FicWad

You enter my office scared. (Everyone does.) You’ve been seen here by your own Doctor, the man or woman who knows you, who’s been taking care of you for years. But now you’re in my office, developing an extensive vocabulary so as to avoid the word cancer. You tell me how healthy you are, how often you run and how little you drink (and now I know you’re having marital problems, though I don’t remember asking.)

I pull my lips back and show you my teeth and you’re comforted. I look young. I’m attractive, and I’m reassuring you. I explain the gravity of the situation, but I keep my voice laden with hope. We still have tests to do, I tell you. It may be nothing. I reach out and touch you, squeeze your shoulder. You feel the heat from my hand and you’re anchored for a moment, no longer floating aimlessly in the vast ocean of fear.

You leave my office with hope and an appointment on Wednesday. You turn and look back at me, whispering thank you. I smile again, though you’ve gone already. You’re all the same to me. Names and faces all change, but the endless parade of bodies blur together and all I see is infected parts. I change the register of my voice for you, soft if the news is bad. I show my regret, my anger than your body has done this to you, but I tell you we’ll fight it. We’ll rally against the rapidly splitting cells that gun for you.

I sit in my office after your departure, motionless. The sun dips, beginning its descent and I am bathed in gold. I close my eyes against the light and feel the warmth on my skin. I open them again; there’s something with me, something watching, but I don’t know where. Then I see a pale face, highlighted against the shadows of the balcony. His eyes, a searing blue, meet mine and then he turns away.

I hear his footsteps first. He outside my office, listening. The doorknob turns slowly, like something out of a horror movie. The door opens then and House stands there and the light bathes him too. We’re angels in this light, perfect and illuminated.

“How’s your patient?” His eyes flicker, like he’s playing a part. He watches you, waiting for something.

I answer as I always would and arrange my face into incredulity along the way.

“Where’s the fire?” My voice is even, skeptical. He’s confused.

“What?” He’s angry now, but he tries to hide it. He wants to keep me talking.

“And the brimstone. Can’t forget about that. The world must be ending, right? Because the day Greg House cares about a lowly, boring cancer patient is the day the world ends.” My teeth are on display again (that shit eating grin I have) and laughter’s in my eyes and I look at him and hope I’ve covered my tracks. But apparently I haven’t; he leans into me, puts his face so close to mine that I can taste his cinnamon breath.

“What are you?” He asks, his voice loud. It echoes against the walls of my office; I can practically feel it on my skin. I make my eyes dark now, and defend myself.

“What are you talking about?”

But the words are pressed back into my mouth as his lips touch mine. He focuses on my bottom lift first, massaging it until increased blood flow makes it throb. Then he’s darting his tongue across my top lip; tremors run through me and I’m breathing fast.

I break away.

“What are you doing?”

But his eyes tell me not to ask and so I don’t.

“What I am to you,” I whisper, but again he shushes me. But I continue. “It isn’t real.”

He doesn’t reply, but he leans into me again and takes away the breath I would have used to speak.