#54: "Festination," PG, gen. By ten_thousand.

"Festination"*
ten_thousand/bookslibretti
PG. Gen, canon. Wilson.
Prompt #54. Siri Hustvedt: "When I sleep alone, I can hear you breathing with me, and the funniest part of it is that I'm fine alone, happy alone, able to live alone. I'm not dying for you." This quote was at least partially ignored.
Disclaimer: I don't own nothin' except copyright. Other people, who are not me, own the good stuff.

What's the differential diagnosis for sleeping on the couch? For finding reasons to work late? The patient seems terminal.

***

Festination*

Wilson secretly doesn't mind sleeping on the couch.

Most days he's pretty sure it's just psychosomatic, the way he always seems to fall asleep faster, slip into REM deeper.

Then there are the days Wilson can explain it logically: On the couch, he is left to sleep undisturbed by flailing limbs of snoring bedmates who hog the covers, and surely all that more than compensates for what is, really, only a little extra discomfort.

These days are never good days, because Wilson doesn't get all logical when things are going perfectly well. Wilson reserves logic for times when he's trying to understand House at his most annoying, or for times when he's working out a treatment plan for another cancer patient, or for times when he's wound up working late and when he comes to the house the entire place is dark and he knows it's time for something cold from the fridge before heading straight to the couch.

It makes sense. It's logical. Wilson keeps telling himself that. Julie's sleep will be disturbed if I go in. It's just logical to sleep on the couch, especially since the quality of my sleep doesn't degenerate. We're both happier when we're separate, so it makes perfect sense.

Occasionally it's been in the back of Wilson's mind that something is not quite right, even if it is logical, but he didn't worry about it until he started keeping a sheet and blanket next to the couch because late nights were so frequent. Well. Actually, if Wilson wants to be honest, he didn't worry about it until House came over and noticed the sheet and blanket next to the couch.

House was, unsurprisingly, there on a pretext. Something about an ongoing sinus infection with, as House had finally got the patient to admit when she dropped the bottle of antibiotics he'd just prescribed, asymmetrical weakness, and did Wilson think it was vasculitis?

Wilson did not. He had some decent ideas going, but it was fairly obvious that House, having made up his own mind already, was not interested. House did seem to be interested in investigating Wilson's refrigerator, his bathroom, and his tie collection. None of these were good signs, and Wilson was pretty sure House had a different patient altogether on his mind.

Wilson became positive when House started ragging on him about the sheet and blanket. "Great sign," House said, "sleeping on the couch. Almost as good a sign as that blonde."

"I have to work late," said Wilson in the most this-is-so-obvious tone he could muster, "and I don't want to disturb Julie's sleep."

"You have to work late?" House was fairly decent at pretending to be bemused. "All those chemo treatments at ten at night must really get to you."

"Well," said Wilson, "well, yeah. I mean, not chemo, but -- you know how it goes. Planning. Paperwork. It goes late."

"Late once a month on an interesting case, yeah. Not late three or four times a week, unless Cuddy really has it in for you. Even that much would be hard for her, since the clinic isn't actually open late at night."

"Making our lives hard," said Wilson with relief, "is never hard for Cuddy."

And House allowed him to change the topic without any further mention.

Since then, Wilson has been folding the sheet and putting it in the hall closet every morning, and taking it out every night. He has to admit that the frequency has, if anything, increased since he spoke to House about it.

But it's just a sheet. And it's totally logical.

Saturdays are a little harder to work out. Oh, Saturday mornings are easy, because Wilson feels very strongly that time for golf should be paramount in every man's life. And Saturday afternoons and evenings, Julie is away. It's a book club, Wilson is pretty sure, unless it's maybe one of those boards, Friends of the Something-or-other, that prominent doctors' wives, even prominent doctors' third wives, join.

Saturday nights are a little tougher. Except for those nights Wilson and House arrange a drinking party of two, Wilson winds up going to bed at the same time as Julie. And winds up sleeping with Julie. This, although infrequent, isn't awkward; it's always been one of the better areas of their relationship. Wilson thinks House would say that it's one of the usual criteria for third wives, but that's only because House doesn't understand that Wilson loves Julie. He does.

Sunday mornings are absolutely the worst, though. When Wilson rolls over, he's usually still addlepated enough -- because whether or not he goes out, he drinks on Saturday night -- to need to, kind of casually, possibly even in a way that could be taken as a caress, feel Julie's contours to be able to tell which wife she is. Wilson knows this is bad. He knows that "Which wife?" should not be a multiple-choice question, only maybe a slightly misleading true-or-false.

To Wilson's credit, he's never mixed up his wives' physical features. He knows Julie has the narrowest hips, the second-biggest breasts. She's slightly asymmetrical, with, unsurprisingly, a larger left side. And she's blonde, although that's not exactly a defining feature; so were his first two wives.

Almost as bad as this which-wife game is Julie's Sunday-morning move, which is encouraging Wilson to go to church. Methodist. Wilson, if pressed, is more of a sermons-in-stones kind of guy. If really pressed, which means pressed by House, Wilson will admit that there are few tongues in the trees that line the golf course that's virtually deserted on early Sunday mornings.

By the time Sunday evening comes around, Julie is generally more than a little miffed by Wilson. Whether this is due to "the church thing" or due to Wilson's strange preference for closing himself in his study with "fascinating" medical journals is a matter for debate. In any case, although Julie's Sunday-dinner pot roast is delicious and hot, the atmosphere around the table is decidedly cool.

A nagging something inside Wilson knows that he shouldn't be sleeping on the couch all the time, or -- yes -- fabricating excuses to stay late. Wilson knows he should try to make it to church occasionally, especially since he's a prominent doctor and since Julie's on so many church committees. Wilson knows that he probably shouldn't read the medical journals on Sundays, and if he's being honest he admits that "reading medical journals" is generally code for doodling and wishing for Monday to come again.

That's what Wilson knows is the worst. Wishing for Mondays. Wishing for a job that, while intellectually stimulating, is ultimately miserable. Wishing for work to start; wishing for time to play golf; wishing for work again. Once or twice, when he's been out with House and especially drunk, Wilson wonders when this cycle is going to stop, and what he's ultimately wishing for.

Wilson sees enough people rushing into their graves: women who can't find the time for mammograms, men who can't find the inclination for prostate exams. Smokers puffing through holes in their throats. Some of them can't wait to die.

Wilson thought -- once -- about mentioning this to House. He hasn't.

***

*festination, n. An involuntary tendency to take short steps that inevitably accelerate.