#fleckers

[dottie-n-stripes]

do you know him???????

[nobeerreviews]

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep.

-- James Elroy Flecker

(Malaga, Spain)

[petaltexturedskies]

James Elroy Flecker, from "Don Juan Declaims" in The Collected Poems

[apoemaday]

To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence

by James Elroy Flecker

I who am dead a thousand years, And wrote this sweet archaic song, Send you my words for messengers The way I shall not pass along. I care not if you bridge the seas, Or ride secure the cruel sky, Or build consummate palaces Of metal or of masonry. But have you wine and music still, And statues and a bright-eyed love, And foolish thoughts of good and ill, And prayers to them who sit above? How shall we conquer? Like a wind That falls at eve our fancies blow, And old Maeonides the blind Said it three thousand years ago. O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: I was a poet, I was young. Since I can never see your face, And never shake you by the hand, I send my soul through time and space To greet you. You will understand.

[ispaceizz]

While we're on the topic of Pencil,

(2024 redraw of this meme):

(Original 2021 -> redraw 2022)

[addictedtowords16]

Between the Pedestals of Night and Morning  Between red death and radiant desire  With not one sound of triumph or of warning  Stands the great sentry on the Bridge of Fire.  O transient soul, thy thought with dreams adorning,  Cast down the laurel, and unstring the lyre:  the wheels of Time are turning, turning, turning,  The slow stream channels deep and doth not tire.  Gods on their bridge above  Whispering lies and love Shall mock your passage down the sunless river  Which, rolling all it streams, shall take you, king of dreams, --Unthroned and unapproachable for ever--  To where the kings who dreamed of old  Whiten in habitations monumental cold

James Elroy Flecker

[altariz]

One with my OC’s too okay I’ll stop posting now

Original art

[debsandshit]

Next comic

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[105nt]

Can't settle so am multitasking. Reading Hassan by James Elroy Flecker, re-reading Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers and listening to The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins read by Peter Jeffrey on Audible.

[tritoch]

fuck it. have an enormous oc lore dump. this is the "canon" wol oc i conceived as part of my personal preferred approach in some games to take the game's text as presented, not headcanon away any elements, and, as much as possible, adhere to whatever "definitive" canon as best as can be discerned from what's given as an option. as a comedy bit, I also wanted to make a Warrior of Light who does everything you can do in canon, like an omnijob level 90 did all the raids did all the beast tribes caught every fish did all the relics did every hildi questline kind of WoL. Someone who really does mostly communicate through nods and punch gestures and only says the specific lines you can say in game (except for the scenes, increasingly common in later expacs, where they let you imagine a conversation). I just think it's funny to take an approach to the game that is at once fairly restrained (no elements beyond what is already presented in the lore) and extremely maximalist (yes, he one hundred percent did steal those pants). spoilers through stormblood under the break.

Wolund Anadezhda (not his real name) was born in Bozja in the year 1533 of the Sixth Astral Era to a young gunbreaker in Bozja's army and her husband, a foundling adept of the Verdant Path and fellow soldier. Resolving that their son would not grow up in the shadow of war, the Hrothgar couple resolved to have him sent out of the country shortly after his birth. He grew up instead under the care of his father's adoptive sister, a master of the Verdant Path in her own right, who left Bozja some years prior under uncertain circumstances after a serious injury left her unable to return to the front lines.

The sister (a Sea Wolf Roegadyn) had through various adventures found herself running a Dalmascan caravanserai, a walled inn a day's travel west of the city of Rabanastre. There, she raised Wolund both to run an inn and in the forms of the Verdant Path. Though not a warm woman, she did her best to raise Wolund carefully and lovingly, and honoring her brother and sister-in-law's wishes, tried to shelter him from the horrors of the world. He, in return, idolized her. He received sporadic letters from his parents, at least until Bozja fell. Their ultimate fates are unknown, though Wolund believes that even if they didn't die during the course of the war, they likely died as part of the resistance or in the Bozja Incident.

In the year 1547, 6th AE, Dalmasca is invaded by the IVth Legion. The caravanserai is close enough to the border for the Garlean line to advance past it fairly quickly, and Wolund chooses to remain with his aunt in order to protect her from the occupation as best he could. As Wolund has grown, his aunt has told him stories of the devastation war had wreaked in Bozja, and of the losses she still grieved. She explained to him that students of the Verdant Path such as herself had been targeted by the IVth Legion to be brought in dead or alive in a bid to control their knowledge and break Bozja's ability to resist, and that she had fled the country at her brother's behest to preserve the school's knowledge for future generations. Chafing under Imperial rule, Wolund aspired, at the time, to learn as best he could from her, follow in her footsteps, and do his part to maintain the lineage of the Verdant Path school.

In my conception, the Verdant Path, as a multidisciplinary school that teaches (at least) spear, greatsword, katana, and unarmed combat as part of its tradition, encompasses more of a martial philosophy, conceptual approach to space, and footwork system than a specific set of techniques for various weapons. This is a key element of why Wolund, in order to adhere as closely to the maximum extent of the available canon as possible, can pick up like 19 different martial disciplines, sweet Mary Sue that he is.

As he aged into his late teens and early twenties, Wolund was settling into his role as his aunt's chef, handyman, disciple, and likely future replacement innkeeper, as her war injury made physical labor increasingly difficult. Also around this time, Wolund has a brief engagement with a Keeper of the Moon Mi'qote merchant, part of a tribe of several Keeper families who operated a caravan which plied a route between Rabanastre and Martrvje in Bozja. At her behest, largely as a practical matter on her end though not without some romance, they had a child together, with the intent that, as in most Keeper families, she would raise the child herself, though he would, by grace of the caravan's route, have periodic contact with them both.

Before the child's birth, however, an imperial recruiter looking to fill a quota came through town. And so in the year 1556, 6th AE, at the age of 23, Wolund was conscripted and assigned to the VIth Legion, then a corrupt and disorderly force occupying the relatively peaceful southern coast of Ilsabard. A far cry from Emperor Solus's disciplined armies, the VIth Legion then was scarcely indistinguishable from a private mercenary group answering to local colonial governments.

Wolund struggled after his initial conscription, seething at the prospect of two decades under the Garlean Empire's yoke, fell into despair, and tried to emotionally withdraw. Since he was a quiet, disciplined conscript as well as a young and fairly imposing Hrothgar, his Garlean officers read in him the ready Garleanization that they wished to see. His practiced prowess in the training hall further contrasted his "bestial" appearance in the eyes of the bigoted Garlean officers. In Wolund, they saw a useful tool and status symbol for their occupation.

Consequently, while Wolund's time resembled the expected conscript experience in many respects, it was also marked by unexpected success in the unusual, corrupt environment of the VIth Legion. He spent plenty of time in his first couple of years on hard, undesirable labor, as any conscript would: digging ditches, building infrastructure, policing occupied populations, and, in the singular case of open conflict breaking out, serving on the front lines. However, he stood out from his peers, and he found himself frequently serving as a sort of exotic trophy or bodyguard for increasingly senior officers or local bigwigs. Eventually, he found himself attached to the staff of the legion's 10th Cohort as vexillarius, or standard-bearer, for the cohort's pilus prior. This turned out to be, given his centurion's corruption and close links to the local colonial government, merely a slightly more elevated form of his old work serving as muscle and an imposing presence behind preening dignitaries.

At this point, about six years into his two decades, Wolund's conscription seemed on a steady path to eventual citizenship. For his part, he remained as emotionally disengaged as he could manage, materially secure in his position in the 10th Cohort. The insulated world he built came crashing down in his sixteenth year of service, when crown prince Varis yae Galvus sent his close friend and confidant Regula van Hydrus to reform the corrupt VIth Legion. Many senior officers, including Wolund's centurion, were executed by firing squad for their abuses and indiscretions, with still more clapped in irons and hauled before military tribunals. Efforts to reform the legion's reputedly undisciplined soldiers saw Wolund, like many other conscripts, detached from the VIth in the hopes that reassignment to a more disciplined legion could salvage the conscripts that, in Regula's eyes, the VIth had nearly wrecked. Wolund found himself assigned to the VIIth Legion in 1572, on the eve of Carteneau.

Of Carteneau itself, there is little to say, and what few coherent memories Wolund may have had were taken by Louisoix's magic, along with Eorzea's Warriors of Light. Wolund crawled out of the catastrophe and butchery of the Seventh Umbral Calamity to find himself one of the VIIth's few survivors. Reassigned to the Vth, he served out the rest of his term quietly, though nightmares of Carteneau continued to plague him. While serving in the Vth Legion, he served as a quartermaster and honed his skill in both literacy and sums.

In year 4 of the Seventh Umbral Era, Wolund completed his term of conscription. Engraved and sealed legionary diploma in hand, he made his way to Garlemald itself, where his paperwork was verified and his name added to the citizen's registry. He returned to the caravanserai outside Rabanastre as Wolund pyr Anadezhda. There, he found his aunt, now some 20 years older, and her unexpected apprentice as innkeeper: his own daughter, now a 20-year-old woman and soon to be running the place herself.

For about four months, Wolund tenuously reinserted himself into the daily life of the inn while attempting to form a connection to his daughter and reconnect to his aunt and his daughter's mother. His efforts to begin his life again were cut short when soldiers came sniffing around the caravanserai on the order of a local magistrate, a former officer of the VIth Legion who sought to employ him as a trainer to his household guard. Recognizing that he would not be able to live a life free of the Garlean Empire's boot so long as he remained within their lands, and not wishing to endanger his daughter or aunt by enlisting them in his decision, Wolund simply skipped town one night. He left behind all his possessions except for enough money to see him safely overseas, as well as a letter that stated tersely that he did not wish to be followed. From the caravanserai he made his way by horse to Rabanastre and then to Valnain, where he caught a ride on a merchant ship bound for Hingashi, and from thence to Limsa Lominsa, where he arrived in year 5 of the Seventh Umbral Era.

Upon arriving in Eorzea, Wolund, leaning on his most recent skills in math and reading, as well as his admittedly rusty knowledge of trade goods from his time at the caravanserai, applies to work at the Arcanist's Guild. Everything proceeds as it does in the game from there.

All this is in service of a couple things. First of all, honestly, giving him a big backstory where various bad things happen to him over the course of a long time is primarily in service of dealing with what I think is one of the shakiest scenes in the game: the moment where Fordola accidentally uses the Echo on you and is shocked to her core by the scale of the tragedy you've overcome. I just don't think this makes a lot of sense for the WoL based just on what's depicted in-game, as sad as the events of the Banquet and Haurchefant's and Ysayle's deaths and Minfilia's sacrifice are. Giving him a comparable backstory to Fordola as a legion conscript does a lot, in my book, to smooth out that scene and make its emotional weight land better in my head, as do elements like the death and destruction he witnessed at Carteneau and the stuff about his daughter.

Secondly, in addition to that scene, this is just supposed to help set up a lot of stuff about the WoL I find a little clunky, particularly earlier on. Why does everyone in the Scions immediately glom on to you and decide you're their hero? Well, maybe the WoL is a stoic and outwardly emotionally reassuring older man who's conveniently older than the oldest of the Scions by more than a decade, and he can fill the Louisoix-shaped hole in their hearts that each of them except maybe Y'shtola very obviously has. How are you simultaneously everyone's favorite guy and also a story non-entity? Maybe he's nice and kind to people but very bad at handling and leading them initially (as evidenced by letting Alphinaud sleepwalk you all into a trap at the Banquet), in part because he spent the better part of two decades playing the part of mute imposing muscle for aristocratic officers. And maybe the fact he's consciously silenced himself for 20 years plays into the fact that the Warrior of Light becomes chattier throughout the expansions. Maybe he knows how to wear Garlean conscript armor and operate magitek because he was once a conscript himself. And so on and so forth.

Third, playing by my dumb "canon" rules, the WoL has to come from outside Eorzea. You're arriving by ship or cart and you're clearly unfamiliar with the city-states by the text. However, you also can't come from a lot of known places, since then you're bumping up against the issue that those places will also treat you like a stranger when you arrive in-game. There's no Bozja dialogue for being Hrothgar, but 1) to them it's not weird they'd have no reason to mention it and 2) this is why he isn't culturally Bozjan. Linking the WoL to Dalmasca solves this issue because the only Dalmascans you meet would have no reason to know a random Imperial conscript, you have no real time with them to shoot the shit about culture, we will not go to a functioning Rabanastre ever, and there is no reason you would have wanted to share all this with anyone on board the Prima Vista. Fourth, the WoL is a person of many talents and skills. Chalking up his weapon skills to the Verdant Path and his conscription, and linking his DoH/DoL skills to his upbringing, goes a long way towards helping ground some of that (as much as delightful nonsense can be grounded). Fifth, I think it's really funny to make the Warrior of Light a deadbeat dad. Final Fantasy is so full of bad sad dads already, WoL should get to be one. Lastly, I'm jealous that 1.0 players got to be at Carteneau and I want to bite their style but I refuse to break canon to do so, which means conscript it has to be (since being from a Free or Grand Company would contravene the earlier point about having to be new to Eorzea).

(A note on timelines: ARR begins in the year 5 of the Seventh Umbral Era, which would have been Year 1577 of the Sixth Astral Era. Per the wiki, Bozja is noted to have been invaded some fifty years ago, suggesting a war that begins in 1527 or so, but its conquest is described as happening "over thirty" years ago and multiple places note the campaign as grueling, so I think part of the idea (which gels with the trenches we see in the southern front) is supposed to be that the Bozjan campaign was a brutal and grinding one for the IVth Legion, or that after seizing Bozja proper it still took a long time to stamp out all resistance. Dalmasca was invaded 30 years ago in 1547, also by the IVth Legion, presumably fairly soon after stabilizing their grip on Bozja. I don't think there's any time given for when Regula goes to the VIth and reforms it, but since they only clear their tainted reputation in the succession war following Solus's death, I figure he can't have been there that long and he makes a convenient reason to move Wolund around, so five years approximately concurrent with the 1.0 to 2.0 timeskip seems like a decent timeline for his reform.)

[dottie-n-stripes]

decavitator

[petaltexturedskies]

I send my soul through time and space to greet you. You will understand.

James Elroy Flecker, To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence

[nixieofthenorth]

"I send my soul through time and space to greet you. You will understand." - James Elroy Flecker, from “To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence,” written c. October 1910

[rustedhills]

Can't speak for 1009 SEA, but about 50ish years earlier, these little dudes were (probably) on their way to Java via a Srivijaya trade port:

hoowwww are so many people satisfied with not knowing how the world works. what do you mean you dont want to undertsand what wind is or how nuclear power is made or why governments act like they do or how electricity turns into music or what was happening in 1009 in southeast asia

[dariaslookalike]

Building Houses and Burning Bridges Pt 7: Fever Dreams and Baths

Summary:

It seems, oddly enough, that Gregory House lives to annoy you. He takes 'arseholish boss' to the next level. Wake up in the morning, ready to have breakfast, and drive to the hospital where you both work? Nope, you're getting a text that says you're late to his impromptu 4:30 AM meeting where he's had the 'breakthrough of the century' on the team's latest case. Get your hair cut and walk into work, for once feeling confident? Nope, he's saying that he would have done a better job blinded, hands tied and going through Vicodin withdrawals. Finally, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺, prove him wrong and attempt to wipe the cockiness off his face? Nope, you're simply slow because you didn't get to your diagnosis quicker and weak-willed because you didn't fight him for it in the beginning. Everything House does infuriates you, and it seems everything you do infuriates him. No wonder you end up pinned to the wall of your apartment and groping him like your life depends on. And knowing House, it very may well.

Warnings: Adult language, mature themes, eventual smut, female protagonist, no reference of y/n

Rating: 18+ MDNI

Current Status: Ongoing

Masterlist: Building Houses and Burning Bridges

Next Chapter: Pt 8

-----------------------

You walk home. You don’t know how, hell you don’t really remember it, but you stand at the stoop of your apartment and slot your keys into your door.

You lock it behind yourself and step out of your dress gently. You want to tear it off, rip it to shreds, and gnash it up with your teeth like a rabid animal. But you force your hands to work meticulously, patiently. They’re shaking and red, and you tug at clasps and hooks even when you can’t feel them. The dress makes you want to sob and scream. It clings to you wetly from melted snow and almost suffocates you by the time it drops to the floor.

You kick your heels off, and let yourself sit down beside them. You pick them up and your feet throb. Really, your feet should be killing you. But the snow and ice dulls the pain. You vaguely register that blood is dribbling from somewhere on your sole, yet you make no move to bandage them.

The heels are black. Glittery. Perfectly sized. They had sat aside your shoe rack since Chase had given them to you, and each time you saw them you became so excited to be able to wear them. Chase. Chase gave them to you. Chase who knew. Chase who kept quiet with the rest of them until it was too late. Chase who told you while Cameron stared at you like a wounded animal and Foreman couldn’t even at you. You throw the shoe as hard as you can, and it thuds against your coffee tables. You pelt the other and don’t see where it lands.

You should probably take a shower. Wipe the makeup off your face. Warm up. Why aren’t you warming up?

Instead, you scratch your nails down your face, not hard enough to draw blood. You can’t feel the contact through your fingers or your cheeks and you do it again and again and again and again until stinging sensations begin to break through the numbness.

You don’t know how long you sit there, in the middle of your entryway, next to your crumpled dress. You stare into nothing. The floorboards warp and merge with each other and eventually you don’t see them.

Hours feel as if they’ve passed but in all actuality it could only be a few minutes. You don’t know. You don’t care. You walk on heavy feet towards your bedroom, leaving behind a fleckered trail of blood and water, still dripping from you.

You collapse onto your bed, surrounded by complete darkness. Even your neighbours are silent; you hate them nonetheless. You should reach around in the darkness, grab a blanket and warm up. You just lay there, your skin rippling with goose bumps and your lungs drawing in shallow breaths.

You expect the tears to come. You expect them to burst from your eyeballs and flood your room and drown you in a terrible end. They don’t. Not even one.

It’s worse this way. You would have been spared if you cried. You were an ugly crier, and by that you meant that you heaved and sniffed and sobbed and wobbled and dribbled; you were loud and messy and distracting. Now, in the silence of your room and the dryness of your eyes, you were left alone with your thoughts.

You slapped him. Your lips almost tilt up at that, at the incredulous look on his face and the stinging in your hand. You don’t smile though when you remember that you quit. You had to though. You either slap your boss and quit or slap your boss, get fired and arrested.

You should have done it harder. You should’ve taken that silver key and jammed it up his nostril; twisted it too. Or maybe kicked his cane out from under him and dragged him down the hallway by the handle. All that shit he said.

Is that what he thought? Is that what he saw? Were you really the same girl that you had left behind in the town you grew up in? Were you the same girl who sobbed into her pillow at night and screamed at her father and hated him and still wished he had been different? Were you the same girl who in spite of her nervous stutter and shaky hands would lap up any attention given to her by a coach, a teacher, a stranger?

You run your blue fingers down your face and shake your head. The movement makes you keenly aware of your soaked hair resting against your neck. No. You weren’t that girl anymore. You wouldn’t let yourself entertain the idea of it. House wasn’t right about jack shit. You knew the experience of liking men when you were still that girl; the giddy smiles, the breath caught in your throat, the butterflies caged in your stomach. Liking House, if that was truly what you did before he threw it in your face, was nothing like that; it was shameful and annoying and pathetic. Because that’s what House was. That’s what House wanted everyone to see him as.

He got what he wanted. The rose tinted glasses were now off and the harsh reality was seeping in. If House didn’t want to be loved, he never could be.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. He doesn’t matter. Yes, you were vulnerable and exposed for once. You didn’t know what it was; lust, attraction, boredom? You would have to wrestle through feelings and dumpster dive through emotions just to grab that little, fading kernel of attraction and label it, and that wasn’t worth it. Once again, you had proven to yourself that it, lust, attraction, boredom or something else, was pointless. You were better off alone.

You don’t register when the dark ceiling becomes the dark of your eyelids, and you fall asleep naked atop your bed sheets.

———————

Hours pass by feverishly, and you wrestle atop your thin cotton bed sheets. You soak through them with sweat but shiver the whole night. Everything aches. The bleeding blisters on your feet now feel like stab wounds that are being pinched and your joints grind and grate against each other with each movement. You don’t lay long on one side because your muscles begin to scream out and you’re awoken in fits of pain before you restlessly slip back to sleep.

You don’t remember getting out of bed but suddenly you’re lurched over the toilet bowl and retching. You vomit until you reach bile and even then, your body is wracked with shivers and your stomach curdles until you vomit again.

You fall asleep against the toilet bowl until you’re awoken again and tip your head forward as acid burns your throat. You don’t know how you make it back to your bed, but the next time you awake from thrashing and kicking out at your wall, you’re atop your mattress again. You must have grabbed at clothes in your freezing mind because you have a stained, inside out pyjama shirt on now. You soak through that too, and the wet material makes you colder.

Hallucinations visit you vividly in the night. Some are fleeting and you can only grasp at vague recollections of them in your mind. Others are as real as day. You see your grandmother’s cat lying at the foot of your bed, but no matter how much you beg her to come and sleep by your side while you shiver uncontrollably, she doesn’t move. Later you see your childhood best friend; you had stopped speaking over something so trivial, so pointless, but it feels as if you’re back to being sisters again. She smiles at you and shakes her head. Her voice sounds melodic when she speaks, “What are you doing, goof? I thought we agreed that only Prince Charming and Daniel-from-school’s older brother are the only ones we’ll be with.” You want to tell her that Daniel’s older brother wasn’t actually that hot, he just knew guitar, but she’s gone by the time you creak open your dry mouth.

You’re slick with sweat and yet somehow in your fever you knew House would show up, and he does. He says nothing for a while. He just stands, leaning against his cane. You try to focus on his face but it warps and becomes twisted the harder you try. Your lips are cracked and you rasp out unintelligible words. He just rolls his eyes. “You shouldn’t be upset. It was more Cuddy’s fault then mine.” You garble angrily at him and he huffs. “Fine, it was kind of mine. But you slapped me. We’re even.”

You don’t know if you are. You want to tell him all the reasons you hate him and all the reasons you like him, and how you might need to slap him a few more times to be even, but instead you mumble out, “Prick.”

The night feels endless and torturous. You’re met with more pain and visions and only when you manage to crawl to the kitchen and dry swallow medicine and panadol do you pass out fully on your lounge room rug.

———————

You’re going to throw up. Again.

You thought you had made it past the worst of this sickness, albeit aided with medicine and drugs. But instead your head is pounding, pounding, pounding, like a harsh knock at a door, and with each knock, butcher’s knives split your brain. You can practically see the knives, feel their sharp tips and dull handles slamming against your skull. You groan and lay there, clutching at your head until you realise it is a knocking at your door.

You stagger in near delirium across your house, and whip open your front door. “Will you be quiet!?”

Your head is reeling. Hallucinations are back, you decide promptly, because Gregory House is standing at your door. You groan.

“Huh.” He says, looking downwards.

Your head is a dumbbell against your neck but to the best of your ability, you tilt it up and squint at the hallucination. He’s got the same silver stubble, the same long face, the same blue eyes. It makes you dizzy but you repeat his words to him. “Huh?”

He suddenly bends at the waist, leaning his weight onto his cane. Near theatrically, he whips his head up to look at you. “You have painted toenails. I thought that was only for 16 year old girls and the fitness bloggers who spend more time on pedicures than teaching their kids the difference between left and right.”

Its weak, and scratchy, but you still bite back. “Aw, someone sounds upset that Mummy likes her nail polish collection more than her neurotic son.” Your words lose their weight when you drawl and garble out a few of them.

Hallucination-House understands you perfectly. “'Sounds like you're projecting, Mummy.”

The snarkiness. The rudeness. The downright cockiness. You reach out a hand and swing at him for pure shits and giggles. It kills your muscles to move, but you image the contact of a professional boxer and force your body to follow through with the movement. Instead, you make a pathetic fist against his shoulder and he stares down at your hand like a bug.

“Oh, you’re real?”

He raises back to his full height and splays his hands out in front of himself. “Last time I checked, yes. But if you like, I’ll let you do a full body search and you can come to your own conclusion.”

Its the fever. Definitely the fever. You flush more than you like at his words, and the sensible voice in your head is quick to remind you that this is House. You hate him right now. But, after spending hours or days- what day was?- in agony, the charity event seems an eternity away. The fever however, doesn’t seem to care about that.

House pauses, awaiting your reply. He cocks an eyebrow and you can almost see the exact words lined up, ready to spill, so you rush to speak. “I’m. Sick.” The words make your head pound. “I couldn’t call out of work.”

His eyes narrow. “You’ve haven’t shown up to work for three days. Like an idiot, I'm sure you got sick from walking home in fucking snow.”

Ah. Shit. Three days had past in your delirium?

Not that it mattered. You quit, right? He’s looking at you like you’ve just grown a second head but you continue to ramble on. “If you’re here to rip me a new one about hospital policy and ‘letting my team down’,” You do mocking air quotes with your shaking fingers, “Then I’m sorry to disappoint but I’ll probably end up throwing up on your sneakers more than anything else.”

He looks almost bewildered, which is an odd expression to see on House. “What?”

You blink back at him as he continues speaking, almost incredulously. “For one thing, I know I’m a cripple but god,” He pops out the last syllable, “I’m still able to dodge vomit as well as the next doctor. And in what world do I show up to your house just to berate you?”

“This world. You would show up to my house just to berate me, in this world.”

He chews his cheek for a second, seeming to debate the best line of insult and mockery he can reply. But in the gap he leaves, you deflate. His sudden appearance was rejuvenating, momentarily, but now you feel just as weak and tired as you did before, if not more. You sigh, “Why are you here, House? Fire me if you’re going to fire me.”

Now it's his turn to tilt his head, and he huffs out your last name “You're sick. You might not register that under all the cough medicine you’ve been huffing during your fever, but you are. And you’re alone.”

You shift to lean on the doorway. “Yes. Don’t tell me you’ve come to warn me of the dangers of living a miserable, lonely, ‘stick in the mud’ life.” His jaw clenches when you throw his words back at him from the other night, and you wheeze out a laugh. “You should go. You hate me, right?”

There’s a beat of silence and he looks angry, his jaw still clenched and a vein bouncing on his temple.

And then he says something you wish that you had CIA recording technology prepared for.

“I’m sorry.”

There was no bells and whistles or shiny strings attached to House’s apology. No explanation. No reasoning. Simply sorry.

You lurch to the side and vomit; House stays true to his gloating and steps back immediately. You lean back up and wipe at your mouth with a shaking hand. There’s a moment of silence between the two of you, the same moment of peak tension before a bubble pops or the crest of a roller coaster where you’re not sure that you’re still moving.

But then he leaps past the puddle you created and through your door. You turn and see him surveying your entryway. “Bedroom?”, he calls out.

You could kick him out. Throw his sorry arse back into your vomit. But, you close your front door and in your feverish state, it almost feels as if that was an action of forgiveness. As if you accepted his apology. Not that you would tell him that.

“Take me out to dinner first, Doc, jeez. Oh but we did that already, right?” You point both of your thumbs down and make a raspberry sound.

At that, his eyebrows cinch together. He reaches forward, and you try to raise a heavy hand to bat his away, but you’re too slow. He touches your forehead and swears. “You’re burning up, jesus. How did you even get out of bed?”

“Well,” You pause, breathing deeply and trying to ignore that his hand was now cupping your cheek. “Someone was pounding on my door and wouldn’t leave til I answered it.”

You turn from him, and he hastily drops his hand from your face, as if he didn’t realise what he was doing. Without saying anything, you shuffle down the hallway.

Your ratty, old and oversized band tee was slick with sweat, you smelled like vomit, and you had deep bags under your eyes. But as you walked away from him, you could feel his eyes trailing up your calves, your thighs, your little bed shorts. Still the same, perverted House.

You’re sure that another time, when you’re feeling better and not looking like you want to murder him as you do now, he’ll tease you about this. Your wrestled-with bed, your stuffed animals in the corner (a large bear, a fat duck and a round cat, all peering at him intensely), your faded, dusty pink walls, your cluttered desk and overflowing drawers, your artworks haphazardly strewn in a corner.

At those, he pauses. “You paint?”

You sigh, crawling onto your bed. You don’t get under the covers, and you can see by the slight squint of his eyes that he notices. “I thought you knew everything about me. Don’t talk so loudly, it hurts.”

House reaches out, and begins to flip through the canvases and painted boards. There’s a pair of calloused, ageing hands. Blue and bloodshot eyes. The back of a silvery, short cropped head.

It appears that he’s not so idiotic that he can’t recognise himself across all your artworks. He turns to you, but you’re not looking at him, instead lethargically fanning yourself and panting.

“House,” A deep, shuddering breath. “It’s so hot.”

You don’t register him striding towards you, but you feel his hand against your forehead again. “Come on, Newbie, where’s your bathroom? Do you have a bath?”

You pale, and before he can even stop you, you lurch out of bed. He goes to steady you, but you run on shaky legs towards an adjoining door to your room. He follows you, just in time to see you lurched over the toilet bowl and heaving up bile again.

You feel him draw closer, and tears sting at your eyes with the acidity in your throat. You thought he would stay in your room or simply watch you from afar but he reaches forward to grab at your hair and hold it at your neck. He doesn’t rub your spine or smooth down your hair, but that gesture alone was tender for House.

There’s moments where you stop, but your body is quick to hunch back to the toilet and continue vomiting. Finally, after what feels like forever, you are able to breathe and lean against the rim. It’s gross, and unhygienic, but the porcelain is cool against your burning cheeks and you couldn’t care less.

You feel House retreat, and you wonder if that pushed him too far. The vomit down your chin, the sweat on your back, the shivers through your body. But then you hear running water and you turn to see him twisting the taps for your bathtub.

He hobbles back to you and his face swarms your vision. You don’t reply when he states “Up,” but you let him reach under your armpits and pull you up to stand on wobbly knees.

He frowns when you don’t fight him or make a snarky comment or try to slap at his hands. “Can you undress yourself?”

You blink at him, and you try not to gag again. Instead your shaky hands reach for your top, and you pull it over your head. You can’t find it in yourself to care. He had seen far better and far worse bodies, you were sure of it. And what you were even more certain of, was that he would have no reason to care. His apology didn’t change the fact that he was insistent that there was nothing between you, that he didn’t like you or even remotely think of you that way. Maybe he would make a joke about you acting like a hooker. Whatever.

When your shorts and underwear pool at your feet, you don’t hesitate to reach forward and lean against House. His hand rests against the small of your back, and if you were more cognitive at the moment you would have been almost shocked it didn’t dip further down. But he’s respectful and leads you to the bathtub, which is now full with cool water.

He winces when you put more weight on him, and raise yourself over the lip of the tub. But then you detach yourself from him, and you ease yourself down, laying in the water and placing your head at the end as your eyes droop. Behind you, there is a variety of soapy formulas, conditioners, shampoos, body washes, all tucked into the corner.

He clears his throat and tsks. “Don’t fall asleep. I won’t be able to carry you back to bed, and wouldn’t that be a mediocre death? Drowning in your own bathtub? You deserve something better. Serial killer patient on the loose or Foreman’s pisspoor attempt at cooking.”

You rattle out a tired laugh but find you don’t have anything to reply. For a moment, you sit in silence. Almost comfortable.

But then there’s the clink of his belt hitting the floor and despite your easing fever and tired self, your eyes snap open. “Wow House. Despite all the comments and stares, I never took you as a predator.”

He snorts and you see he’s already kicked off his shoes and peeled off his socks. His hands are still at his jeans and you track his movement. His eyes flick up to yours. You feel like prey being observed and you still yourself. Whatever he finds there is confirmation enough, and he peels his pants down. Your eyes trail down and you keep yourself still as you take in the silvery and mangled scar tissue of his thigh. When it’s apparent he’s not reaching to take off his boxers, you gently close your eyes and it seems to break the silence by spurring House to speak again. “I don’t stare at you.”.

“Mmhm. Do you hate me so much that you don’t realise it? Everytime I speak in the conference room or hell, even when I’m not speaking, you look at me with so much…Contempt.”

You feel him now, sliding against the tub and coming to sit behind you. His feet sit beside you, the water going up to his lean calves. You decide you want to see his reply and what he’s doing, so you stare up at him, resting your face against his thigh.

He peers down at you, and the line in his brow, that appears when people are being stupid, appears. You’ve seen it when parents deny a certain medicine, or when patients omit part of their history in embarrassment, but oddly enough, you haven’t seen it directed at you. Until now.

“It’s not contempt.”

“Then what is it?” Your eyes bore into him.

He doesn’t speak for a moment, and you can feel your heartbeat against your ribs. You’re not sure what you’re anticipating. You had wanted this at the charity event, wanted him to tell you the truth. And he did. So why were you wanting him to tell you a different truth?

But the moment slips away and he simply says, “You have vomit in your hair. Lean forward.”

A deep, almost shameful blush settles against your cheeks, and you’re happy to oblige in order to hide it. You hear him uncap one of the bottles to your side, and pour the solution into his hands. He gathers your long hair into his hands and lathers the shampoo across your scalp. It’s almost clinical, his actions. As if you were another patient.

You go to speak, but as if he senses that, he places a hand on your bare shoulder and leans forward. He cups at the water by his feet, and pours it onto your head. He repeats the process at least another three times, and you decide to just settle against his thigh again. Your skin doesn’t feel so clammy anymore, but you feel you must still be delirious because you get the insane urge to turn, and bite him. Bite a bruise into his skin and kiss it better.

He stills behind you, and his deep voice fills the room. “I’m going to wash you. Or I can hose you down, but seem too clingy for that.”

You’re too tired to think about it as he moves your hair over your shoulder. There’s a damp cloth over your back, scrubbing gently in circles. Your breath hitches as House leans forward, and the cloth is wiped across your front. For such a sexually inappropriate man, he attempts to avoid your breasts, and is quick to retreat.

“Thank you,” You mumble against his leg, closing your eyes.

“Don’t worry. You can make it up to me. How does taking my clinic hours for a week sound?”

Prick. At that, you really do turn and bite his thigh. He sucks air through his teeth and tenses, but doesn’t push you off as you place a soft, almost mocking, kiss where you nipped at.

“That’s a no, then?” he clears his throat before you can reply or bite him again. “Well, you can make it up to me by not quitting then. I’ll be back.”

He leaves you swiftly, dripping water across your bathroom and quickly dragging his jeans back up his lean legs. The door clicks shut behind him. You’re left in silence, only interrupted by the dripping of a faucet and your own groans of embarrassment.

He was asking you not to quit? After you had slapped him and now bit him? Really?

God you could see it now. Strolling into work in a few days, and the second you’re in the conference room, House proudly produces a rabies shot and tells everyone how vicious you were.

You drag your wet hands down your face and you’re almost tempted to do exactly as you spoke of earlier and drown yourself in your own bathtub. Instead you settle for leaning your face into the water and screaming out bubbles.

You’re only stopped when a hand pulls your shoulder back. House peers down at you. “Clearly, you need to go back to sleep. C’mon.”

It’s almost in a haze that you step out the tub. Both you stand on your fluffy white bath mat, but while he’s dressed now, you’re strikingly naked.

The fever, which has now receeded to a manageable level, has instead left embarrassment in its wake. First biting him and now flashing him again? What will be next?

You gratefully take the towel he offers you, and wrap yourself in it quickly. You see his staring at the growing patch of mold on your roof and you groan. “Don’t judge me. I couldn’t reach it to clean it.”

House rolls his eyes. “We’ll talk about that when you’re more lucid.”

He grabs his cane from where it is propped up by your sink, and together you walk back to your bedroom. You stop however, and turn to him. “You…changed my sheets?”

Was that why he had left earlier? He’s no nonsense and blunt in his response. “They were filthy.”

“How do you even know where my linen is kept? Or my washing machine?”

He dipped his hand into his pocket and produced a thin box of panadol and a vial of cough syrup. “Next you’re going to be asking me how I know where your medicine cupboard is.”

You stare at him, and debate asking him that very thing. But you’re tired and sore, and instead grasp at the medicine, dry swallowing two pills again and using the syrup’s cap to take a shot of it. He stares at you, almost admirably in a sense. For once, you didn’t argue about the treatment.

You settle against your bed and watch as raps his cane against your drawers. “Pajamas are where?” He draws out the last syllables almost in a whine, looking at you quizzically.

“Top drawer.”

He opens it, and whistles, holding up the sheer piece of lingerie that had never seen the light of day.

Shit.

It’s almost comforting when House’s improved bedside manner slips away and he turns to you with his signature smirk in place. If he’s being rude and unbearable, it’s not so embarrassing or difficult to fight back. “Doctor, what are the odds you can give me some treatment wearing this? You see, I’ve got this horrible swelling down below, and I think this would be the perfect remedy.”

You roll your eyes. “God, you act like a thirteen year old boy who has never seen boobs before, let alone had someone else to take care of his boner.”

House theatrically slaps a hand against his chest. “Excuse you, as of today, I’ve seen one pair of boobs. Try not to generalise us thirteen year old boys.”

You flush, and decide to not bite back at him, afraid he might remark more on your chest. It’s not bad, really, but you don’t like how your core clenches at the thought of House seeing you naked.

He stares at you for a moment, but then he’s digging in your drawers and pulls out a pair of cotton bottoms and a t shirt (in considerably better condition than your last one). He hands them to you, and he turns away, beginning to thumb through your paintings again as you weakly get changed.

You climb into bed, ready to turn to him and admit defeat by thanking him. Annoying as he is, you’re grateful for his help. Holding your hair. Washing you. Changing your sheets. Bringing you medicine. If you thought about it hard enough, you would almost think that for once, he did care about his patient.

But under the duvet covers, warm and recovering, your eyelids are heavy and you quickly slip off to sleep; the last thing you can see is House sitting down at your desk, like a guard ready to begin his shift. You stare at him for a moment. He’s wrinkled and his hair is greying, and it seems like he hasn’t shaved in the past few days, but he’s oddly…Beautiful.

And then you’re soundly asleep for the first time in days.

[debsandshit]

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