Chapter Text
There is this cave
In the air behind my body
That nobody is going to touch:
A cloister, a silence
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind,
My bones turn to dark emeralds.
— James Wright, ‘The Jewel’
Wilson had been refusing the publicity team for up to a week now. His hands were raised across his chest as he vehemently tried to edge his way past the bright-eyed intern, who was adamant that his face plastered on bus stations and billboards would make Princeton-Plainsboro appear much a more trustworthy looking hospital.
Wilson, over the course of the past week, had gently pointed out the names of every other amicable looking doctor.
It hadn’t deterred the boy from pouncing on his heels to get him to agree to the publicity shoot. Wilson sighed and made his way to Cuddy’s office, the boy tailing behind him. Wilson absentmindedly noted how the camera he was holding seemed larger than his face.
He opened the door, lowering his eyebrows at Cuddy. She raised hers back at him, then at the boy behind him.
Wilson offered, “I’ll do two more clinic hours. No publicity shoot.”
“Six,” Cuddy replied, her eyes going back to her paperwork.
He sighed. “Four.”
“Deal. John, go film someone else. Doctor Wilson never participates in publicity,” Cuddy looked up to sigh apologetically at the boy—John. “I’ve tried to coerce him into it for years. Doesn’t work.”
Wilson smiled thankfully at Cuddy. John now harboured the rich expression of a kicked puppy. He had his reasons, the same as why his Facebook or any other social media accounts were devoid of pictures with his face visible on it. Even on his website, the oncology doctor James Wilson had the face of a default gray avatar. He heard no end of it from House, who came up with dozens of theories on why he didn’t share his pictures online.
It ranged from his harpy ex-wife, to murderous family members of cancer patients, to Wilson’s ex-convict histories. At some point, House had leaned in and whispered in his ear conspiratorially, “Were you a woman?”
He eventually managed to convince House that no, he just didn’t enjoy the prospect of publicizing his face online. As Wilson left Cuddy’s office, he found House outside waiting for him, both hands layered on top of the crook of his cane.
“How many hours is she getting you to do?” House asked, idly knocking the side of his cane with his fingertips.
It was one of those days in the week where he had solved a case and found nothing interesting happening, hence deciding to let his team sit on their asses while he followed Wilson or Cuddy around in an attempt to annoy them or kiss them. Or both.
“Four,” Wilson replied. “You?”
“None.” He grinned at Wilson’s exasperation.
House peered over his shoulder, and Wilson followed his gaze, glancing at John, who began harassing the nurses at reception. He hadn’t even looked at House.
Wilson felt a smile playing at his lips as House watched John with an intensity, seeing if the boy would approach him. He eventually rolled his eyes and turned back to Wilson. “Now that’s just hurtful,” He complained. He raised a hand to gesture at his face. “See this face? Very publicity-worthy.”
Wilson replied, “Sure, very shot-worthy.”
House raised his eyebrows at him. House had been shot a few years ago, and ever since then Cuddy had taken him off publicity shoots. She claimed it was so people would stop trying to land bullets in his body. House had appeared begrudging at that time, but Wilson knew he was happy to have more time to scroll through dubious internet pages and harass Wilson through his clinic and office hours.
“Dinner tonight?” House said as they made their way to the lift.
Wilson shook his head. “I’m going to a play,” he said. Then promptly added when House looked at him expectantly, “With my patient. It’s to thank me for her recovery… or something.”
House laughed as they split ways to their respective offices. “The fourth Mrs Wilson competition commences.”
Wilson ignored his sarcastic comments and went into his office, sitting down at his table.
Turning on his computer, the screen flickered to life to display the page he had last been scrolling through. It was the website for Todd Anderson, budding new playwright who already had bestsellers in the poetry and modern literature sections of bookshops. His newest production ‘Jewel’ had been on tour, and Princeton, New Jersey tickets had been selling a few weeks ago.
Wilson had bought two tickets as part of his deliberate plan to get House off his ass for one night, just in case he had wanted to go to the play. He had bought tickets for all seven venues before this, but never once showed up. It was his silent way of supporting Todd, the boy he had once loved. It was his muted repentance for leaving him, leaving all of them, without a second word.
He donated money to Meek and Pitt’s research facility yearly, and often recommended people not-too-subtly to Knox’s law firm at Vermont. Sometimes, he would donate literature books to the schools Mr Keating taught at. Charlie was the only one he couldn’t find, the only one who vanished off the earth without making his life extraordinary. Wilson could only assume he had retreated back into the Dalton business, carving out his own life in a road of safety.
There was no second ticket-holder, just Wilson. He finished off the last of his paperwork and clocked off, setting off for the McCarter theatre, balancing his dinner and the steering wheel. Time conservation was an art that Wilson had perfected as a doctor, finishing the burger in a few bites and stuffing the wrapper into the sides of his car.
The sun burned a bright red as it began its descent behind his vehicle, and Wilson’s heart was hammering loudly in his chest as he drove on despite his dread. Every bone in his body was telling him to turn around, but the blood in his nerves had reached out and grabbed the steering wheel, pushing on and on until he was in a parking lot, surrounded by the crowds of people who were here, like him, to watch a play.
As he stepped out from his car, he could hear excited murmurs in the crowd.
“Did you hear? Todd Anderson flew here with the cast.”
“It’s the last stop, of course he’d be here.”
“You think he’s going to be onstage?”
“Oh, I really hope so. His baby blue eyes—” The girl swooning had been cut off by her friend’s elbow in her side, and they giggled as they walked away, their voices fading with the distance.
Wilson felt a smile play on his lips as he glanced at the building. He had forgotten how much he’d missed this, how much he’d missed acting, that even the sight of a theatre building alone had raised his spirits. It would have been too unbearable to yearn for a spotlight on him every moment, to raise a CT scan instead of a script. But tonight, just tonight he would allow himself just a little break.
Just to be that boy again for a few hours, until Todd Anderson left New Jersey and there was no reminder of the past anymore. Wilson allowed the smile to break on his face, striding into the dark hallways, where ushers collected tickets and led him to his seats.
He had never sat in the seats of a theatre before. He ignored the gnawing sadness at the realisation that it had taken twelve years before he found himself in a theatre again, enshrouded in the darkness of the quiet, anticipating audience and not the humming eagerness of the cast backstage.
People settled beside him, and he could hear them commenting on the actors, how they were so good and so earnest and so young, so pretty. They were names Wilson hadn’t heard before, names he hadn’t bothered to search. He was certain they were good, sure they had been talented in their work, that they could play the part of Ruby and her father and brother, and everyone very well. But he didn’t care about the names of the actors.
The only name he cared about was Todd Anderson’s.
The play started, and Wilson watched.
“What do you see me as, father? A ruby, cut and carved into the shape of the cavities in your cufflinks to adorn as you please? An accessory for you to flaunt to friends and family, then to cast aside when I shine lesser? Am I a daughter or a mere jewel to you?”
“I know you love me. But you love me as a jeweler loves his gemstones, not as a father loves a daughter. How should I love you back when all you do is cut out parts of me as you deem fit? You think it is a process necessary to make me beautiful, but I warn you, one day you will hack the last of me, and I will shatter, and it would not be beauty but bloodshed as I bury my shards into your skin.”
Those were the lines that rang in Wilson’s head, even after the roaring ovation and the cast’s bow. Todd hadn’t made a speech in the end—the play ended like all the other plays had, with the crowd filing out, contentment in the air above them as they discussed the contents of the play.
Wilson shuffled around the sea of people, and people apologized as they stepped on his feet or knocked into his shoulders. He only shook his head and smiled, making his way to the exit alongside the crowd.
There was a shoulder, or a chest, or a head that had collided with Wilson’s back, the unexpected force sending him forward as he collided into another man’s back. The lingering smell of smoke on the coat caused him to cough. Gosh, this guy had the smell of cigarettes literally woven into his skin. It was unbearable, even for someone like Wilson, who normally had no qualms against cigars or smokes but was currently waving a hand to clear the air in front of him.
“Sorry.” Wilson said to the man as he weaved past him. He didn’t wait for acceptance, because he had files to look through, and biopsies and scans to schedule for his patients after he got home. He slipped back into his old role of oncologist the second his eyes registered the night sky of New Jersey, and left the ghost of the theatre boy to dwindle in the building as he drove away into the night sky.
Charlie paused at the sound of that man’s voice, then at the man, who was hurrying away, cap tucked under his arm as he continued edging through the crowd. He had sounded too familiar, a voice he never thought he would hear again. Even the height, really. If he had grown past seventeen he would probably be that tall.
Someone elbowed him from behind. “Move!”
Charlie shook his head clear of impossible dreams and allowed the tide of humans to wash him to the exit, fishing in his pocket for his cigarettes and lighter. Such were the fruits of success, he thought as he leaned against the wall near the exit, lowering his head to light a smoke. Fame, money, and people.
Todd had been living at Charlie’s place for a while now, and every time they went out for casual, fun breakfast between good friends there would at least be two people asking for Todd’s signature. There weren't too many people, but Charlie admitted he liked watching Todd flustered and red at the sight of strangers trying to make conversation with him. The overexposure of social interaction had done wonders for the once shy boy, who was now able to at least squeeze out a few sentences for his readers.
“Charlie!” He heard a voice beside him. “How was it?”
There was Todd Anderson, clad in a mask and sunglasses and a cap too big for him. Charlie held in a laugh, and they strayed away from the crowd to the parking lot. As Todd settled into the passenger seat, he took off the intricate disguise he had concocted for himself. Charlie affectionately tucked a stray tuft of blond hair back behind his ear.
Todd swatted his hand away and laughed, before choking on the air. “Jesus Charlie,” he said between coughs, “you really need to do something about your smoking problem.”
“Is this your new religion, worshipping me? You know, I’m not too fond of stripping God of his surname,” surmised Charlie. He lifted his collar and sniffed. He couldn’t really smell anything. Then he realized it was the cigarette he had pinched between his fingers. “But feel free to start Daltonisty.”
He threw the cigarette out of the window as they started their journey back to Charlie’s apartment. Todd was leaving in a few days, and Charlie was deliberately ignoring the second part of his statement. Thing was, he had an appointment with an oncologist tomorrow to discuss the tumor that came up in a chest CT during his annual check-up.
Todd was tired enough, constantly stuck in his whirlpool of creation, enough so that Charlie worried the dark circles under his eyes became permanent. But he couldn’t stop Todd, because they all knew he was still hurting, and that was his way of coping. Charlie understood, because where Todd turned to his words, Charlie turned to his cigarettes.
Anyhow, Charlie hadn’t wanted to put him through that fear again before he had it confirmed. So he merely dialed up the volume and belted his lungs out the whole way home, with Todd occasionally chiming in. The night was still early, and he was still hours away from his appointment. So it would be okay, he decided. He would be okay, at least for now.
“You know the lyrics to Queen?” Charlie questioned Todd. Todd was never a rock person—Charlie had been suspicious the boy treated music like Shakespeare, only listening to songs that flowed like poetry, and even then it would have had to be soft poetry, no loud drums and guitar riffs that he personally delighted in.
“Every time I get in this car this is the only band that plays,” Todd sighed. Charlie laughed and ruffled his hair. “At some point something sticks.”
Charlie had missed Todd. Most of their friends from Welton stayed at Vermont, including Todd. Charlie had been the only one moving around erratically, almost with a feverish impulse, until he had finally settled at New Jersey.
The rest of them were too busy to visit, but Todd was a free man. Knox would sometimes ring him up for a rare meal if he came by for a case, but Pitts and Meeks only communicated with him through pages and calls. Charlie had decided then that Todd was his favorite man, and peppered him with love every time he passed by. This love, of course, bloomed in various forms. Sometimes it would be a heartfelt dinner, others a simply atrocious citing of an excerpt of Todd’s new book, or poem, or play.
Of course, there was another reason why Charlie loved having Todd around.
As Charlie turned the keys to his apartment and pushed open the door, Todd wrinkled his nose as he walked in, and automatically began to clear the cigarette butts and leftover beer cans from his table into a bin he had sweeped up from the entrance. “It's almost like you’ve been intentionally waiting for me to come and clear this up.”
“It’s cute, you know,” Charlie confirmed, “the way you rush to clean my apartment. I think I’m in love.”
Todd threw a can at him, which Charlie managed to catch, waggling his finger at him while he walked to the man and began to chuck crumpled pieces of paper into the bin, sweeping the fine layer of ash into a pile before dusting it off.
“I think I’ll keep this can as a profession of your love,” Charlie grinned, raising his arm into the sky as if he had been handed a trophy and not a half-crushed beer can.
“Shut it Charlie!”
They eventually returned to the apartment at eleven, hands empty of the garbage bags they had been hauling back and forth for an hour.
Charlie collapsed dramatically into his couch, lifting a hand to his forehead. “I was going to make you do all that alone. Oh, the burdens of being a good man!”
Todd fell into a heap beside him, laughing softly, in his usual Todd Anderson way. Charlie glanced at him, and Todd let out a long breath, still slightly panting from the cleanup. There was a glassy sheen of sweat across his forehead, and Charlie was reminded to raise a hand to wipe his own, drying it on Todd’s shirt, much to his disgusted acceptance.
Charlie stared woefully at Todd, who was frowning at the sweat smudge on his shirt. Time had treated Todd well; his features had sharpened slightly, but it was still the same eyes that gazed at his poetry books at Welton. Even his face, now slightly grazed with marks of age, had barely lost its touch of youth. Charlie, on the other hand, felt himself scowl at every wrinkled edge that blossomed onto his face.
They were 29, and he wouldn’t call himself old, or Keating wouldn’t have heard the end of it, but it was sorrowful to Charlie, to see his handsome face grow into something… slightly less handsome.
“We’re growing old, Anderson!” Charlie cried out, wrapping his arms around Todd’s neck, who seemed bewildered at his outburst. “Do you know how many people in this world haven’t met this wonderful face yet?”
Todd, now bemused, lay a comforting hand on his back. “If it’s of any help, Char,” he said, patting the forlorn man. “I still see you as the boy from Welton.”
Charlie was content to let him think that he was being regular old Dalton. Truth be told, he was terrified of tomorrow’s appointment. It was scheduled to be his biopsy date, and at this moment, with his head nestled in the crook of Todd’s boney shoulder, an ache was forming on his forehead and he desperately wanted to tell Todd to come along with him.
But he was Charles Dalton, and he couldn’t be afraid. He was never afraid, never breakable. He always had a defiant, dauntless look in his eyes, even faced with expulsion, or unemployment, or addiction. It was now that he feared he would look up into a mirror and find the confused, sad boy that was always within him, concealed under the shell of the almighty Charlie.
He felt Todd’s shoulders tense, presumably because he had paused for a moment too long. “Charlie? Are you okay?” Todd said, lifting a hand to push Charlie off him.
Charlie knew he wanted to scan his features, so by the time they were face-to-face with each other he already had a grin on his face, mastered by years of forcing it on his expressionless one. It was foolproof.
“Toddsie, what would I do without you,” he said, rubbing Todd’s cheeks. He wasn’t the boy from Welton anymore, but Todd was. “What would I do without you?”
He was still soft-spoken, his thoughtful blue eyes the same doe-like ones that had made Charlie introduce himself to him in the first place. He was still strong at heart, ploughing on even when he was badly hurt within, channeling pain into art, and more, advocating for things he believed in even when no one else did. He was still young Todd, not changed irrevocably by time, not weathered down by the train of life that never stopped.
Charlie looked into Todd’s still worried eyes and laughed. “I’m fine, stop staring at me like a mother hen.”
He wouldn’t tell Todd. The poor boy already had too much on his shoulders. It was just a clinic visit, how bad could it be?
He gently removed Todd’s grip off his shoulders and stood up, stretching out his back. “I’m going to shower,” He announced with an air of determination. “And so will you if you want to share my bed.”
Todd beat him to the shower. He was surprisingly fast, and Charlie banged against the door to the shower mournfully. “Taking the shower before the owner of the apartment is illegal, you know.”
“Is not!” Had been the gleeful call back, and Charlie failed in fighting the first genuine smile in a few months that rose to his lips.
Charlie Dalton was at the hospital, and he was staring at glass walls, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling of loneliness that preyed on him every time he was alone. He unlocked his phone and looked for Todd’s contact, contemplating texting the boy explicitly inappropriate things to kill time.
He briefly imagined Todd’s horrified expression and laughed to himself, playing with his cell as he typed out a jaw dropping message, one so obscene he had to squint and type at the same time. Oh, this was wonderful, he thought to himself.
Then he heard that voice again, this time interspersed with sentences from another woman. It froze his heart, cut off blood to his limbs, and his finger was hovering above the ‘m’, stiff. Distantly, Charlie saw his screen blur, and it registered that he was trembling. God, he really needed a smoke now. He was hearing things twelve years after the incident, talk about PTSD.
Except that it seemed real, and the voices were nearing.
“I can’t take this case, you have to give it to another oncologist,” the voice pleaded.
“Just finish today’s biopsy and I’ll rearrange the schedule tomorrow. You know the other oncologists all have things going on now.”
“I can’t—”
“You can’t just bail on me now, Wilson! You should’ve given me notice yesterday, so I had time to tie things together!”
The voices neared, and Charlie heard a third sound other than them: his heart. It was roaring, loud incessant thunder in a storm. It filled his ears, forcing those voices out, and suddenly the words on his phone began to melt into each other.
He sounded so much like him, so much so that it opened up a poorly healed wound in Charlie’s chest. Now it was bleeding, and it was raw, and it hurt, burrowing through the loneliness and numbness to show him pain again.
Just one look, Charlie thought as he looked up to see the doctor passing by him, the woman still hissing at him, walking faster than him even in heels. He might have felt Charlie’s gaze piercing his side, because he paused and turned to return the look.
Their eyes met, and the storm in him died down. The world stopped spinning, and Charlie was aware that he was staring into the haunted eyes of a dead man who was very much alive.
There were nights where he lay in bed, praying to a god he didn’t believe in for him to see the boy again. Even if it’s a dream, he had begged. Let me see him alive one more time.
For twelve years Charlie had gone without a single dream of him, and he was further convinced that God didn’t exist. He had forgotten how he looked, forgotten how he sounded. Yesterday he was reminded again of the latter. Today he was reminded of the former, as he stared down the man, now seemingly even paler than his doctor’s coat. His mouth was agape, his feet rooted to the floor in front of him the same way Charlie was to his seat.
“C—Charlie?” The doctor said.
And suddenly Charlie was freed, brimming with energy that made his phone fall to the ground slower than the crash of their bodies together. “Neil?” He breathed. Charlie’s eyes fell to the name tag on his coat. Dr James Wilson. Do I know a James Wilson that looks like my dead seventeen year old friend? No, I’m pretty sure James Wilson is my doctor.
Distantly he could hear the woman in front of them crying for security, and then the doctor’s wide eyes shooting to her panickedly. “No, don’t call security. I know him, I got this,” He said.
Charlie had his arms and legs around Neil—James—Neil in an unseemly manner, but he couldn’t let go, because what if this was his first dream of Neil alive and well? That if he did let go Neil would dissipate into the winds, like snow on a cold winter night. So he clung on to the coat, and his body, and clawed onto his shirt.
Then he hissed as he felt the throbbing pain in his knees, courtesy of himself as he pounced on the man and sent them both flying onto the ground. And he knew one didn’t feel pain in dreams.
He drew away enough to look at that face again. That wretched face he loved and missed all the goddamned time. That with time had reduced to a gentle yearning, but now grew and grew like a sprout that had too much fertilizer, pushing its way out into a plant of hatred and anger.
Charlie raised his hand, closed it into a fist. He watched as the doctor’s face crumpled, and he shut his eyes dejectedly. “You were alive this whole time,” Charlie choked out, “and you didn’t tell us? Any of us?”
He swung. “Not even Todd?”
There was a loud thud as his fist collided with the vinyl floor. He heard something crack, and then a pain that shot up his arm, one sharp enough to finally bring him back some shred of sanity.
Neil opened his eyes, and Charlie watched his guilt ridden expression morph into one of horror and panic as his eyes flicked to his hand and then his face.
Charlie could see himself in those dark brown eyes, stripped of the his usual bravado. There were tears streaming down his bloodshot eyes, and a cut on his cheek, and he seemed gaunt and pale. He looked positively horrible.
Neil sat up, and gently held the hand that slammed into the floor instead of his face. Charlie couldn’t stop the tears, and he didn’t want to stop the tears. He should feel something, anything; the pain, the tears, the salt and bile in his mouth. It made him feel alive, like he wasn’t dreaming. He would take a breathing and lying Neil over a dead and honest Neil any day. It didn’t matter, Charlie could be mad at him for burning his toast, what mattered was that he was alive, and he had aged wonderfully, and he was living well.
Neil cradled his hand quietly, and they sat on the ground, two giant heaps of mess. He had single-handedly reduced the head of the oncology department to the young, terrified boy he once was at Welton. He too, felt very small, and very seventeen, and very tired.
“Not even me?” Charlie whispered, his voice so quiet he wondered if he even said it aloud.