Drive By Beta
Jun. 30th, 2008 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
namasteI've got a fic situation that could use some help, because I'm at the stage right now of trying to figure out whether -- or how -- to rework it, or maybe I just need some feedback that will point me in the right direction and figure out this maze that this thing has turned into.
Here's the issue: I'm working on something themed around the Fourth of July (I've written fics dealing with the Fourth for the past couple of years because I figure House loves a holiday when you blow stuff up). My original intent had been to have House and Wilson spend the three day weekend road tripping to various fireworks shows. But there have been so many good road trip fics lately ... and I couldn't figure out where, exactly, to send them, that I revised that and decided to just send them on a day trip.
Now the day trip fic doesn't feel quite right, and I've debated whether to shelve it for now and turn it into just a general fic later when I work things out ... or whether to try and go back to the original concept. (I also have another infant fic that I can write in time for the Fourth.)
The one thing that would have remained the same from any of these fics is that Wilson doesn't want to go, but gives in because he knows it'll make House happy, but then discovers that it makes him happy too.
So ... there's my issue. Any ideas you have would be appreciated, because I'm at the point where I change my mind on what to do every few hours, so I need to bounce it off some people. Thanks in advance.
--------
The tops of the pine trees bent with the wind and Wilson opened the window a little wider, hoping to feel just a hint of something fresh -- of air cooled by the ocean or the river he was sure must be nearby.
But the wind that blew in was hot and thick -- humid with nothing but the scent of dust and gravel and dried out weeds. He leaned back against the vinyl seat, feeling a sticky layer of sweat against his back.
"If we'd taken my car," he said, "we'd have a working air conditioner."
"You were the one who didn't want me driving your car in the first place," House pointed out. He had his left elbow propped up on the open window, his arm hanging loosely along the side of the car, his hand gliding up and down along with the wind currents.
"If you'd told me where we were going, I could have driven."
"But that would ruin the surprise," House said.
Wilson shook his head and stared out the window again. House had turned off the highway somewhere south of Toms River, saying he had a better route. Since then they'd cruised past a collection of beach towns and multimillion dollars mansions, with only brief glimpses of the water -- a grayish blue with softly breaking waves. Wilson saw catamarans and Sunfish sailboats close to shore, darting past each other, and further out in deep water, yachts and the occasional two-masted schooner.
He hadn't seen the water for the past fifteen minutes, though, since House had turned off main road with a quick spin of the wheel and a sudden move that had Wilson grasping for something to hang onto as the car turned to the right. Every once in a while, he'd slow down at some crossroad, sometimes continuing straight ahead, sometimes turning to the left or the right.
Wilson had lost track of where they must be -- could only tell their direction by staring up at the sun -- but knew that House would run out of road if he kept going south, with nothing but the Delaware Bay ahead of him.
Wilson turned to look at House. "Atlantic City?" he guessed.
"On the Fourth of July?" House shook his head. "Too crowded. And we passed the turn for Atlantic City ten miles back."
Wilson pictured the map of New Jersey in his head. "Cape May?"
House took his eyes off the road, stared at Wilson for a few seconds. "Have you seen Cape May on a summer weekend?"
Once, Wilson thought, but didn't say anything. Back when he'd hoped he could still make things work with Bonnie, the marriage counselor had recommended that they get out of their routine for a few days, leave behind all the pressures and distractions. For a few hours, he'd convinced himself that it could work. They'd found a beach side bed and breakfast in a Victorian cottage, had walked under the full moon along the water's edge.
They'd made love under the white canopy of the bed, and talked -- for the first time in months, it had seemed -- about things that actually mattered.
Then there'd been the message from House when they got back from dinner, his complaints on the phone that he was running low on Vicodin and about the new pharmacy tech, but then he'd grumbled out an admission that he'd probably be all right until Monday.
Wilson had told Bonnie that it was nothing -- tried to tell himself that House would be fine, but that night, he couldn't stop the voice in his head telling him that he should get back, that maybe the Vicodin was just an excuse, and House really did need him.
They'd left the next morning, and Bonnie had left him six months later.
Now the car slowed and Wilson looked over at House, told himself that he'd done the right thing back then. House'd had only one Vicodin left when Wilson got there that afternoon. He'd muttered something about a bad day on Friday, had said he didn't realize how few were left until Saturday. Wilson had gone to the hospital pharmacy, gotten him a refill. House hadn't said anything when he gave it to him, hadn't thanked him out loud, but had looked him in the eye, nodded once and swallowed down two of them with half a glass of water.
House stopped at the intersection of two gravel roads, looked left, then right, then left again.
"You're lost, aren't you?" Wilson asked.
"I am not lost," House said. "I'm just ... trying to remember which way to go. It looked different last time."
House leaned forward, looked right again, then left.
"Would I be damaging my manhood beyond repair to suggest you look at a map?" Wilson pointed at the house across the road. "Maybe ask someone at that place over there?"
House leaned back again, stared at him. "Do you really want me to answer to that?"
Wilson waved both hands at the roads in front of them. "Fine. Let's go."
House spun the wheel to the left. "Don't be so dramatic," he said. "We're in New Jersey, not the Yukon. We're not going to starve to death if we take a wrong turn." Gravel pinged up against the Chrysler's sheet metal. "Especially," said House, "if you packed a decent meal in that cooler."
Wilson leaned against the door, opened the window a little wider and tried to ignore the dust flying in. "You tell me where we're going, and I'll tell you what's for dinner."
House had refused to tell him anything about the trip, had just walked into Wilson's office from the balcony on Wednesday, and told him to be ready to leave Friday morning. He had a smile on his face, as if he'd just solved some puzzle, but Wilson knew he hadn't.
House's last patient had been a 28-year-old man -- a new father -- who'd been bounced from doctor to doctor for nearly two weeks with what was first termed a bad cold, then pneumonia. By the time someone finally gave up and called House for help, it was too late. The man had drowned to death from the fluid collecting in his damaged lungs as they waited for the results of the biopsy that would confirm Hamman-Rich Syndrome.
"Nothing we could have done," House had said, after he'd sent his team home after two straight days of a failed effort. "No treatment, no cure." Wilson had found him slumped down in a visitor's chair in a corner of the ICU, looking at the bed where the man had died, the sheets and blankets folded on the end of the bed, ready to be shipped to the laundry.
"I know." Wilson had been able to tell by the sound of House's voice -- the clipped words, the short sentences, no wasted effort -- that his pain was bad and getting worse, ramping up to fill the hole that the lost case had left behind. Didn't matter if it was from pushing himself too hard the last few hours, or some weird sense of misplaced guilt that he hadn't been able to save the guy. The pain would have felt the same.
He'd pretended not to notice how long it took House to get up from the chair, and how slowly he'd walked down the hallway. House had pretended that he didn't want Wilson to come in once they were at his apartment, had complained that Wilson was turning into a Jewish grandmother, but had eaten the soup and sandwiches.
When House hadn't shown up the next day, Wilson hadn't been surprised. He almost expected House to extend his time off for a couple of days -- maybe even to the weekend.
House had beaten Wilson's estimate by a full day, showing up in his office before noon. Wilson had watched him walk across the room, saw that House was still stiff, but definitely better. He wondered what he'd taken, but forced himself not to ask.
"Fourth of July and a long holiday weekend," he'd said. "I've got the perfect place."
Wilson had shaken his head. "House ..." he'd started.
"No excuses."
"I've got paperwork," he'd said, "and a patient in the last stages of pancreatic cancer. I can't leave him now."
"I'm not talking about jet setting out to Monaco, just a day trip," House had said. "Take a day off. Get out of town for a few hours. It'll do you good."
Bad things happened when Wilson left town. His brother had disappeared when Wilson was gone -- he'd come home to half-a-dozen calls from his parents on his answering machine, asking if his brother had shown up there. Julie had started her affair when he was giving a speech in Boston. Patients died. The infarction.
But House had stood there, waiting, smiling for the first time in days. He even looked ... happy. Wilson couldn't remember the last time he'd seemed not just satisfied, but happy -- actually looking forward to something.
He'd rubbed his hands over his eyes. "Fine," he'd said, "one day."
House had nodded. "You're cooking," he'd said, "bring charcoal."
By the time he pulled up at Wilson's place a little before noon, Wilson had a pile next to the door with a gym bag filled with spare clothes, a set of tongs and a barbecue fork, lighter fluid and charcoal. House watched as Wilson hauled the cooler out to the car, weighed down with ice, food and drinks.
"You remember the beer?"
Wilson had put the cooler on the floor behind the passenger seat, turned to House. "Are you going to make me pay for everything?" He put out one hand, shook his head. "Wait, forget I even asked."
"I paid for the gas," House had said, then pointed at a paper bag on the far side of the car, "and the explosives."
"Of course," Wilson had muttered. "Very you."
The Chrysler bumped along the rough road and Wilson looked over at House, thought he caught a glimpse of House massaging his thigh as the car hit a pothole, but House's right hand moved up to the steering wheel before Wilson was sure.
The gravel road had given way to nothing more than a dirt path. Up ahead, it looked more like a two-track fading into grass and trees.
"Are you sure we're not lost?"
"Relax," House said. "We're almost there."
He slowed, turned left onto a dirt road that led into the trees. They broke through the tree line and Wilson saw blue water ahead of them, green grass and a dozen picnic tables spread out under the shade of ancient trees. There was a small boat launch ahead of them, and House turned right, toward a parking lot where there were a few cars and trucks with empty boat trailers.
"Told you I knew where I was going," House said. He parked under a maple tree and turned off the ignition. Wilson opened the door and stepped out, the air finally feeling cool on his skin, a breeze blowing off the water.
Wilson walked out onto the grass, looked out at the water. The waves lapped softly against the shore, barely making any noise. It wasn't the Atlantic proper -- some bay or inlet that he would have sailed past without even noticing, back when he used to sail.
He turned, looked back at House who was leaning against one of the picnic tables. "Where are we?" Wilson asked.
"A park," House said.
"I figured that out. What park?"
House shrugged. "Somewhere near Corson's Inlet."
It wasn't the state park, though, Wilson thought. That was usually crowded with beachcombers and fishermen and the high whining sound of motorboats. This was someplace else -- someplace forgotten. "How'd you ever find it?"
House sat on top of the picnic table, pulled his right leg up until he could rest his foot on the bench. "Took a wrong turn once," he said, "decided to see where it went."
Wilson shook his head. He hated wrong turns. Hated making mistakes. When he was a kid, his brother would laugh at him when he said the wrong thing, made some flub, and he'd try even harder the next time, concentrating until he could do everything perfect.
Nothing House did was perfect, but he never seemed to care. Flouted every moment that made Wilson cringe -- shouting at the top of his lungs when he should be quiet, taking chances when he should be cautious, following wrong turns to the end of the road, just to see what was there.
Wilson was never sure if House's attitude scared him, or made him jealous. He sat next to House, looked out at the world from the same place where House was, but knew he'd never be able to see the world the same way House did, even if he wanted to.
It was quiet, especially after the noise of the car engine, and the wind rushing past his ears, and of gravel pinging up against sheet metal. Wilson heard the screech of gulls, the breeze in the leaves, the water moving past the concrete pier at the boat launch, the shouts of a family at the other end of the park.
"It's perfect," he said.
"Nothing's perfect," House said, "but food would help."
--------
So.... any ideas? Suggestions? Thoughts?
Here's the issue: I'm working on something themed around the Fourth of July (I've written fics dealing with the Fourth for the past couple of years because I figure House loves a holiday when you blow stuff up). My original intent had been to have House and Wilson spend the three day weekend road tripping to various fireworks shows. But there have been so many good road trip fics lately ... and I couldn't figure out where, exactly, to send them, that I revised that and decided to just send them on a day trip.
Now the day trip fic doesn't feel quite right, and I've debated whether to shelve it for now and turn it into just a general fic later when I work things out ... or whether to try and go back to the original concept. (I also have another infant fic that I can write in time for the Fourth.)
The one thing that would have remained the same from any of these fics is that Wilson doesn't want to go, but gives in because he knows it'll make House happy, but then discovers that it makes him happy too.
So ... there's my issue. Any ideas you have would be appreciated, because I'm at the point where I change my mind on what to do every few hours, so I need to bounce it off some people. Thanks in advance.
--------
The tops of the pine trees bent with the wind and Wilson opened the window a little wider, hoping to feel just a hint of something fresh -- of air cooled by the ocean or the river he was sure must be nearby.
But the wind that blew in was hot and thick -- humid with nothing but the scent of dust and gravel and dried out weeds. He leaned back against the vinyl seat, feeling a sticky layer of sweat against his back.
"If we'd taken my car," he said, "we'd have a working air conditioner."
"You were the one who didn't want me driving your car in the first place," House pointed out. He had his left elbow propped up on the open window, his arm hanging loosely along the side of the car, his hand gliding up and down along with the wind currents.
"If you'd told me where we were going, I could have driven."
"But that would ruin the surprise," House said.
Wilson shook his head and stared out the window again. House had turned off the highway somewhere south of Toms River, saying he had a better route. Since then they'd cruised past a collection of beach towns and multimillion dollars mansions, with only brief glimpses of the water -- a grayish blue with softly breaking waves. Wilson saw catamarans and Sunfish sailboats close to shore, darting past each other, and further out in deep water, yachts and the occasional two-masted schooner.
He hadn't seen the water for the past fifteen minutes, though, since House had turned off main road with a quick spin of the wheel and a sudden move that had Wilson grasping for something to hang onto as the car turned to the right. Every once in a while, he'd slow down at some crossroad, sometimes continuing straight ahead, sometimes turning to the left or the right.
Wilson had lost track of where they must be -- could only tell their direction by staring up at the sun -- but knew that House would run out of road if he kept going south, with nothing but the Delaware Bay ahead of him.
Wilson turned to look at House. "Atlantic City?" he guessed.
"On the Fourth of July?" House shook his head. "Too crowded. And we passed the turn for Atlantic City ten miles back."
Wilson pictured the map of New Jersey in his head. "Cape May?"
House took his eyes off the road, stared at Wilson for a few seconds. "Have you seen Cape May on a summer weekend?"
Once, Wilson thought, but didn't say anything. Back when he'd hoped he could still make things work with Bonnie, the marriage counselor had recommended that they get out of their routine for a few days, leave behind all the pressures and distractions. For a few hours, he'd convinced himself that it could work. They'd found a beach side bed and breakfast in a Victorian cottage, had walked under the full moon along the water's edge.
They'd made love under the white canopy of the bed, and talked -- for the first time in months, it had seemed -- about things that actually mattered.
Then there'd been the message from House when they got back from dinner, his complaints on the phone that he was running low on Vicodin and about the new pharmacy tech, but then he'd grumbled out an admission that he'd probably be all right until Monday.
Wilson had told Bonnie that it was nothing -- tried to tell himself that House would be fine, but that night, he couldn't stop the voice in his head telling him that he should get back, that maybe the Vicodin was just an excuse, and House really did need him.
They'd left the next morning, and Bonnie had left him six months later.
Now the car slowed and Wilson looked over at House, told himself that he'd done the right thing back then. House'd had only one Vicodin left when Wilson got there that afternoon. He'd muttered something about a bad day on Friday, had said he didn't realize how few were left until Saturday. Wilson had gone to the hospital pharmacy, gotten him a refill. House hadn't said anything when he gave it to him, hadn't thanked him out loud, but had looked him in the eye, nodded once and swallowed down two of them with half a glass of water.
House stopped at the intersection of two gravel roads, looked left, then right, then left again.
"You're lost, aren't you?" Wilson asked.
"I am not lost," House said. "I'm just ... trying to remember which way to go. It looked different last time."
House leaned forward, looked right again, then left.
"Would I be damaging my manhood beyond repair to suggest you look at a map?" Wilson pointed at the house across the road. "Maybe ask someone at that place over there?"
House leaned back again, stared at him. "Do you really want me to answer to that?"
Wilson waved both hands at the roads in front of them. "Fine. Let's go."
House spun the wheel to the left. "Don't be so dramatic," he said. "We're in New Jersey, not the Yukon. We're not going to starve to death if we take a wrong turn." Gravel pinged up against the Chrysler's sheet metal. "Especially," said House, "if you packed a decent meal in that cooler."
Wilson leaned against the door, opened the window a little wider and tried to ignore the dust flying in. "You tell me where we're going, and I'll tell you what's for dinner."
House had refused to tell him anything about the trip, had just walked into Wilson's office from the balcony on Wednesday, and told him to be ready to leave Friday morning. He had a smile on his face, as if he'd just solved some puzzle, but Wilson knew he hadn't.
House's last patient had been a 28-year-old man -- a new father -- who'd been bounced from doctor to doctor for nearly two weeks with what was first termed a bad cold, then pneumonia. By the time someone finally gave up and called House for help, it was too late. The man had drowned to death from the fluid collecting in his damaged lungs as they waited for the results of the biopsy that would confirm Hamman-Rich Syndrome.
"Nothing we could have done," House had said, after he'd sent his team home after two straight days of a failed effort. "No treatment, no cure." Wilson had found him slumped down in a visitor's chair in a corner of the ICU, looking at the bed where the man had died, the sheets and blankets folded on the end of the bed, ready to be shipped to the laundry.
"I know." Wilson had been able to tell by the sound of House's voice -- the clipped words, the short sentences, no wasted effort -- that his pain was bad and getting worse, ramping up to fill the hole that the lost case had left behind. Didn't matter if it was from pushing himself too hard the last few hours, or some weird sense of misplaced guilt that he hadn't been able to save the guy. The pain would have felt the same.
He'd pretended not to notice how long it took House to get up from the chair, and how slowly he'd walked down the hallway. House had pretended that he didn't want Wilson to come in once they were at his apartment, had complained that Wilson was turning into a Jewish grandmother, but had eaten the soup and sandwiches.
When House hadn't shown up the next day, Wilson hadn't been surprised. He almost expected House to extend his time off for a couple of days -- maybe even to the weekend.
House had beaten Wilson's estimate by a full day, showing up in his office before noon. Wilson had watched him walk across the room, saw that House was still stiff, but definitely better. He wondered what he'd taken, but forced himself not to ask.
"Fourth of July and a long holiday weekend," he'd said. "I've got the perfect place."
Wilson had shaken his head. "House ..." he'd started.
"No excuses."
"I've got paperwork," he'd said, "and a patient in the last stages of pancreatic cancer. I can't leave him now."
"I'm not talking about jet setting out to Monaco, just a day trip," House had said. "Take a day off. Get out of town for a few hours. It'll do you good."
Bad things happened when Wilson left town. His brother had disappeared when Wilson was gone -- he'd come home to half-a-dozen calls from his parents on his answering machine, asking if his brother had shown up there. Julie had started her affair when he was giving a speech in Boston. Patients died. The infarction.
But House had stood there, waiting, smiling for the first time in days. He even looked ... happy. Wilson couldn't remember the last time he'd seemed not just satisfied, but happy -- actually looking forward to something.
He'd rubbed his hands over his eyes. "Fine," he'd said, "one day."
House had nodded. "You're cooking," he'd said, "bring charcoal."
By the time he pulled up at Wilson's place a little before noon, Wilson had a pile next to the door with a gym bag filled with spare clothes, a set of tongs and a barbecue fork, lighter fluid and charcoal. House watched as Wilson hauled the cooler out to the car, weighed down with ice, food and drinks.
"You remember the beer?"
Wilson had put the cooler on the floor behind the passenger seat, turned to House. "Are you going to make me pay for everything?" He put out one hand, shook his head. "Wait, forget I even asked."
"I paid for the gas," House had said, then pointed at a paper bag on the far side of the car, "and the explosives."
"Of course," Wilson had muttered. "Very you."
The Chrysler bumped along the rough road and Wilson looked over at House, thought he caught a glimpse of House massaging his thigh as the car hit a pothole, but House's right hand moved up to the steering wheel before Wilson was sure.
The gravel road had given way to nothing more than a dirt path. Up ahead, it looked more like a two-track fading into grass and trees.
"Are you sure we're not lost?"
"Relax," House said. "We're almost there."
He slowed, turned left onto a dirt road that led into the trees. They broke through the tree line and Wilson saw blue water ahead of them, green grass and a dozen picnic tables spread out under the shade of ancient trees. There was a small boat launch ahead of them, and House turned right, toward a parking lot where there were a few cars and trucks with empty boat trailers.
"Told you I knew where I was going," House said. He parked under a maple tree and turned off the ignition. Wilson opened the door and stepped out, the air finally feeling cool on his skin, a breeze blowing off the water.
Wilson walked out onto the grass, looked out at the water. The waves lapped softly against the shore, barely making any noise. It wasn't the Atlantic proper -- some bay or inlet that he would have sailed past without even noticing, back when he used to sail.
He turned, looked back at House who was leaning against one of the picnic tables. "Where are we?" Wilson asked.
"A park," House said.
"I figured that out. What park?"
House shrugged. "Somewhere near Corson's Inlet."
It wasn't the state park, though, Wilson thought. That was usually crowded with beachcombers and fishermen and the high whining sound of motorboats. This was someplace else -- someplace forgotten. "How'd you ever find it?"
House sat on top of the picnic table, pulled his right leg up until he could rest his foot on the bench. "Took a wrong turn once," he said, "decided to see where it went."
Wilson shook his head. He hated wrong turns. Hated making mistakes. When he was a kid, his brother would laugh at him when he said the wrong thing, made some flub, and he'd try even harder the next time, concentrating until he could do everything perfect.
Nothing House did was perfect, but he never seemed to care. Flouted every moment that made Wilson cringe -- shouting at the top of his lungs when he should be quiet, taking chances when he should be cautious, following wrong turns to the end of the road, just to see what was there.
Wilson was never sure if House's attitude scared him, or made him jealous. He sat next to House, looked out at the world from the same place where House was, but knew he'd never be able to see the world the same way House did, even if he wanted to.
It was quiet, especially after the noise of the car engine, and the wind rushing past his ears, and of gravel pinging up against sheet metal. Wilson heard the screech of gulls, the breeze in the leaves, the water moving past the concrete pier at the boat launch, the shouts of a family at the other end of the park.
"It's perfect," he said.
"Nothing's perfect," House said, "but food would help."
--------
So.... any ideas? Suggestions? Thoughts?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-02 01:12 am (UTC)It reminds me of a small secluded lake (well, not actually a lake, more like a pond on steroids) just east of Mancelona, Mi that I went to with my boyfriend several years ago. If you did not know that it was there you would never find it as you had to take an unmarked dirt road off of the highway to reach it.
The area was not crowded; it had places to swim, to fish, and to camp. Fireworks were set off by the campers as the sun was going down and continued for quite a while after darkness set in. All in all it made for a very pleasant, stress free weekend.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-02 12:40 pm (UTC)And while I don't know the exact lake you're talking about, believe it or not, I know the area. I lived in Cadillac for a year, and have bummed around that area of the state quite a bit. I admit to drawing some of the images here from those dirt roads that suddenly lead to a secluded park or beach.