an object in motion
by greensilver
--
In the dream, he comes home from work and his first wife is in the kitchen, chain-smoking her way toward bravery. A manila envelope is on the counter next to the sink; the envelope is a little damp around the edges, and he can picture her leaving it there as she does the dishes, half-hoping the ink will smear.
The dream is just a memory until he discards the envelope without opening it and she falls into his arms, ready to try again. As he holds her, he realizes that none of it is real; she's the one crying, he's the pillar of strength, and that's a fantasy even his subconscious can't fully buy into.
-
He awakens to Julie's hair in his face and her voice at his ear, low and hesitant.
"James, could we...?"
In a perfect world, he would've made to love her and been content, end of story. Reality doesn‘t work that way, and never has - so it's no surprise when in a split-second moment of clarity, he strokes a thumb across her shoulder and thinks of Greg House.
James has sex with his wife for the first time in months. When it's over, he doesn't try to make more of it than it was. At some point in their marriage they became nothing more than strangers in a bar, seeking easy sex without strings attached; to have regained that level of intimacy is encouraging.
-
The floor drops out from beneath him when Cuddy tells him about the board meeting. For a moment he's seized by the irrational urge to shake her and tell her it's just not fair - he got laid and still had time for breakfast; the morning was off to a great start, and somehow House found a way to ruin it.
Instead, he stares at her in silence, trying to make some sense of the moment. When he realizes that she isn't going to meet his eyes any time soon, his stomach lurches and his throat tightens, as though his body has just caught on that it's going to be a phenomenally shitty day.
-
He finds out about Allison over lunch, where he picks at a salad and listens to Chase and Foreman take cheap shots at one another.
"I'm sure Allison won't have trouble finding another job," James says. He doesn't know why that pisses them off, but it does; in under two minutes he has the table to himself, and he fidgets with weedy-looking greenery until House sits down across from him, uninvited.
"Maybe you can sweet-talk your guy from Oncology into voting for me," House says, helping himself to the cooling remains of James' soup. "Threaten to cut his pay, or something."
James almost smiles. "That's not sweet-talking - it's blackmail."
The salad travels to House's side of the table, as well, and that's when James realizes that House doesn't even have a tray with him. What would the man have done if he hadn't found James in residence - starved?
"Blackmail is the bad one, right? Maybe we should send him chocolates." House gives up on subtlety and steals James' tray altogether, hunting down unopened packets of croutons like a bloodhound on a scent trail. James folds his arms over the table and wonders if he'll miss this, when House is gone.
"That'd be bribery," James says.
House looks up. "Another bad one?"
"So they say." James does smile, this time, and even that faint pull at his lips is enough to make panic surge up again, just short of boiling over.
-
His thoughts are racing along with no pattern or coherency and he can't concentrate, can't settle, can't focus on anything but the fact that his tie is obstructing his airway and he has to get it off so that he can breathe. He struggles with the knot for a moment, hands shaking too much to be of any use, and then he simply yanks at the tie until someone else's hands push his aside and undo the knot for him.
"We voted," Cuddy says, tugging the tie free of his collar and balling it up in her hands. "Why don't we go back to my office?"
He closes his eyes, slumping back against the wall. "The meeting?"
She hesitates. "Vogler wants you to come back in, but to hell with him. I'm not going back in."
James flattens his palms over the wall, trying to quell the rising nausea that's one minute from clawing its way up his esophagus and onto Cuddy's blouse. He shakes his head, and that doesn't help the nausea but he can't stop, can't keep himself from backsliding into warm, welcoming denial.
"It can't be over," he says, low enough that she doesn't seem to hear him. "There's got to be something-"
Her hand slides under his elbow, pulling him away from the wall. He's just about to give in and let her lead him away when it occurs to him that she did nothing; she sat there with her hand in the air and her head turned away, just like he'd known she would, from that first bomb-dropping moment in the lobby.
He goes still, and the way her grip tightens over his elbow tells him that she expected this, that she was waiting for it.
Vogler steps out of the conference room before either of them can say a word, and James shakes free of Cuddy. When he turns to face Vogler, James is channeling House on a day without Vicodin, without porn, without Tetris.
"Good news?" James says, the sound of his own voice completely unrecognizable.
-
He walks into the house empty-handed, and immediately regrets the mistake. He should've brought takeout, or flowers, or whatever it is a husband brings his wife to sweeten her up before telling her he's lost his job. In the long course of marriages past, this is one conversation he's never had to have before.
Julie is asleep in the living room, one arm dangling off of the couch. He hasn't seen her give in to sleep so completely in a long time, and it looks as though she was waiting up for him; maybe the morning meant more than he'd thought.
He hopes not.
For one particularly maudlin moment, he wants to sit next to her on the couch and pretend to be a happily married man taking comfort from his wife. Instead, he tosses a blanket over her and goes up to bed alone, promising himself that he'll tell her in the morning.
-
In the dream, he doesn't go home; he lets himself into House's apartment and finds House at the piano, waiting with an unopened bottle of scotch.
James turns to close the door, and without looking back he says, "I resigned."
"Like Cameron," House says, and plays on.
James takes a few deep breaths before he releases the doorknob and turns back into the room, going to sit next to House at the piano. "I covered for you," James says, and he needs House to understand; he needs to know it wasn't for nothing. "I was the only one."
House's fingers slip, and a sudden crash of dissonant chords makes James wince. "That was pretty stupid of you," House says, voice frustratingly neutral.
"I miss you," James says, hesitantly touching the keys.
House shrugs, not looking up. "I'm not the one leaving, am I?"
James pushes his fingers down, striking a few random notes. "You left a long time ago."
"I didn't go anywhere," House says. Their hands brush over the keys, and this isn't what James wanted, not at all; he wanted to tear into the place and rip House's shirt off, find out what he was missing and throw it away all at once. Instead he's flirting with casual touches and sidelong glances, the only things they've ever done; nothing new, nothing unexpected.
"I'm tired of waiting," James says. When his mouth closes over Greg's, James knows it's not real.
-
When James wakes up, Julie is curled up against him, half-awake.
He's going to tell her. He has to; it's just a matter of time. When she asks why it happened, he'll come up with something more palatable than I lost my job for House, and she'll forgive him.
"I think I should move out," he says. The startled hitch in her breathing is audible, and he genuinely feels like a bastard for the first time in any of his marriages. He's never been the one to leave before, but he thinks that he's beginning to understand the attraction of it; walking away is easier than sticking around to deal with the situation, or even admitting there's a situation to be dealt with. Perhaps he's more of a coward than he realized.
They have sex anyway, for the second morning in a row, and that's just screwed up enough to seem par for the course.
-
There are pristine white banker's boxes on the desk in his office, apparently planted there for his convenience.
James makes a gift of them to the Oncology receptionists, and slams the door shut behind him.
-
He leaves the contents of his office in the trunk of his car; bringing them in would altogether defeat the purpose of leaving Julie, and he's too committed to back out now.
The bedroom door is shut, giving James the rest of the house to himself. He finds a six-pack of beer in the back of the fridge and takes it into the living room, settling in for the night. When his cell phone vibrates in his pocket, he's halfway through the third bottle.
"Cuddy is a miracle worker," House shouts into his ear. "Where the hell are you? Get back here. Bring champagne."
James spins the bottle around on his thigh, leaving a smudged ring of perspiration on his pant leg. "I don't understand," he says, struggling for the willpower not to hope.
"Your letter of resignation is in my paper shredder." House sounds positively gleeful. "Cuddy kicked Vogler's ass. He's leaving. We're-"
"I'll be there in five," James interrupts. "Wait - no, I've been ... I shouldn't drive."
House won't be deterred. "I'll send Chase. Hell, we'll all come. Foreman can pay for the damned champagne."
When James hangs up the phone he’s still trying to hold out, fighting to hang onto all the cynicism that a failed marriage and a pointless career could provide. House is still ultimately repressed and miserable, and James is still a divorcé on the make; nothing has really changed. But House is ecstatic and Julie is asleep, and by the time Chase's car pulls into the driveway, James is as happy as he can ever remember being.
-
The kids are gone, his golf trophies are back on the shelves, and only the four of them linger in Diagnostic Medicine: James, House and two lukewarm bottles of beer. House has long since swapped his champagne for coffee, but James is still working away at the last of the alcohol reserves.
This would be the perfect excuse for James to actually do something, make a move, make an idiot of himself - but happiness is too newly regained to be risked, and he washes those thoughts down with warm beer.
"Homewards?" House asks, watching James drain the last bottle.
"I'm leaving Julie," James says, and snaps his mouth shut; as far as making an idiot of himself goes, the night is young.
House looks almost unsettled. "That's new. What, did you catch her in bed with someone?"
"Sort of," James says - all things considered, it's a fairly apt description of the past two days. He shrugs, reaching for his coat. "Your place?"
"I've stocked up on Ed Wood," House says, and helps him up.
-
In the dream, James wakes up and reaches for his wife out of late-forming habit. His hand smacks into the back of the couch, and that startles him into the sort of complete consciousness that jerks him off of the couch and onto his feet before he realizes that he's moving.
He stands there, confused and disoriented, until a hand pushes between his shoulder blades to direct him back down onto the couch. House sits on the armrest above James' head and stares down at him, not quite smirking.
"About time you woke up," House says, reaching down to flick a bit of hair out of James' eyes. "You're running late."
"But it's a Saturday," James says. Even semi-awake and hungover, he knows when he's due for a day off.
"Exactly," House says, his hand lingering on James' head, fingers moving restlessly over James’ hair.
James is confused, at best. "That doesn't make any sense."
House lightly massages James' scalp, soothing away the encroaching headache. "You're dreaming."
"I am?" His subconscious isn't usually quite that direct about it, but all the earmarks of a dream are there, and he's not inclined to argue. House's fingers brush the nape of James' neck, dipping below his collar, and this isn't real, it can't be.
"Go back to sleep," House says, and if his expression is as perpetually annoyed as ever, his voice is smiling.
So James sleeps; and when he awakens again, the dream fades before he can recapture it.
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