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“I can feel it. I can-” Wilson coughed into House's shoulder and groaned low and deep in his throat. “I can feel it,” he whispered raspily.
“Shh,” House brought ice chips up to Wilson’s cracked lips and slipped them onto his tongue. “Better?”
Wilson swallowed audibly and gave a weak nod.
“I’ve got you.” House tucked the blanket up to Wilson’s neck with a trying smile. He tightened his arm around Wilson’s back and pulled him in closer to let him snuggle into his side.
Wilson’s watery eyes peered up at him with all the softness and innocence of the world. “I’m scared.”
“I know, but you’re going to be okay.” House kissed Wilson's temple and rubbed circles into the small of his back.
“It hurts.” His breath stuttered like a car engine and came spilling out in weakened sobs, held back by the hoarseness of his throat and the last of his willpower.
House eyed up the morphine on the chair beside them. Wilson denied it hours ago when the pain started up in full force and denied it again when it slipped beyond what he could take into pure agony all because he wanted to be conscious in his last moments.
House swallowed back the lump in his throat and held Wilson closer to him as if he could absorb the pain through touch alone. He hated seeing Wilson hurting.
House had lost hours of sleep watching Wilson toss and turn, his body writhing like he was being electrocuted. Some days, when the pain became too much, Wilson shook so violently House thought he was suffering from seizures. Endless days passed where Wilson screamed at the top of his lungs into a pillow as the pain squeezed him in its bone-crushing hands.
House proudly accepted the scratches across his chest and arms where Wilson’s nails drew blood from clinging to him so tightly. He bore bite marks where Wilson clamped his jaw down on his shoulder to quieten the pain in case the people in the motel room next to them sent in a noise complaint and the police caught a cancer patient and his ‘dead’ friend hiding out.
Wilson didn’t always fight the pain. Early on, he willingly knocked down any painkiller they could get their hands on. The lower the pain, the more Wilson could enjoy everything on their bucket list. They travelled down the coast all the way down to New Orleans where they got sloshed at the bar they first met.
House played Billy Joel on the piano. Wilson kissed him.
Wilson didn’t stop kissing him.
They kissed at the Grand Canyon. They kissed when Wilson landed back on the ground after his skydive in Santa Barbara. They kissed between the alien heads at the International UFO Museum in New Mexico.
They stopped in Tucson where they met up with Thirteen and her girlfriend, Amy, after their trip around Mexico. Amy said her goodbyes before her and Wilson left the room and House injected Thirteen with an overdose of morphine.
House only had to do it one more time.
“I don’t want you to be in pain. There’s morphine, Wilson. You don’t have to suffer.”
“I don’t want the morphine. I just want you.”
With cold, shaking hands, Wilson cupped House's face and smiled softly, achingly, up at him. House gulped down the tears and brought their foreheads together.
They kissed again, curled up in each other’s arms on the mattress that House painstakingly pulled from their bedroom onto the grass outside. The sun began to fall behind the horizon. It illuminated the water below in a warm orange-yellow. The Pacific Ocean lapped at the rocks along the coastline, the gentle slosh and sway washing over them like the lingering heat of bricks against a smoking fireplace.
“I love you,” House said.
“I love you too.” Wilson said, and he fell back into House’s arms to watch the sunset. “This might be the happiest I’ve ever been.”
House’s gut clenched. It hurt that Wilson only found true peace once his life was over. House cherished every smile and every ring of his laughter, but he resented a small part of himself for appreciating their joy when it had taken the cancer for him to finally allow it. He should have made Wilson happy years ago.
Nothing to do about it now.
“You have,” Wilson’s eyes fluttered as he worked his jaw open, “a look on your face. I’m worried about you.”
“Stop that. You’re not allowed to be worried about me. You’re the one who's dying.”
“That’s why I’m worried.” Wilson’s loose fist clawed at House’s T-shirt. House practically pulled him onto his chest. “What’s going to happen to you when I’m gone?”
“You don’t have to worry, Wilson. I’ll be right behind you.”
Moisture pooled along Wilson’s lashes. His face dropped into something broken and troubled, but quietly relieved. His tears outshined the ripples of sunlight on the water.
“You’re hot,” House said.
Wilson snorted.
“There’s no way I’m not chasing after your smoking hot ass.”
Wilson grinned through the tears running down his cheeks. “You don’t…” a stilted inhale, “don’t believe in God. In the afterlife. It’s just death for you.”
House’s chest burned. He tilted Wilson’s chin up and cradled his skull in his hands. “You believe in it. And on the off chance that you’re right, I’m not leaving you waiting a second longer for me to come and find you.”
Wilson choked on a sob and rubbed their noses together. “House…”
“It’ll be hell down here without you anyway,” House said.
Wilson cried into his neck. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
House kissed the crown of his head and rubbed his back. “I’ll be there. I’ll be right there with you on the other side. I promise.”
Wilson sunk into his arms.
“Just let go, Wilson. I’m right here.”
House closed his eyes and held Wilson to his chest, listening to each slow, rasping breath until Wilson drew one last, ragged note and stilled in his arms. Only the squelch of House’s soaked collar and the steady thrum of the waves rolling out with the tide filled the silence.
Without letting go of Wilson, House reached for the morphine and drew up more than enough to knock out a small army. He slipped the needle beneath his skin and pushed down the plunger.
House tangled their legs together and breathed in the lingering warmth on Wilson’s skin as the sun finally dropped behind the sea and he followed Wilson into the night.