Moonlight, Chapter 8
Apr. 7th, 2009 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkdreamerI know it's been a while, but I think I'm back on track with updates :) Here's the next chapter of Moonlight, hope you enjoy it :) Please let me know :)
*hugs*
DoS
Title: Moonlight
Beta:
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andi88 Pairing: none really, House/Wilson friendship, some House/Cuddy friendship
Rating: PG-13 to R in places
Warnings: violence, scary themes, disturbing subject matter
Summary: Following Amber's death, House is afraid that Wilson will never be able to forgive him -- but Wilson's real reaction is far more frigthtening and disturbing than he ever would have expected. Wilson wants to hold on to the only meaningful relationship left in his life -- by any means necessary.
Chapter 8
Wilson staggered slightly, collapsing onto the side of the bed as blood poured from the deep slash across his wrist. To his horror and alarm, a rather large part of House wanted to stay and make sure that Wilson would be all right – but he knew that he couldn’t.
If he didn’t get out now, he might never get a chance again.
He moved toward the door as quickly as he could without the aid of his cane, relieved to see that it was standing partially ajar. If Wilson had locked it when he entered, all of this would have been for nothing. House ventured a single brief glance back in the doorway to see that Wilson was scrambling with a trembling hand to snatch up a crumpled towel from the floor beside the bed, awkwardly struggling to wrap it around the wound.
He’ll be all right. It’s not both wrists, just one, so he won’t bleed out before he can take care of it… but it should be enough of a distraction…
House made his way through the unfamiliar halls of the little house, until he found the front door. His heart sank when he saw the padlocked latch on the inside. Cursing under his breath, he threw his shoulder against the door as he turned the handle, trying to dislodge the latch.
Could go back… could see if he’s okay and get the key… but if he’s too okay…
House frantically scanned the living room for any sign of something he might be able to use to break the lock, his heart pounding with his rising awareness that every second that passed brought him nearer to the closing of the window of his opportunity. In a few minutes, Wilson would have his injury enough under control to pursue him; and even wounded, House knew that Wilson had quite a distinct physical advantage over him.
His quick perusal of the room brought his gaze to a familiar object leaning against the other side of the sofa, and House felt an overwhelming – and utterly irrational – sense of relief at the mere sight of it.
His cane.
A wary glance toward the doorway revealed no sign of pursuit thus far, so House quickly crossed the room to take up his cane in his hands, letting out a deep, shaky breath and just staring down at it in grateful relief for a moment before bracing it against the ground and going to the door again.
He planted his feet as best he could and lifted the cane in both hands, drawing it back and slamming the base of it against the metal latch as hard as he could. The lock seemed to shift slightly, but didn’t give. House drew back the cane again, a second and a third time – and on the third try, one of the screws tore free of its mooring, leaving the latch still fastened to the door… but barely.
House pulled back his cane for a fourth and final blow – and was abruptly yanked off balance as the end of it was pulled hard from behind him, spinning him around to face a somewhat recovered Wilson.
Though… he still looked very, very bad.
Wilson had tied the towel around his wrist, but it was swiftly soaking through with blood despite his hurried efforts. The knuckles of his good hand were taut and white as he clutched the end of House’s cane tightly. His breath was rapid and shallow, indicating that he was near panic at this point, his eyes dark and hooded, his lips trembling as they stood there in silence for a long moment, trying to stare each other down.
Finally, House spoke, his voice low and much calmer than he actually felt.
“You need to do a better job of wrapping that, or you’re going to be in real trouble very soon.”
Wilson’s eyes narrowed in fury, and his trembling voice was seething with accusation as he retorted, “I think you’d better worry about yourself right now, House. You’ve just made a big mistake.”
Abruptly he jerked on the cane, and House stumbled slightly, his grip on it instinctively loosening as his hands prepared to break his impending fall. He didn’t quite lose his footing – but he did lose his cane. Wilson’s lips twisted into a smile of vindictive satisfaction as he lurched toward House, the cane raised like a weapon in his hands.
House dodged out of the way, leaning back against the door, and when Wilson came close enough to him, he brought his fist down in a stunning blow across Wilson’s face. Wilson staggered back a step or two, but to House’s dismay, was not nearly as affected by the blow as he might have hoped. With alarm, House realized that the punch probably hadn’t carried the force it ordinarily would have due to the loss of muscle strength he had probably experienced during his captivity.
Well aware that he had only seconds to spare until Wilson recovered from the relatively weak blow, and that once he did his chances would be considerably worse, House tried to take his cane back – but Wilson’s grip was too tight. He jerked it back away from House, staggering blindly backward away from him to avert House’s efforts. House turned his attention back toward the door for the moment, jerking hard on the handle in an attempt to dislodge the latch.
Before he could make much progress, however, he felt a sharp pain shoot through his fingers as Wilson brought the cane down hard across the back of the hand wrapped around the door handle.
So… already recovered, then. Shit.
House ducked the next blow, which fell against the door itself with a resounding crack, and scooted backward away from the door as Wilson moved in to block it, a look of desperate determination in his wild eyes as his hair fell disheveled in front of them, giving him a frightening look of madness.
“No, House,” he said in a low voice that resembled a warning growl. “You’re not going anywhere.”
House desperately searched the room for something else he could use as a weapon, or some other means of securing his escape, and his eyes finally fell on Wilson’s cell phone, on the end table beside the couch – just a few short yards away. Wilson’s eyes widened as they followed House’s gaze, but he was too far away to stop him from snatching up the phone and holding it up with a challenging look in Wilson’s direction.
Wilson just laughed – which was needless to say a quite unsettling reaction.
“You think I’m dumb enough to leave you even the potential access to a phone?” His tone was incredulous and triumphant. “It’s blocked, House. You need the access code to call out.”
House’s shoulders slumped slightly with what resembled defeat – but was actually relief. A soft, inscrutable smile formed on his lips as he met Wilson’s eyes and held up the phone before looking down at it, stating the number’s aloud as he pressed them.
“Four-four-seven-eight.”
Wilson’s eyes widened once again, and he shook his head slightly in wordless disbelief.
I was right. Amber’s birthday. What else would it be?
Dead silence gave way to a dial tone, and House felt an overwhelming sense of premature relief. His hands shook over the buttons as he hurriedly dialed 9-1-1. Before anyone could answer, however, Wilson lunged at him in panicked rage and knocked him to the ground, struggling to subdue him and wrest the cell phone from his grasp.
Wilson caught House’s wrists despite his desperate struggles, pinning them to the floor beside his head – just as a stranger’s calm voice came through the tiny speaker next to his ear.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency? Hello? Is anyone there?”
While the woman was talking, Wilson made one last daring effort to prevent House’s attempt at getting help. In a rather risky act of sheer desperation, Wilson released House’s wrists, only to press one hand firmly over his mouth. House reached up and grasped Wilson’s wrist – which just happened to be the injured one – and Wilson bit back a choked cry of pain. Nevertheless, determined not to lose this battle, Wilson drew back his free hand and brought it down in a fierce, brutal blow directly to House’s bad thigh.
House could not hold back an anguished scream, muffled by Wilson’s hand over his mouth, as his hands instinctively left Wilson’s wrist and the phone, reaching toward the source of the pain. Wilson lifted his hand long enough to deliver a second punch, this one directly into House’s mouth, stunning him to silence long enough for Wilson to grab the phone and disconnect the call.
Furious and desperate to get the phone completely out of play, Wilson tossed it across the room where the back broke off from the force of the blow, and the battery fell out onto the floor. House was momentarily out of commission, restrained by the weight of Wilson’s body straddling him, and his own agony. He was, for the moment, in no condition to resist, but Wilson was unwilling to take any further chances. He grasped House’s shaking hands and placed them at his sides, pinning them down with his thighs, before taking a moment to hurriedly rewrap the loosening towel around his wrist.
Wilson’s mouth twisted into a worried grimace as he noticed the amount of blood that stained the damp towel, as well as the faintly light-headed feeling he was beginning to experience. He knew that he only had a few minutes to get the situation completely under control before his own physical weakness would defeat him. He glanced down impassively at House, who was struggling weakly beneath him, a low, keening moan barely audible from his throat as the waves of pain radiating from his thigh gradually began to fade away.
Frustrated and angry, Wilson reached behind him to close his good hand firmly around House’s scar, a grim smile rising to his lips when House let out a choked sound of frantic fear and anticipation of pain.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, House,” Wilson stated calmly. “You know that. I told you that. But you’re making me…”
House’s eyes were screwed shut, his breath shallow and rapid, as he visibly struggled against his own rising panic. He shook his head slowly in a silent, desperate plea, his dread of further pain to his most vulnerable area almost a palpable thing in the room with them.
“I don’t want to knock you out, House,” Wilson explained, his voice still frighteningly soft and calm. “And I don’t want to drug you. It’s still too soon after your head injury. If you fight me again… I’m going to have to hit your leg again. I know you don’t want that… and neither do I.”
House shook his head emphatically, still not daring to look up at Wilson.
“No,” he whispered. “No… don’t…”
Wilson cautiously rose to his feet, hesitating before reaching down to grasp both of House’s wrists, holding them together in his one good hand.
“Come on,” he murmured, his voice gentler now with unexpected compassion for House’s pain. “I’ll help you…”
House remained passive and unresisting as Wilson leaned down over him to help him up – but then drew back his good leg and released it in a sharp kick aimed directly into Wilson’s stomach. Wilson let out a sharp groan at the impact, releasing his grip on House’s wrists as he collapsed to the floor, the breath knocked out of him. House scrambled awkwardly to his feet, grasping the sofa for support and limping around it, avoiding Wilson as he stumbled toward the door on legs still weak with pain.
In his desperate hurry to escape, House was unaware of Wilson’s struggle to recover behind him. Breathless and unable to pull himself up on his injured wrist, Wilson crawled along the floor behind House, catching up with him a few feet from the door. With an extreme effort, Wilson grasped House’s ankle with both hands and yanked his leg out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor.
House struggled fiercely to push Wilson off of him, but was almost immediately paralyzed by several brutal, crippling blows to his leg in swift succession.
This time, Wilson was taking no chances.
“Damn it, House,” he muttered, and strangely enough, through the pain, House was aware of and startled by the sound of tears in his voice. “I didn’t want to do this, but you aren’t giving me a choice!”
House flailed in blind panic when he felt Wilson’s hand at his throat, grasping and holding him in place. His fruitless struggles yielded no success, however, and an instant later he felt the sharp pinprick of a needle sinking into the back of his neck. His heart sank with despair and defeat as Wilson released him and stood up, and blackness swiftly overtook him.
Wilson limped across the room, picking up the phone and putting it back together, doing his best to stay calm long enough to complete his plan for salvaging the situation. He dialed 9-1-1 again and tried to steady his breathing as he waited for the operator to come on the line.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I called you guys a few minutes ago, and… I really shouldn’t have.”
The young woman’s voice on the other line was wary when she finally responded. “Okay… can you give me your phone number, sir?”
Wilson dutifully recited the number for her, then explained in his best voice of rueful, apologetic charm.
“I cut myself in the kitchen, and it was bleeding, and… well, it looked a lot worse than it actually was. I’ve stopped the bleeding on my own, and it’s fine, and… well, I really shouldn’t have panicked.” He let out an embarrassed laugh as he added in a confidential tone, “I’m a doctor, for Pete’s sake! I just… didn’t want you guys to go to the trouble of coming out here for nothing…”
The operator laughed, her tone much lighter and more understanding now. “Well… as long as you’re sure you’re all right…”
“I’m quite sure, thank you. Sorry to bother you.”
Wilson’s smile faded away as he closed his phone and stared down at the prone form of his best friend. Disappointment filled him at the realization that House had only been faking all along, and was really nowhere near ready to accept Wilson’s protection; but he didn’t have time to feel sorry for himself at the moment. There were more important things to worry about.
He had work to do.
******************************
House awakened hours later, surrounded by nothing but black, empty darkness. His head ached and his leg throbbed, and his mouth was dry with thirst. He swallowed hard, and winced at the dull, aching pain in his jaw, as he realized that it was more than mere thirst. His mouth was packed with something firm and soft, restricting him from swallowing fully or closing his mouth.
He tried to open his eyes, but found himself confronted with only darkness. He tried to move, and found that that ability had been taken from him as well. He was lying down on his back, presumably on the bed in his tiny prison, with his wrists bound together somewhere above his head, and his legs fastened down as well – separate, but firmly bound and immobile.
House fought off a rising sense of panic as the full realization of his helplessness struck him, and he began to understand what had been done to him. He was worse off than ever, bound hand and foot, gagged, blindfolded, and utterly at the mercy of a man who had gone completely mad, and was probably at the moment absolutely furious with him.
He froze as he felt a firm hand on his shoulder, and flinched away when he sensed motion in front of his face.
“Shhh,” Wilson’s voice murmured near his ear, cool, but not overtly angry. “It’s not time to wake up yet.”
As House felt the needle sliding in again, he wondered vaguely about what effects whatever sedative Wilson was using might have on him. Just before drifting into unconsciousness again, House’s last thought was that trying to escape had been a terribly foolish mistake.
TBC...
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 04:50 am (UTC)Wilson is really scary in this story.
I hope it won't be long before you update this again!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 05:28 am (UTC)The 911 sequence was very good and definitely added to the tension. However, in RL, assuming he had been on long enough for them to trace the call, the police would have sent someone out, even if Wilson had called to tell them not to. Since it was a cellphone, I'm not sure if the 911 operator could activate the GPS tracker in it or not...
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 05:52 am (UTC)Echoing the comment above about the GPS. Maybe it is a regional thing but where I have lived any call to 911 generated a response by either police or the fire department and with sounds of a struggle on the line the operator would dispatch police to the residence to see what was happening. Even cell phones can be tracked using GPS or tower configuration.
I would like to see Wilson wiggle under a police investigation.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 01:08 pm (UTC)Can't wait for the next installment.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 05:40 pm (UTC)Please update soon. x
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 09:03 pm (UTC)The whole struggle scene was the best. It all happened so fast it was like I was watching it in fast forward. It was probably the way I was reading it and a combination of adrenaline. LOL I'm definitely going to read that part again. It kept going back and forth. You thought of so many details.
When Wilson told House he'd help him, I expected House to kick out but he should of went for Wilson's nuts instead of his stomach.
I knew if he didn't win it would get worse.
I had forgotten about Wilson's syringe. I bet House did too. My stomach flipped on that one. My stomach hit the floor when House woke up immobile. When Wilson says this
“Shhh,”...“It’s not time to wake up yet" and sedates him again, I fainted! OMG! I can't wait for another update. I can't wait to hear what happens to Wilson's wrist. If he goes for help with it, someone will think he tried to commit suicide. GREAT STORY! :D
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 10:06 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed what you did with this. Basically every moment was keeping me in the edge of my seat, hands wrapped around my Teddy-bear for comfort. You write one scary Wilson, let me tell you that.
And great job on showing just how much of a crazy-dude Wilson is at the moment. Awesome job on him not stopping at anything to get what he wanted.
Oh, and than you for destroying that tiny bit of hope the 911 guys would come and help. Then can track calls, right?
Yah know, by the ending of this chapter I've got a feeling Wilson is moving House somewhere. Am I right?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 08:13 am (UTC)Also, thats a shitty 911 opperator. In MD they are required to send some one if it sounds odd (like that would have) even when it's an overreaction. I think i would prefur over responsive to overly trusting myself, heh (and so would House I expect)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-15 03:24 am (UTC)When Wilson suddenly yanked on House's cane I eeped. I got this image of crazy Wilson's angry face wet with sweat, dripping blood and posture bent over like an animal on the attack. I'm glad House was able to dodge some of Wilson's blow despite facing such a scary situation. I think his final effort to kick Wilson was commendable and necessary for him to feel he had tried his damnedest to escape; otherwise, he would be guaranteed to feel like he didn't do enough and drive himself insane even faster.
I can't imagine what this situation must feel like for House; to have the person closest to you take away your freedom and classify you as an object. I'm glad House fought so hard. It's too bad Wilson's excuse worked on the 911 operator. I wonder if all the struggling wasn't loud enough to hear, though. I can vouch for you though; I once dialed 911 accidentally as a child and hung up in a panic. They called right back though and didn't send anyone once I explained there was no emergency. A lot of factors play into that though; it depends on how suspicious it sounds, how many other emergencies are going on in the area, etc.
House is really in trouble now. Wilson probably won't let him have any limbs free for long periods now. I'll bet he starts bathing house himself now (I get this image of a prison bathroom where Wilson watches House clean himself to ensure he has no chance to hide anything...). Creepy. A metal collar might be useful for Wilson...just saying.
Great job! I am pumped to read the next one. What insanity will Wilson force on House?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:48 am (UTC)thanx so much, hon, i'm glad the visual imagery came across so well for you :) *beams* i appreciate your kind words so much, so glad you're liking the story... the next update is up now, hope you enjoy :)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:49 am (UTC)glad you like that, hon :) *hugs*
next chapter is up now, love, hope you enjoy it :)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:50 am (UTC)thanx so much, love, glad you liked this one :) *hugs* the next one's up now, hope you enjoy :)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:52 am (UTC)thanx so much, hon, glad you liked this chapter :) *Hugs* the next one's up now ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:53 am (UTC)thanx, love, glad you liked this chapter :) *Hugs*
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:56 am (UTC)thanx, love, i'm glad you've enjoyed this chapter :) *hugs* the next one is up now, hope you like ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:58 am (UTC)thanx, love, glad you liked this update :) *hugs* the next one's up now :)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 06:01 am (UTC)as for what wilson's planning next... the next chapter's up, hon, check it out ;) *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 06:05 am (UTC)thanx, love, the next chapter's up now, hope you like :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 06:51 am (UTC)I loved the fight scene. Absolutely loved it. Though, I'm dissappointed in House that he didn't have it in him to lock Wilson up- no matter how temporarily- or totally missed that option. Still, glad you didn't cheapen the story by cutting it there.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 03:11 pm (UTC)thanx, love, glad you liked this one :) *Hugs* next chapter's up now :)