took my cane, and… and hit me, and… knocked me down. They… handcuffed me, and… put a… a… bag, or… or something… over my head, so I couldn’t… couldn’t see… couldn’t talk… couldn’t… could barely… barely breathe…”

House was silent for a long moment, eyes downcast once more, quietly warring against the suffocating terror of that particular memory. Brooke was tactfully quiet, not pushing him, simply waiting for him to be able to go on. The entire courtroom was utterly silent, waiting breathlessly for the rest of his story – which only seemed to make it harder to continue.

“Tritter… grabbed me, and… and told me to be quiet and n-not fight, or he would… would make it worse for me.”

“How did you know that it was the defendant who spoke?” Brooke quietly asked for clarification.

“I r-recognized his voice,” House replied, his voice a bit steadier as he considered her question. “I… I knew… I couldn’t fight them, not… not like that… so I stopped struggling, and… and they forced me… into the car. They drove for… a long time. At least… I think it was a long time. It felt like a long time. I… couldn’t really tell. And then they… dragged me out of the car and… we… we walked for a while… through… woods, I think. The ground was rough, and there were trees, I think, because… because at one point he slammed me into one and… and told me to… to keep up. He… hit me… in my… bad leg… and told me if I couldn’t keep up, he’d… make me regret it.”

House’s breath came in deep, shuddering gasps, his eyes wide and lost as he fought to focus on Wilson’s face, and not the dark, terrifying images that filled his mind with such painfully vivid clarity. Wilson was blinking rapidly, his jaw working with repressed emotion, as he unfailingly held his friend’s gaze in a wordless display of unwavering support.

“They took me to this… cabin… Tritter told me later it was… his. And… he… he pushed me… onto my knees. That’s when he… when he took the hood off, and… and I could see his face again.”

“Michael Tritter’s face,” Brooke clarified softly, glancing toward the jury, who were staring at House, their attention completely arrested by his quietly compelling words.

House nodded slowly. “Yes. He… he said he was gonna… gonna take the cuffs off, so he could… could…” House hesitated, blinking away tears, his face flushing with shame as he lowered his eyes. “He said he was gonna… take my clothes off… and… not to fight him… because… he’d just hurt me worse if I… if I resisted him…” He swallowed hard, fighting for his composure, and only partially succeeding. “I kn-knew what he was going to do, and I… I fought him as soon as the cuffs were off, but… but there were too many of them. They… held me down, and he… t-took my shirt off, and… and cuffed me again. He… hit me, and… told me he was going to… to make me pay for fighting him. They… took off my pants, and… and tied me to… to an overhead pipe.”

A visible shudder passed through House’s shoulders, and without realizing it, he crossed his arms over his chest in a defensive gesture, head lowered slightly. He swallowed hard, trying in vain to moisten his dry mouth. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and halting.

“He… he beat me… with my… my own cane. He… hit me… so… so many times... I… I thought he was going to… to kill me…”

House’s voice trailed off as he shook his head, raising a hand to rest his brow, shielding his eyes from the curious stares of those around him. Fighting back a sob, House struggled to make himself look up at Wilson again, but found that he couldn’t find the courage.

Brooke’s voice was soft and gentle as she moved in close to the witness stand, waiting a moment before prompting him quietly. “What happened next, Dr. House? After the beating? What did the defendant do next?”

House finally looked up at her face without quite making eye contact, his wide, expressive eyes lost and tormented, flooded with tears. As he looked away from her, his eyes crossed with Wilson’s again, and he froze, stunned by the anguish he read on his friend’s face – the tears that streaked Wilson’s face as he stared back at him. House swallowed slowly, returning his gaze – and somehow drawing strength from it.

“He… took me down from the… the pipe, and… cuffed my hands… in front of me… and… and then, he… he took me… into a bedroom. He put my… my b-belt… around my neck… and held me down… on the bed… He… he…” House’s voice was low, intense, but barely a whisper as he concluded, “he… raped me…”

In slow, halting words, House described in horrifying detail how Tritter had brutalized him, then handed him over to his friends so they could do the same, over and over again, all the while verbally abusing and demeaning him. House told the jury how Tritter had forced him to kneel in front of them, forced him to yield to the oral assault of all four men, and even forced him to say that he wanted it, to beg them for more.

As House described how Tritter had violated him with his knife, and with House’s own cane, several members of the audience got up and walked out, visibly ill, while the jury obviously fought with their own reactions. Some were crying, others hiding their faces in horrified disbelief. House’s voice grew stronger, though his face was stained with unheeded tears as he kept his gaze on Wilson and told how Tritter had driven him out into the middle of nowhere, murdered his cohort simply to terrorize him into silence, and further menaced and tormented him until he was certain that House wouldn’t dare say a word to anyone about what had happened.

“He… h-held the gun to my head, and… and he told me… if I talked… to anyone…” House struggled to get the words out, blinking back fresh tears, “… he’d… he’d kill me, and… he’d kill… anyone I told. He said he’d… he’d do to them… what he did to me, and… and he’d… make me… make me watch. Make sure they… they hated me… knew it was my fault… before they… before they died…”

His words were met only by the shocked silence of his listeners, and House finally lowered his head again, shaking it slightly in despair. When he spoke again, it was unclear whether his words were intended for the jury, or for his listening best friend on whom his attention was focused… or only for himself.

“I don’t know… maybe it was my fault,” he whispered. “Maybe… if I’d been... less of a jerk… if I’d… treated him better in the clinic. Maybe if I wasn’t… wasn’t an addict… if I’d… if I’d been more careful… watched more closely… maybe… this wouldn’t have happened…”

Brooke flinched slightly at his words, hesitating a moment, before reaching out and resting a tentative hand on House’s hand, white-knuckled and clenched around the bar in front of him. Her piercing gaze turned toward the jury as she made a statement of firm conviction, both for their benefit and for House’s.

“There’s always some way in which a person can be made to believe that the assault was their fault – but rape is never the fault of the victim. Never.”

She proceeded to continue her questioning, asking House about the events surrounding his recovery – the discovery of his bike outside his apartment, the other threats Tritter had made, and finally, the events of the incriminating recording. House gradually seemed to recover his composure as the questions led him gradually away from the most traumatic of his thoughts, though the jury was still in tears by the end of his testimony.

When House had finally told his story in full, Brooke stood in front of him, catching his gaze and giving him an encouraging, appreciative smile.

“Thank you for your time, and your courage, Dr. House.”

She nodded to the judge before turning toward the defense attorney. House tensed automatically, steeling himself for what was to come, well aware that the worst of his ordeal was likely yet ahead of him, as the defense attorney glanced eagerly in his direction with a disarming yet somehow predatory smile.

“Your witness."

TBC...