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Friday night. A finished case. The promise of a Saturday off. All the hallmarks of a good time. The fellows happened to know that when those three once-in-a-blue moon events aligned and no one shouted any of the dangerous Jinx Words that threatened to throw the earth off its axis, (‘quiet’, ‘calm’, weekend’) it was time for celebration.
Everyone very quietly packed up their bags and set aside the last of the files for the day, signed, closed, and completed. Their ears perked up like a deer in a clearing for the distinct click, click, click of Cuddy’s heels pounding down the hall; the final barrier to a fun-filled night and a relaxing weekend.
Nothing.
No one said a word as they made it down the hall. The whir of the elevator’s slow descent kept their cautious glances company. They stepped out into the lobby holding their breaths, spotted Cuddy sorting through paperwork in her office, and bolted to the door.
“We made it,” Chase exclaimed as he flew the door open with a flourish and stepped into the fresh air of the outside world.
Cameron slapped his shoulder. “You don’t say things like that until Monday morning,” she scolded.
Everyone knew that the powers that be were capable of taking away their only moment of peace in weeks, perhaps months (it was easy to lose count between the sleepless nights and dawn-to-dusk shifts) in the blink of an eye.
It had happened before. One time Cameron was at her favourite restaurant watching the waitress walk over with her salmon when she sighed to her friend, “Finally, I don’t think I’ve left work in weeks’ when her pager went off and she was called- demanded- to come back for an emergency case.
They all waited for the inevitable end to their weekend; the beep of a pager, the ring of a phone, House screaming at them from the balcony above.
That’s when Wilson came barrelling into them.
“Damn,” Foreman said. “That was fast. You’re not invited to drinks next time, Chase. You're bad luck.”
“Sorry,” Wilson muttered, brushing down his coat. “I got lost in thought.”
“What does House want now?”
Wilson looked like his brain was about to burst out of his head. “What?”
The fellows all glanced hopefully at each other. “You’re not here to give us orders on House’s behalf?” Chase asked.
Wilson shook his head. “No. I’m just heading home. Why, is something going on?”
“No. We just have this paranoid, jinx thing,” Cameron laughed to herself, relieved, “It doesn’t matter. We were just going to go grab a drink and forget about work.”
“That’s good. You guys work hard,” Wilson said.
Cameron smiled. “Thanks.”
“Is House coming along?” A strange expression fell onto Wilson's face, something between curiosity and amusement.
“No.”
Wilson chuckled, “Why does that not surprise me? After a hard couple of weeks, you probably don’t want to be playing ‘Pass the House’ all night.” He gave them a knowing brow-pop. “Unless he just latches onto one of you for the night and doesn’t let go. My money has always been on Chase.”
“What are you talking about?” Chase asked.
Wilson narrowed his eyes. He assessed the three of them one by one, a small smirk on his lips. “Oh, come on. You’re messing with me.”
Foreman crossed his arms. “We have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Wilson turned to Cameron, a question in the crease of his forehead. She shrugged.
Wilson doubled over and burst into laughter. His briefcase dropped to the ground as he clutched his side and pointed between them, cackling like a witch. “Oh, this is so good. This is so good.”
Cameron sizzled with the need to figure out what in the world House did to make Wilson turn into the Joker five feet from the hospital lobby. Judging from Foreman’s impatient tap of his fingers against his elbow and what would have undoubtedly been an eager tail wagging up and down on Chase if he had been a dog, they both wanted to know too.
“You have to tell us now,” Chase whined.
Wilson struggled to speak between heaving breaths. “You really haven’t been drinking with House before?”
“We’ve offered, but he’s never shown up,” Cameron explained. “He probably thinks that because he’s our boss, it’ll be awkward.”
“And because you’re in love with him,” Chase said under his breath.
Foreman rolled his eyes. “House would be right about both.”
Wilson just grinned the smuggest shit-eating grin he could muster. “You. Are Missing. Out.”
“Oh, come on,” Chase practically jumped on his toes with anticipation. “You can’t just leave us hanging.”
Wilson put on a serious face. “Are you sure you’re prepared for this?”
“Is he going to kill us if he finds out we know?” Foreman asked.
“That’s the best part.” Wilson stepped closer and leant in. Intrigued, the three of them huddled closer, “House doesn’t even know. He blacks out and forgets everything by the morning.”
Chase grinned. “I have to hear this.”
“A drunk House,” Wilson said. He brought one hand up into the air, “is like if a ‘Boyz To Men’ song came to life,” he brought his other hand up, “and a Care Bear,” he smashed his hands together like Barbie dolls before making a ‘raining’ gesture with his fingers. “Had a horrifying love child together. He’s still an irritating, annoying asshole, but instead of monologuing about how terrible everyone is, he can’t stop yapping about how amazing and wonderful you are.”
“You’re kidding,” Foreman scoffed.
“I’m dead serious.” Wilson looked behind his shoulder at the hospital door. After making sure the coast was clear, he turned back to their secret circle and started waving his hands around like a camp counsellor drawing a dirt map. “It’s unbelievable. But it’s true. He turns into sunshine and rainbows. I thought it was a prank when he first did it, but then we went out for drinks again, and again, and again, and it just kept happening. He’s affectionate,”
Cameron gasped.
“My thoughts exactly,” Foreman deadpanned.
Wilson laughed, “I’m serious! He gets all cuddly and sweet. It’s really adorable. Don’t tell him, though. If he finds out, he’ll never go out for a drink with me again and I haven’t gotten nearly enough pictures and videos to blackmail him with it before that happens.”
Chase just shook his head in bewilderment. “I have to see this for myself.”
“Good luck to you. You think it’s funny now, but after an hour of him being the living embodiment of a teddy bear, you’re gonna want to drown him in a jug of beer.”
“So, a regular Tuesday, then?” Chase said.
Foreman tilted his head at Wilson accusingly. “This better not be a trick. I’m not ruining my weekend getting drunk with my boss if I don’t have anything to hold over him.”
Wilson held his hands up in surrender. “It’s not a trick, I promise. Invite him out tonight.”
“How?” Cameron asked. “He says no every time we ask.”
Wilson just picked up his briefcase and shot them a ‘really, are you stupid?’ look. “It’s House. Offer to pay for his drinks. Works every time.”
That’s how the fellows found themselves crossing the threshold between work and fun, bypassing Cuddy and her stack of paperwork, and dragging their asses back up to the fourth floor.
House was in the process of scaling the balcony wall and limping back through to his own office as the fellows walked in. He checked the invisible watch on his wrist. “Woah, those fellowship hours sure are rough.”
“We were just leaving,” Foreman said.
House pointed towards the hall. “Exit is that way. Unless you were looking to expedite the process by jumping out a window. I promise I’ll close my eyes and not tell Cuddy. Not because I care about you, but because I don’t want to fill out the health and safety forms and go to any meetings. Or funerals.”
Foreman sighed. “This was a bad idea.”
Chase whispered aggressively to his feet, “Sunshine and rainbows.”
Cameron took the plunge, plastering on her friendliest, purely platonic, and not at all lovesick smile. “Do you want to come out for drinks with us tonight? We’re going to McGee’s.”
“I don’t know…that really gets in the way of my plans of drinking at home.”
“Drinks are on us.”
House swirled his cane in his hand and chucked his backpack over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you say so?”
***
Wilson was a big fat liar liar pants on fire.
House stood toppled over in the corner of the bar arguing with a deer’s head on the wall above a clothing hanger about whether or not Freddy Kruger could beat Michael Myers in a fight. At least he had moved past the Hollaback Girl debate that lasted ten minutes longer than it should have.
So far, not only had House not lived up to Wilson’s promise of his secret Mr Rogers coming out to play, but he had somehow gotten even meaner the drunker he became.
One drink in and House criticised their hairdos, telling Chase to cut his ‘Hanson cosplay’ off and for Foreman to ‘at least steal a little ‘fro from one of the cancer kiddies. Not all of them are gonna need it’.
As soon as that fourth drink hit his bloodstream, House didn’t even talk to them. He just stared grumpily at the table between waving his glass out for another drink. He interrupted their attempts at conversation by burping the alphabet and groaning nonsensically up at the ceiling.
After his sixth drink, he stared Cameron straight in the eyes and told her he didn’t love her. He accused her of trying to fix his brokenness to drown out her own guilt for not being able to save her dead husband. She got up and ran to the bathroom, coming back with bloodshot eyes just as House downed his seventh.
After the eight, the fellows had given up on their mission to bring out the mythical ‘nice’ side of House and were pretty determined to get House drunk enough to either start a fight and get his ass split in half by a nice hefty kick to his rear, or drunk enough to pass out so they could start drawing dicks all over his face. Chase had already written House’s number and a sexually suggestive message to give him a call on a bathroom stall next to an equally suggestive doodle of stick figures doing it doggy style.
But then, House came back from cursing out the deer and punching someone’s coat onto the floor. He slammed his ninth drink onto the table, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and practically collapsed into the booth with a loud and whiny, “Where’s Willllsssonnn?”
The final puzzle piece clicked into place.
Chase made the call.
“Hey, is everything alright? House isn’t trying to mount you, is he?” Wilson sounded far too pleased for their liking.
Chase’s eye popped out of his skull. “Is that something I should be worried about?”
Wilson chuckled. “You mustn’t have gotten him very drunk yet.”
“Trust me,” Foreman was wrestling House’s cane out of his hand as he tried to throw it at a guy across the room who ‘keeps staring at me like I’m a zoo exhibit’, “he’s drunk enough.”
“What’s he done so far? Give me everything.”
“Well, he made Cameron cry.”
The line went silent for a beat. “Shit, I hadn’t even thought of that. He isn’t getting too handsy, is he? I can come and pick him up if he’s making her uncomfortable.”
“That’s the thing, he’s not affectionate at all. He’s just being a dick and trying to get himself-” House kicked at Foreman and pulled the finger at the guy at the bar. “Stop that would you-” Chase had all of two seconds to shove House’s hand under the table before the guy, who had two inches, two sizable biceps, and two legs on House, decided to retaliate. “He’s trying to get himself killed or beat up. And if it isn’t by someone else in the bar, it’s going to be by me.”
Wilson huffed. Fabric rustled and the TV in the background turned off. Chase heard footsteps, keys jingling, and the slam of a door. “I’m coming over. Where are you guys?”
“McGee’s. Bring a body bag.”
***
Wilson pulled up outside McGee’s and all but flew out of the driver’s seat. He bounced on his feet with every restrained step from the car, to the sidewalk, to the door of McGee’s, avoiding the snickers from a group of college kids either judging him for his shirt and pants or the way he bounded up to the bar as if there was a wet t-shirt contest inside he simply couldn’t miss out on.
As soon as his hand wrapped around the handle, a big, gleeful smile came over his face.
Wilson loved Drunk House. House had built up a reputation over the years of being a bitter, cold-hearted arse. But after a bit of loosey-goosey juice made its way to his brain, House let go of what truly was the weakest barricade of defence in existence, and out of his ninety-five per cent, pure, dark cocoa shell, oozed an ooey-gooey, sugary, sweet caramel.
Wilson licked it up like a dying man.
He flung the door open and stepped inside.
Wilson was immediately greeted with House’s drunken-hazed face poking up from behind a booth. From zero to a hundred in just under a second, House’s Oscar the Grouch frown switched into a doped-up Spongebob Squarepants grin stretching from eye to eye. Wilson gave him a wave and House melted.
House immediately swivelled up into a sitting position. He crawled onto his knees and reached over the back of his seat- not caring about smacking the couple in the booth next to him right in the face- and tried to grab Wilson from all the way across the bar.
Wilson laughed and came over, mouthing an apology to the couple staring daggers at House and trying to swat his arms away from their faces. “I’m right here, House. Put your arms back in your booth.”
“Wilson!” House cried. “You came.”
“I did, how are you doing?”
House flung himself sideways. “I was so booorrreeeddd. Where were you, Wilson!?”
Wilson had a split second to catch House before he fell onto the floor. “House! Be careful.” And…this was why he remembered warning House’s fellows about House’s behaviour. Drinking made him even more of a danger to himself.
Remembering the existence of House's fellows, Wilson gave them an exasperated ‘hello’ without paying them any notice as he shoved House back into the booth. House was like a toddler. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him for even a moment without him disappearing or injuring himself. “Stay,” he told him.
House clambered on his palms back across the seat towards Wilson. Wilson rolled his eyes and grabbed him by the shoulders. “House. I’m not going anywhere,” House smiled brightly. “But I have to let you go for two minutes to get myself a drink. Can you do that?”
House pouted. “But you just got here!”
Wilson snorted and patted House’s cheek. House nuzzled into his palm. God, he was fucking adorable. “I’m still here. I’m just going to be over there,” he pointed at the bar six feet away, “you can watch me the entire time. Okay?”
“Not okay.”
“House,” Wilson said sternly. “Yes okay. The more you complain, the longer it’s going to be.”
“Fine, but be fast.”
House crossed his arms defiantly. But as soon as Wilson made it to the bar the insistent call of his name came wailing over the uproar of the crowd. “Wilson! Wilson! Willlsooonnnnn!”
Wilson ordered a whiskey as fast as he could without annoying the bartender before turning back around- thank goodness House was still in his seat. Though he had crawled right to the edge- and keeping a watchful eye on him.
Wilson could only see the back of the fellow’s heads on the other side of the booth. Chase leaned over the table to say something to House. House waved him away and pointed at Wilson, “Wilson’s here,” he said. Foreman put his head in his hands.
Wilson picked up his whiskey in his peripheral. House beamed up at him and used the powers of The Force to pull Wilson in closer.
House shimmied back towards the window and patted the space next to him. “Wilson. Sit here.” He demanded.
“I’m sitting, I’m sitting,” Wilson laughed.
Once his arse hit the cushion, House came tumbling into him. “House! Let me put my drink down first.”
House’s hands slithered up Wilson's sides. They mapped the planes of his chest and the curve of his waist and wrapped around his back. Wilson fumbled to get his whiskey on a steady surface, barely managing to set it down before House flung himself into Wilson’s arms and wiggled his way into his lap.
House’s nose tickled the hairs behind Wison’s ear. The boney roll of his arse and thighs dug into Wilson’s leg. House’s arms tugged a little too tight around Wilson's neck and cut off some of his precious oxygen, but Wilson knew better than to try and peel House away. He was like a constrictor knot; he just got tighter the more you pulled.
“It’s alright, House. I’m right here.” Wilson rubbed House’s back and shivered at the press of chapped lips and the dew of House's breath in the crook of his neck.
Eventually, House settled. He relaxed like putty into Wilson’s arms with Wilson’s shoulder tucked under his chin as he gazed up at him. His eyes were wide and focused with the precision and dedication of a difficult-to-solve case.
This side of House did something crazy to Wilson's gut. His eyes latched onto Wilson like he was the only person in the world. It caused his stomach to roll and his sternum to pulse to life in a piercing heat down his torso with the heavy thrum of his heart.
Wilson traced patterns into House’s back, stars and hearts and cartoonishly saccharine things he knew House would hate being tattooed onto his skin in the light of day.
House never seemed to remember the lingering warmth of Wilson’s hands. He must have seen the bruises and the scars on both of them the next day; teeth marks on Wilson’s collarbone from House’s nibbling, fingerprints around House’s wrists where Wilson had to tug him back to the car or pull his drifting hands away from places they didn’t need to be; red lines along Wilson’s skin from House’s nails dragging him closer, black and blue marks all down House’s body and an ache in his bad leg from crawling over Wilson all night.
House never mentioned it. He probably assumed he got into a brawl or spent a decent amount of his night stumbling over himself and making out with the cold, hard ground.
Sometimes Wilson woke up guilty. He worried he took advantage of House’s drunkenness by allowing him to be affectionate instead of taking him home and forcing him into bed. House would kill him if he ever found out he did things like sit in Wilson’s lap and cuddle him. The day House disappeared and they found his apartment ransacked, his accounts empty, and his passport missing would be the day House finally realised the truth.
But House was just so pliable Wilson couldn’t resist indulging him. House held onto Wilson’s every word. when he was drunk. He looked at Wilson like he hung the stars in the sky. He was just…happy.
It had to be good for House when he got like this. Everyone needed an outlet, most of all, House. He spent his life hiding everything sweet and true behind sarcasm and a fragile veil of masculinity. The man hugged someone once every three years when his mother came to town. If a couple hours of drunken hugs quelled his touch-starvation for a few months, did it really matter if House wasn’t conscious enough to know?
House’s eyes glistened like the ocean, expansive and deep and breathtakingly blue as he gazed up at Wilson. “You’re pretty,” House mumbled.
Wilson smiled. “Thank you, House. You have beautiful eyes.”
Wilson learnt early on that House soaked up compliments like a sponge in this state. His ego managed to survive each round of alcohol. As expected, House’s cheeks flushed a rosy red and he ducked his head. “Willlsooonnn.”
Wilson patted House on the back and turned to the ducklings.
Their jaws were on the table. Cameron stared gapingly at Wilson and House, darting between them like a pendulum while Chase kept rubbing his eyes and blinking wildly, muttering something about “What do they put in these drinks?”
Foreman had his phone out. A bright flash blinded Wilson. Foreman chuckled to himself at House’s annoyed whine into Wilson’s neck. “‘Owwwww.”
“Shh,” Wilson cooed while scratching at House’s nape. House closed his eyes and cuddled in closer.
A stab of regret hit Wilson hard. Maybe it was a mistake letting them see this side of House, especially when House couldn’t protest it. He trusted the fellows to be discrete, but House had a way of forcing people’s hands and if things got out of control and people started getting hurt, this would be the perfect thing to hold over House to knock him down a peg or two.
The fellows had seen House mad before, angry even. But digging up something personal about House and throwing it in his face in a ‘gotcha moment’ was a surefire way to make him hurt. Wilson knew House cared for his fellows. He respected them and for the most part, put his trust in him. That kind of betrayal…being splayed open and made fun of for being a person with emotions and feelings, that sort of hurt crept behind House’s ribs and made him just a little colder, a little harsher.
The last thing Wilson wanted was for House to start hiding himself away from three of the five people he actually let into his life. Not when he had just started opening up.
House loved a mystery. But he despised being unable to solve a mystery before anyone else. If one of his fellows came to him with a secret about himself he spent years being unaware of…fuck. That threatened to throw off the whole balance of the hospital.
House would never drink again. Which, technically, wasn’t a bad thing, but it didn’t bode well for House’s emotional stability to be denying himself moments of affection and kindness. House would probably avoid Wilson like the plague and hop onto the bandwagon of prostitutes to get over the shock of being so touchy-feely with a man.
It could ruin their friendship.
“I know it’s tempting, but if that picture finds its way into the hospital, House won’t be the person you need to be scared of.”
Foreman snapped another picture before sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Consider it a security measure.”
“I’m serious,” Wilson said firmly. “I know this side of House is like an exotic zoo exhibit for us to gawk at, but House struggles with his emotions enough as it is and if he thinks you’re making fun of him, he’s only going to get worse. Just… if you’re going to use this against him, keep it between yourselves. No one else needs to know. He’s not good at dealing with these things. I know he doesn’t show it, but you guys help him a lot and it would be better for everyone if you kept being there for him instead of trying to get one over on him.”
House sniffled. Wilson looked down to find House peering up at him with tears on his lashes. “I’m not…I’m not good at something? What am I not good at?”
“Oh, House. No, I didn’t mean it like that.” He wiped away the tears with his thumb. “You’re good at all sorts of things. You’re the smartest person I know.”
House’s lip wobbled as he studied Wilson’s face. Wilson gave him a reassuring smile and hoped for the best.
“Okay,” House said. Wilson sighed a breath of relief. Then, House planted a hand in Wilson's hair and pressed his fingertips against Wilson’s temple. “I think- I think you’re smart too. You always know what to say to give me ideas to solve a case. My ducklings have good ideas too but you have the best ideas. It’s like your brain and my brain are one big brain.”
“He thinks we’re smart?” Cameron asked, stunned.
“Of course he does. House, you think your fellows are smart, right?”
“Mmhm. I wouldn’t have picked idiots in my team. But Wilson?”
“Yes, House?”
House tapped Wilson’s head. “You’re the smartest.”
Wilson’s heart grew out of his chest. House's compliments never failed to make his eyes water and his throat close up. With all of their bickering and speaking in metaphorical code, House made it difficult to grasp whether he even cared about Wilson or put them on equal footing in their often one-sided friendship. Then House opened his mouth and the most unexpected, honeyed praise came spilling out and Wilson knew House secretly kept him on a pedestal.
Wilson had survived on House’s compliments through some of his toughest cases and most heart-wrenching deaths. Even in his deepest depression or during a battle between himself and House, thinking of House being kind to him kept Wilson afloat.
“Yeah? That’s nice of you to say. I wish you would say things like that more often.”
House just curled back into Wilson’s side. His hand drifted from Wilson’s head to his cheek, resting lazily along his jaw.
Wilson took a sip of his drink before House got riled up again and it ended up on the floor.
Cameron reached across the table and patted Wilson on the wrist. “We won’t tell. It’ll be satisfying enough to know our boss has a heart.”
“Good. Promise me you’ll take care of him if you go drinking with him again.” Wilson always worried about House going out drinking alone. He was so precious and vulnerable and there were so many sick people out there ready to take advantage of that.
“I don’t think we need to worry,” Foreman smiled smugly at him. The other fellows shared similar self-satisfied grins. “He wasn’t anything like this before you showed up.”
Wilson was baffled. It didn’t matter where they went, whether at a bar or at home on the couch, but once House got through his phases of complaining about something or someone, brooding, and having a pointless argument about the cheese industry or which superhero he could beat in a fight with his cane, he found his way into Wilson’s arms.
Every. Single. Time.
“He really wasn’t like this for you guys?”
Chase shook his head. “No. He just did his usual thing. Criticising. Being old-man sad. Arguing with inanimate objects, which is what I assume he thinks of us during a diagnostics session.”
Ahh, Wilson thought, the first three phases. “He just wasn’t drunk enough yet. I’m sure that now he’s all mellowed out he’ll be more open with you. That’s if you want him to be.”
“I don’t know. He’s attached to you like a baby to a tit.” Chase said.
“Yeah,” Foreman agreed, “It has nothing to do with how drunk he is and everything to do with you walking through the door.”
Wilson frowned. Foreman’s tone came with an underlying presumption that Wilson didn’t care for.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know what it means. House isn’t affectionate when he’s drunk. He’s just affectionate with you.”
Wilson squirmed. House’s weight shifted and he groaned unhappily. “You’re moving.”
“Sorry,” Wilson whispered. He forced himself to sit still.
It’s not that he minded being the only person House showed affection with. If that was true of course. The theory warranted further experimentation. Wilson was the only person House trusted to share his problems and pain with. It made sense for Wilson to be the only person House chose to be physically close with too.
Deep down, Wilson preened under the idea of being House’s special person.
“He’s probably just used to me. Why don’t we test it out?”
Foreman raised his brows. He leant back into the booth with an air of casualness and folded his arms behind his head “Go ahead.”
Wilson nudged House’s shoulder. “House?”
House perked up, his nose pressing into Wilson’s cheek. “Yeah?”
“Hey, your fellows are all here. Do you want to go and sit with them?”
House didn’t even take his eyes off Wilson to pretend to acknowledge his ducklings across the table. He balled Wilson’s shirt up in his fist and pinned him to the back of the seat with his arm clamped around Wilson's neck and his chin locked over his shoulder.
“Okay. Okay. What if I brought the fellows over to you? Chase would love to give you a hug.”
Chase made a flailing gesture and mouthed ‘me?’ as if the blush on his cheeks didn’t give him away.
“Noooo,” House cried. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m not going to leave. I’ll stay right here with you and Chase can come over. Or Cameron or Foreman if you want.”
House’s nose scrunched up. “I don’t want to.”
“Are you sure? What if they really want a hug?”
House huffed. “They can hug each other.”
“You’re full of endless genius,” Wilson held back his laughter and carded his fingers through House’s hair.
“Mmm, das nice.” House’s contented hum rumbled like a massage gun. “I love you, Wilson.”
The collective gasp from the ducklings could have powered a windmill for a small town. Then they all started talking at once.
“Did he just tell you he loves you?” Cameron asked.
“Has he ever said that? To anyone?” Chase said over her.
Foreman smacked his hand into the table. “I should have gotten that on video.”
Wilson pressed his forehead into the warmth of House’s temple for just a second. He smelt of harsh soap, salt, and the eucalyptus candle Wilson hid in the air vent in his bathroom.
House’s hair covered Wilson’s smile. This was his favourite part of every drunken night; when House told Wilson that he loved him. Wilson knew it in every cell of his body and in the marrow of his bones every time House let him crash on his couch or kept him company at lunch. But those three words, laced with something pure and unadulterated…they wrapped around him like a blanket and the lapping licks of a fireplace in the middle of a snowy winter.
“Of course he loves me. He loves you guys too, you know.”
“No, we don’t know. And if he did, I don’t think he would tell us with his arse in our laps.” Chase said.
“That’s not fair. This isn't sexual.” It’s not as if House was actively grinding against his dick. He just wanted to snuggle.
“Isn’t it?” Cameron mumbled.
Before Wilson could argue, House’s finger jabbed him in the ribs.
“Ow!”
“I love you,” House said again.
“I know. That’s very nice, House.”
House poked him again, this time in the chest and three times harder. “I love you.”
“You just said that.” Wilson sighed.
House squinted and jammed the end of his finger under Wilson’s cheekbone, wiggling it around. Wilson swatted him away. “What the hell?”
House poked him again. “You’re supposed to say it back.”
“House…” Wilson ran a hand down his face.
House visibly gulped. He bit his lip and hiccupped into Wilson’s jaw. His eyes began to water. “Don’t- Don’t you love me, Wilson?” He asked, in the softest, most delicate whisper he could muster.
“Oh, House.” Wilson squeezed him tight. “Of course I do.”
House whimpered. “Wilson. You have to say it.”
Wilson’s heart collapsed into a puddle. They played this back and forth almost every time. House told Wilson he loved him. Wilson pretended not to notice. House insisted. Wilson agreed but didn’t say it back. Most of the time, House got all grumpy and stabby and tried to pry it out of him, catching onto Wilson’s teasing.
Very rarely did House fall into the well inside his head, dark and empty and alone, and need Wilson to say it right away before he broke down. Wilson’s heart broke every time he thought too hard about how much love House received as a child and why it hurt so much not to hear those words well into his adulthood.
Cooing low and soothing in the back of his throat, Wilson petted the salt and pepper on House’s head and ignored him wiping his nose into Wilson’s sleeve in favour of rocking him in his arms. “I love you, House. I love you very much.”
House wiggled around and used Wilson’s neck- goodbye breathing- as leverage to pull himself up further. It took all of five seconds to realise exactly what House was doing as he rubbed his nose into Wilson’s cheek and peppered kisses down his jaw. Just as House’s lips drew closer to mouth territory, Wilson gently pushed him away. “No kissing.”
Hurt flashed in House’s eyes. He pouted and fluttered his lashes. “Why not?”
Wilson sighed. Did they have to have this argument every time? “Because you’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know what kissing is.” House’s classic argument. Always with the semantics.
Wilson smiled and pecked House on the tip of his nose. “But you’re too far gone to consent to it.”
It’s not that Wilson wouldn’t kiss House. House obviously craved the connection and the closeness of being with another person and being the good friend House deserved, Wilson was willing to help him out. He just had to draw the line somewhere for House’s safety and his own conscience.
Hugs and compliments were one thing (and frankly, already crossed the boundaries of their sober friendship), but letting House kiss him, knowing House wouldn’t remember it in the morning or have agreed to it without the alcohol, Wilson would never go behind his back like that.
It’s not like dates were exactly rolling in for House. Getting drunk or hiring a prostitute seemed to be the only way for House to allow himself these moments of vulnerability. Wilson would have preferred House to seek out his comfort rather than risk it with a stranger, but unless House explicitly asked him to, he had to stop him before House did something he regretted.
“You’re mean,” House said.
Wilson clutched his chest. “I’m offended.”
House tilted Wilson’s chin down with a slender finger. His thumb caught on the corner of Wilson’s lip, tugging it to the side and grazing his tooth. “One kiss. Pretty please.”
Wilson sighed and clasped their fingers together. House smiled fondly. Wilson kissed his knuckles and let their hands fall into his lap. “There. Happy?”
“That's cheating." House said, but he squeezed Wilson's hand and cuddled back up without complaint.
It took far too long to realise the fellows were doing their sputtering, gagging fish act again.
“I’m willing to concede,” Wilson said to the fellows, “I’m irresistible.”
Cameron was pulling her hair out of her skull. “Are you stupid?” She blurted.
“What?”
Chase rubbed Cameron’s shoulder as she groaned into the table. “You know that’s not normal right?” He asked.
“What’s not normal?”
“It’s not normal for friends to want to kiss other friends, even when they’re drunk out of their minds.”
“Yeah, but it’s House.” Wilson flapped an arm around. "He’s a horny old man. He’d kiss a donkey with some lipstick on.”
“He won’t kiss me,” Cameron muttered.
Chase nodded sympathetically. “He doesn’t want to kiss me either."
All the heads at the table spun around to face him. “Do you- do you want House to kiss you?” Wilson asked.
“What? No!” Chase’s cheeks blended in with the Devil’s flag on the wall. “I was just saying. He doesn’t want to kiss any of us.”
Foreman scoffed to himself, “I should hope not. I did not sign up for that.”
Cameron stole Wilson’s whiskey and downed it all in one gulp. “You’re an idiot.”
Wilson blinked away his surprise, his hand uselessly outstretched for his glass. Cameron handed it back to him with nothing but a dribble down the side and the red imprint of her lips. “Has House been giving you etiquette lessons?”
“Has House been giving you emotional repression lessons?”
“What are you trying to say?”
Cameron threw her arms up. “House is in love with you!”
Wilson chuckled awkwardly. “House isn’t in love with me.” He went to check on House in case their conversation was freaking him out- not because it was freaking Wilson out and he needed to make sure House wasn’t getting any crazy ideas. No siree- but his eyes were closed and a quiet snore puttered away in Wilson's ear.
He adjusted House’s head to rest on the most padded part of his shoulder with his head angled a little straighter so he wouldn’t wake up with a stiff neck.
“He told you he loved you two minutes ago. How do you explain that?”
“We’re friends. Friends are allowed to love each other platonically.”
Cameron stuttered like a broken engine. “You- He- But-”
Foreman placed a grounding hand on Cameron's back and wrapped her fingers around his beer, guiding it to her mouth. “I think what Cameron is trying to say is that House tried to kiss you, multiple times. And the way you handled it made it sound like this was a regular occurrence.”
“It is a regular occurrence.” The fellows threw their arms up in sync. Their shared distress brought out ten years' worth of wrinkles across their foreheads.
“So is House hugging me!” Wilson tried to explain. “Just because he does it when he’s drunk, doesn’t mean he’s repressing some… hidden homosexuality!”
“Drunk actions are sober thoughts,” Chase said.
“Oh, come on. I’ve watched House climb into a paddock and try to ride a cow, that doesn’t mean he secretly wants to join the rodeo.”
Foreman raised a brow. “Maybe he thought the cow was you.”
“Yeah,” Chase chuckled, “did he try to kiss a sheep too?”
Wilson felt his cheeks heating up. “House doesn’t- Just because he wants to kiss me doesn’t mean he wants to have sex with me.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Wilson realised how fucking insane it all sounded.
There Wilson sat, a middle-aged man cradling his best friend’s head in his hand as he dozed against his shoulder- the same shoulder Wilson had fluffed like a pillow to make nice for him- all while said best friend curled up in his lap after trying to kiss him. On the mouth. For the thousandth time in their friendship.
Unbelievable.
Wilson had as much of a leg to stand on as House did, pun intended.
With House’s body bolting him in place, Wilson couldn’t flee the restaurant and start a new life in Mexico. Instead, he did the next best thing, hiding his face with his free hand (avoiding the question of why he kept stroking House’s head with the other) and groaned. “How did they let me pass kindergarten, let alone med school?”
“You weren’t this stupid back then.” Foreman so kindly replied.
“Jesus Christ,” Wilson slapped himself over the head. “Jesus Christ! House is in love with me. People don’t just kiss their friends. That’s crazy!”
Chase threw himself back in his seat, clutching his stomach in laughter. “How have you never questioned this before?”
How hadn’t he questioned this before? “I don’t know! I just assumed he was like this with everyone. It’s not like we talked to each other about it!”
With lidded eyes and pursed lips, Cameron finished Foreman’s beer and started pouring herself another. “Aren’t you in love with him too?”
“Why would I be in love with him?”
Cameron glared at him from behind her glass. “You said he had beautiful eyes.”
“He does have beautiful eyes!” House’s eyes held the answers to his soul. If you looked hard enough past House’s tough exterior and sharp mouth to the sky blue of his eyes, they pulled you in like a blackhole and revealed everything.
House’s eyes iced over when he was angry; cold and grey and impenetrable. They faded into a dusky sapphire when the pain wore him down or he came home in the early hours of the morning without any answers for his patient. They shone like a mirrorball when House solved a difficult case, when he cheered from the sidelines of the arena as monster trucks crashed into each other, when he saw Wilson in the doorway of the bar earlier that night and reached out for him…
House looked at Wilson with so much intensity he nearly burst. They flew around each other’s orbits, swimming into the ebb and flow of the gravity that kept them together. Sometimes when House set his eyes on Wilson and Wilson set his eyes on him, he felt stripped back; the bare planes of the earth in the centre of House’s universe.
He probably was.
Wilson’s fingers shook as he brushed the pad of his thumb across House’s eyelid. House’s eye twitched, a soft sound escaping his lips before he sighed into Wilson’s shoulder and kept on sleeping.
“What are you going to do?” Chase asked seriously.
“I don’t know.” But House’s skull fit perfectly in the palm of his hand and his body curved into his side like it belonged there and Wilson didn’t want to let go.
“Do you love him back?”
Wilson closed his eyes and breathed in House; his warmth, his scent, his closeness. “I don’t know.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
House stirred in his lap.
“Shh,” Wilson threaded his hair through his fingers, letting his nails scratch at House’s head.
House’s big blue eyes blinked up at him. “Wilson?”
“Morning, sunshine.”
“Leg hurts,” he mumbled.
Wilson gently kneaded at House’s leg. House’s breath picked up and he bit his lip. “Okay, let’s get you home and into bed, alright?”
House nodded and tightened his limbs around Wilson “Carry me.”
Wilson blushed as Chase and Foreman made faces at him.
“You can stand, come on.” Wilson wriggled to the end of the booth with House hanging from him like a limpet. Thankfully, House was just the right amount of drunk, tired, and in pain to let Wilson haul him out of his seat. Wilson hooked House’s cane in the crook of his elbow before setting one hand around House’s waist and the other against his chest.
“Thanks for an…interesting night,” he said to the fellows. “Any chance you’re all heading off for other fellowships on Monday?”
“Nope,” Chase said, popping the ‘p’. “Wouldn’t want to miss the aftermath of whatever this is.” He made a circling motion around House and Wilson.
“Great. It’s gonna be a long weekend.” Wilson would absolutely have to talk to House by Monday. As soon as House walked into his office and spotted his fellows, it would be immediately obvious that something was off. They couldn’t act for shit.
Wilson bid them goodbye and walked House out to his car. After a debate about whether or not New Jersey state law allowed two people to be stacked together in the driver’s seat, Wilson pushed House into the back and won by default from House falling asleep as soon as his head hit the cushion.
Wilson watched House in the rearview mirror as he clipped his seatbelt and got the engine going. He tried not to think about how he would instinctively drive five miles under the speed limit so the bumps and jumps didn’t jostle House’s leg too much and how House would inevitably invite him into his bed as they stumbled their way inside.
Wilson would say no, of course.
But he would still tuck House under the blankets and kiss his forehead like he always did.
Except this time, he wouldn’t just laugh it off as House being his weird, oddball self.
This time, he would spend hours tossing and turning on House’s couch trying to figure out how to bring up the whole ‘Are you in love with me?’ thing without scaring House away and ruining everything.
Wilson moved the rearview mirror so it faced the top end of his back window and put his foot on the gas.
Right now, he focused on getting House home in one piece. They could deal with the rest tomorrow.
***
Before the sun had even made it into the sky, Wilson rolled off of House’s couch, got himself dressed and pressed, and went down to the supermarket to buy all of the ingredients for his famous macadamia nut pancakes.
Once a steaming mug of coffee- the good kind made with a machine and frothy milk- clinked onto the table next to a comically large stack of pancakes, House, much like a cartoon character, came stumbling out of his room following the wafting scent lines to the table.
House slumped over his cane. The thump, thump, thump dug holes into the floorboards as he trudged into the kitchen just a little slower than Wilson’s ninety-one-year-old bubbe. Last night’s shirt- whiskey-stained and sleep-creased - popped open at the collar. The sleeves hung loosely off his arms and the bottom half of his shirt twisted halfway around his torso. House's hair stuck out like hay over a barn floor. His dark circles made his bloodshot eyes pop.
House collapsed into his seat with a groan. He immediately went after the coffee, gulping it down without even testing the temperature. House groaned again and clutched at his head, pressing his fingertips into his eyes.
Then he blinked at his coffee and his plate of pancakes and looked around the room until he landed on Wilson. “I don’t remember inviting you over for a sleepover. What colour nails do I have? Which boys did we gossip about?”
House frowned as he took in Wilson’s appearance. “Why do you look a lot less hungover than I do?”
Wilson busied himself with tidying up the bowls and measuring cups all over the counter. “I don’t drink like my liver can regenerate.”
“That's unfair. Pass that fry pan over so I can knock you around a little bit.”
Wilson forced a laugh. “Trust me, I’m knocked around enough as it is.”
House did laugh. “The only knocked around you get is getting knocked up.”
Wilson rolled his eyes.
“Get it? Cause you’re a girl?”
“I got it, House.”
Wilson picked up the sponge and scrubbed his frustration and confusion out on the leftover pancake batter.
“Is it that time of the month?” House asked condescendingly.
Wilson’s shoulders sagged. He flipped off the water and tossed the dishes all too harshly into the sink before spinning around. House rested, half asleep with his chin propped up on his fist, while he shovelled pancakes into his mouth. But his eyes were sharp and clear, ready to piss Wilson off at any given moment.
Wilson wrung the hand towel between his fingers and sighed. House had already caught on to his strange mood. He would only get more awkward around House the more he danced around the elephant in the room and House would only pick him apart even further the weirder he got. Even a hungover, sleep-deprived, pain-suffering House had managed to figure Wilson out within a minute of walking into the kitchen.
Fuck it. Time to bite the bullet.
“I have to talk to you about something.”
House gasped. “You knocked me up!”
“House, I’m serious. This is serious.”
“Everything’s serious with you. You plug your ears on aeroplanes.”
“I value my hearing!”
“The pilots don’t even care.”
“Well I do-” Wilson threw his hands up, the hand towel flying behind him. “That’s beside the point. I wanted to talk to you about last night.”
Wilson shuffled over to the table. He pulled a chair out halfway, letting it hover on two legs before balancing it on the other two. Wilson swayed on his feet, tapping the back of the chair and trying to look at House’s face unsuccessfully.
“Oh my God, I do need to take a pregnancy test, don’t I?”
“Shut up,” he snapped. “Shut up for one second.”
Wilson ran his hands down his face before sliding into the seat across from House. House watched him, wide-eyed and curious. Then he stuffed half a pancake into his mouth.
Now or never.
“Are you in love with me?”
House’s pancake came spilling back out onto his plate. He laughed. “What are you talking about?” If Wilson listened hard enough, he could hear the undertone of panic in his voice and the split second longer it took to formulate a response.
Wilson drew circles into the tabletop. He had to tread delicately here. House lived in a state of ignition; one moment away from combusting and destroying everything in his wake or one moment away from being blown out by the slightest breeze and drowning the world in darkness. “Look, the fellows suggested it.”
House scoffed. “Yeah, ‘cause they’re a bunch of love doctors. Chase pines after Cameron. Cameron pines after me. I guess that means I pine after Foreman. I don’t think you even make the list.”
A deflection disguised as a joke. Wilson could laugh it off and pretend he didn’t say anything. But they would both know he did. House would spend every waking hour trying to figure out what the fellows saw in him that gave away his feelings towards Wilson and do everything to close that part of himself off and Wilson would mull over House’s supposed feelings for him, analysing every change in House's behaviour until he gave himself a permanent migraine.
House would spend his working hours hiding in various corners of the hospital and Wilson would give himself a stroke trying to get through a single conversation with him without giving away the very obvious thought on his mind: oh my God, House is in love with me.
Wilson ran his hands through his hair. “House,” House peered out of the corner of his eye as he carved what was starting to resemble a dick out of his pancakes. “This isn’t a confrontation. I’m not going to get up and leave if you have feelings for me.”
House brought a forkful up to his mouth and chewed very slowly.
“You’re my best friend. I don’t care if you’re gay or bi or if you’re still figuring things out. I just, I can’t not talk about it knowing that it might be true. It’s not a bad thing to have feelings, House. I just have to know where we stand with each other.”
House swallowed roughly. He rubbed at his leg and chugged down more of his coffee. “What makes you think I’m in love with you?”
“You tried to kiss me last night.”
“Were you wearing your purple shirt? You know I get confused between you and Angela Bassett when you wear purple. Mistakes were bound to happen and that’s on you.”
Wilson reached out and gave House’s forearm a squeeze. House froze.
“You…you’ve tried to kiss me a lot.”
House shrugged his arm away. “I think I would remember having my tongue down your throat. The taste of garden salad lingers.”
Somewhere out there, in a parallel universe on another plane of reality, lived a version of House that knew how to be serious for more than a run-up to a joke. Wilson wanted to dimension hop to that place. He should have been a physicist instead of an emotionally repressed, middle-aged man’s best friend slash love interest.
“You haven’t kissed me. You’ve only tried to kiss me.”
“Then how do you know I wasn’t just trying to bite you?”
Wilson ripped his hair from his head. “You do bite me!”
House quirked his brow.
Oh, God. Wilson hid his face in his palms. All those times House’s wandering teeth came searching around Wilson's neck wasn't House being cute. He had been trying to give Wilson a hickey.
Wilson groaned. When did it end? Next, he would find out House’s sweet, little compliments about him were just attempts at flirting designed to get into his pants.
Dammit. It probably was.
“You directly ask me to kiss you. You just don’t remember because it only happens when you get blackout drunk.”
House shut up for once in his life. The sudden quiet made Wilson suspicious.
Cautiously, Wilson peeked through his fingers.
House was…not freaking out?
In fact, he looked a little happy. Too happy.
As soon as Wilson came face to face with House’s smug, toothy grin, House leant forward with his chin in his hands and flashed that all too familiar ‘I know something you don’t know’ look.
Wilson gulped. That couldn’t be good.
“That’s rich. Coming from you.” House said. His smile only grew wider.
Wilson slowly peeled himself away from the table toward the edge of his seat. A creeping tendril of dread curled into the walls of his gut. “What are you talking about?”
“Well Jimmy,” Wilson almost fell out of his chair. Not the ‘Jimmy’. The last time House called him Jimmy he ended up sweet-talking a police officer out of charging him with vandalism after House threw toilet paper all through Dr Anderson’s yard using Wilson’s car as the getaway vehicle.
House’s face came so close Wilson could smell the macadamia nuts on his breath. Jesus, don’t think of nuts in House’s mouth. Get a hold of yourself!
“I don’t think a little smooch even compares to you stripping down to your birthday suit like you’re a solo mum of triplets working the pole and Hugh Hefner's making it rain hundred dollar bills and food stamps down on your bare ass.”
“Wha-? I- Wha-?” Wilson’s face turned into a furnace. Just the imagery of that alone; dry humping a pole in lacy red underwear while some old dude stuffed money down his cleavage brought Wilson's jaw to the floor.
Wilson scolded himself. You’re a guy, you idiot. You don’t have boobs. Stop thinking about giving old men lap dances.
Some sort of noise, akin to a decapitated chicken squawking around in a circle, came out involuntarily. He lay his forehead flat on the table and wrapped his arms around his knees as his brain connected the dots between old men and getting naked, and House and being drunk.
“You’re lying,” Wilson begged. “I do not strip when I get drunk.”
“How else would I know about your mole?”
“Because you’re a pervert that spends half his time spying on me.” Wilson cried.
“I don’t hear you denying the mole.”
Wilson bit his lip before he accidentally confessed to murder. “You don’t know about a mole. You’re just guessing.”
“Hmm,” House hummed, "About the size of a pinky nail. Left side of your dick. Shaped like a cowboy hat.”
“Billy-Ray!?”
House burst into laughter. “You named it?”
“Shut up.”
Wilson renounced his religion. He couldn’t bear the thought of his poor grandparents up above watching this all play out and having to look them in the eye once he met them again in the afterlife.
“That explains the time you tried to make your dick dance along to Achy-Breaky Heart,” House cackled.
Wilson thought about all of his atoms aligning perfectly with the atoms in the table until they absorbed his face and suffocated him to death. “I did not.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t fracture Little Jimmy.”
How long did it take for a splinter to get infected and kill him if he stabbed himself with part of the table? Could a person choke on their own tongue if they tried hard enough? Wilson pushed his tongue to the back of his throat but his stupid lungs kept on breathing anyway. Where was a self-destruct button when you needed one?
“This is a nightmare. I’m asleep. I have to be asleep.”
“Ahh, the first stage of grief. Denial. I say we skip straight to bargaining where you offer to do my clinic hours for…ever, in exchange for all the scantily clad pictures I’m sure you don’t want put up all around the hospital.”
“You’re blackmailing me!? With revenge porn!?”
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
While he couldn’t see House due to the brown blob of wood in his direct line of sight, (don’t think about wood, don’t think about wood, don’t think about dicks. You dumb, idiot. Stop thinking), Wilson was pretty sure House was having the absolute time of his life. The chuckling from the seat next to him sent quivers down Wilson's back and contracted his stomach in ways a gastroenterologist would probably consider an anomaly and end up displaying Wilson's failing organs in jars next to their desk after he died from embarrassment in approximately five seconds.
Start the countdown.
Five, four, three, two-
Hang on a minute. Wasn’t House in love with him when he first came into the kitchen? Two could play at this game.
“You’re affectionate when you get drunk!” Wilson yelled at the top of his lungs. He figured that if he screamed loud enough, his ears might burst and drown out the sound of his intrusive thoughts. His strategy had the added bonus of shutting down House too. “You sit in my lap and try to kiss me and tell me how much you love me!”
“You get naked!”
“I get naked in the hospital locker rooms too but I don’t see you proposing to the drain pipes. Love trumps nudity.” Wilson pretended to drop a microphone, “Checkmate.”
“And how long has this yet to be proved drunken cuddle sesh been going on for?”
“Since you started getting blackout drunk with me, so since about nineteen-ninety-one.”
Wilson resisted the urge to stick out his tongue. But he did fist pump the air like an MTV teen on spring break.
House, to Wilson's shock and horror, smiled amusedly. “Doesn’t sound like there’s been much complaining on your end over the past fifteen years.”
Time for Wilson to reacquaint himself with the table. “How are you turning this around on me? I should be the one with the upper hand here.”
House clutched his chest and shook his head disappointedly. “You probably stuffed roofies in my drinks and forced me into your arms. All this time I thought we were friends. Turns out you’re just another shallow man after my body.”
“Yeah,” Wilson scoffed, “I’ve really been missing beard burn and a dick up my ass all my life and I couldn’t find that out in the general population, so I had to resort to the difficult task of drugging you for sex, a man notorious for his sober lifestyle and low sex drive.”
House pointed a finger at him accusingly, “So you admit it!?”
“You better have gotten that on tape because I’m not confessing to it again-” Wilson stopped in his tracks and grinned. The turns just tabled in his favour.
He pulled out his phone and flicked Foreman a message.
“Calling your lawyer? I didn’t know he branched out from divorce law into date rape allegations.”
“You wish I was contacting my lawyer.”
“That sounds like a threat, Jimmy.”
Wilson’s phone pinged. He waggled his brows up at House. “Are you ready for this?”
House rested his elbows on the table. “Give it to me, Wilson,” he said seductively.
Wilson nearly shivered, which is probably what House was trying to achieve. Not one to back down from a fight, Wilson pulled up the pictures on his phone and shoved them right in House’s face.
House blanched.
Wilson held the phone out between them and started flicking through each picture. House shrunk into himself with every explanation. “See, here we have you with your arms around me. We humans call that a ‘hug’. And here you are kissing my cheek. Look how happy you are! Who knew you had a smile hiding under all that scruff. Ooo," he came across a particularly good one of House nuzzling into Wilson’s neck and fisting his shirt, “your cuddliness really shines in this one. I might have to print it to put on the mantle.”
House snatched the phone away and threw it across the room. “I get the point.”
“That felt like an overreaction.”
“Fine, you’ve proved that when I’m intoxicated beyond the point of comprehending the world around me, my body betrays me by crawling all over you. What’s next, I’m hiding a food kink because I get the munchies when I’m high?”
“If you’re trying to eat me” Wilson muttered under his breath.
“Need I remind you of Billy-Ray?”
“You need not.”
A high noon fell over the kitchen. House stared down Wilson. Wilson stared down House and watched his weapon lying open on the kitchen lino in his peripheral.
House gave in first. “You messaged someone for these. Who were you messaging?”
Wilson dragged out his answer by tapping the table in mock innocence. “Hmm, let me think. Started with, ‘H’, no, ‘F’... Fredson, Franklin. Ugh, I always get so confused with names. I’m sure it rhymed with doorman.”
House’s jaw hung open. “Foreman has these pictures!?”
“I’m sure it’s not just Foreman,” Wilson said with fake reassurance. Sure, he told Foreman not to share those pictures with anyone else but House didn’t need to know about that.
House waved a hand down Wilson’s body, “You realise this makes us look like the bunch of bananas in a fruit bowl, right?”
Wilson quirked a brow, “how many bananas do you have?”
House rolled his eyes. “I should have known. Three-time divorcee, gets naked in the presence of men, A Chorus Line’s number one fan. You’ve kicked all the melons out of the fruit bowl to make way for the bananas.” House eyed him questioning, “Unless you’re more of an eggplant guy?”
Wilson didn’t even want to know what that meant. But the fruity allegations could go both ways. Wilson had been bobbing for apples and coming up bananas ever since Rent came to town. He took those banana-munching accusations like a champ. “That sounds like a lot of talk for a banana that won’t detach from the bunch.”
“I stick by the bro code of bananas before bazongas. That doesn’t mean the occasional coconut can’t crack open for me.”
“Oh, so you trying to kiss me and climb all over me is just part of hanging out in the banana bunch? Just guys being guys?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
Something House said struck Wilson. A fluttery, smug sensation tingled down his body. Wilson smirked. That must be how House felt every time he had one of his Eureka moments about a diagnosis.
“You didn’t deny being in love with me.”
“What?”
“I said you were in love with me and you diverted the conversation. You never explicitly denied it.”
House groaned and rolled his head on his shoulders. “It was so stupid I didn’t think it needed denying.”
“Okay, well if it’s so stupid, then why don’t you just tell me now and we can laugh about it like a bunch of idiots,” Wilson gave House finger guns, “or a bunch of bananas.”
House’s eyes dropped to the table for just a second. His mouth opened, blubbed once, twice, like a cat on the verge of vomiting, before he brandished his fork in Wilson’s face. “This is stupid. And you’re an idiot.”
House went back to his pancakes.
Wilson’s insides twisted up.
House couldn’t say it. Wilson gave him an out and an opportunity to deny his love for Wilson right in front of him. He practically dangled it before his very eyes and House didn’t- couldn’t- bring himself to lie. House tried to in the way he hesitated to push the lie out, Wilson gave him credit for that. But ultimately, for whatever reason- hope that Wilson might reciprocate, his strange moral code, an act of God- House gave away the truth.
As House put on a dedicated one-man show of open-mouthed chewing for the audience of cupboards across from him, Wilson placed a hand on his forearm. “You’re allowed to be in love, House. Even if it’s with me.”
“What? Like I need your permission.” House scoffed through the mulch of food in his mouth.
“You don’t need my permission, but some of us humanoid creatures like to support their friends when they share big feelings.”
“Well, if we’re gonna be supportive, I want you to know I fully support that you are totally horny for me and can’t bear living in these,” he tugged Wilson’s shirt, “scratchy, constrictive clothes when you could be letting it all hang out for me.”
“That’s not- I’m not horny for you,” Wilson whisper-yelled. Just because he allegedly- he had yet to see those pictures House kept going on about- got naked did not mean he got naked for House. He was a slut by nature. Maybe the Sports Illustrated calendar hanging in House’s bedroom looked a little extra frisky that day.
House gestured out at the room. “Who are we hiding from?” he whisper-yelled back. “It’s just you, me, and Billy Ray. And maybe Ms Banis upstairs with her ear to the floor but she holds penis-welding, sexually repressed, men to her utmost discretion.”
Wilson gritted his teeth and set his shoulders back. “You cannot prove that I got naked because I want to have sex with you. You’re a diagnostician. There must be other factors at play to consider. Room temperature. The type of alcohol. My level of drunkenness.”
House leant forward over Wilson and held his ground. A sparkle glimmered in his eye. “You can’t prove I’m hopelessly devoted to you because I supposedly tried to kiss you when I was blackout drunk. I’m sure there were other factors at play. The colour lipstick you were wearing. How close you were sitting to Chase. If your swoopy hair thing made you look like a girl.”
They were eye-to-eye now, nearly nose-to-nose, almost panting into each other’s mouths with the rush. House grinned at him with a positively indecent smile. Caught in a stalemate, nails digging into the table and stares made to burn, they simply waited in the muscle-shaking cocoon of adrenaline surrounding them.
Wilson caught his rebuttal first. “There is one way.”
House’s smile didn’t falter. He must have foolishly believed Wilson cracked under the pressure as opposed to kicking his king off the board. “Enlighten me.”
Wilson refused to take his eyes off House. “You kiss me,” The corners of House’s smile dropped just a fraction. His sparkle dimmed, “and if you make it through without hearing wedding bells chiming and dropping down to one knee, then I’ll believe you.”
“Funny,” House said, his coffee breath melting the hairs on the ends of Wilson’s nose, “I was thinking the same thing.”
Wilson’s brow twitched. He wasn’t, was he? “Kissing me?”
“No. I was thinking…”
Wilson gulped. Hold on, he told himself. You can handle this. “... that if you can get buck naked without jumping my bones, then I’ll believe you.”
Wilson laughed. “It sounds like you’re the one who wants to see me naked.”
House’s eyes flashed something dangerous; a ‘this patient is dying and I’m gonna inject them with malaria’ kind of dangerous, a ‘winding, backroads motorcycle ride on the ice’ kind of dangerous, a ‘ruin my life for a chance of flipping off God’ kind of dangerous.
“I suppose we’ll have to find out.”
Then they were kissing.
House snatched Wilson in by the collar and Wilson scrambled for House’s shoulders. Their mouths crashed together, teeth clashing in a sloppy, rough mess. Wilson’s breath cut short at the lack of circulation around his neck but he kept surging forward, their lips sliding together in a frenzy until he found himself straddling House’s lap.
House groaned, a low, guttural thing that crawled into Wilson’s bones and spurred him on like a dog in heat. He grabbed a tuft of House’s hair and tugged. House let out a short noise somewhere between taken off guard and impressed. With House’s head tilted back, Wilson used his leverage on top of House to hold him down and ravish his mouth.
Wilson soaked up House’s moans. The vibrations rolled down his spine and sunk into the grind of his hips. His gut sizzled like burning coals. Wilson could feel himself growing hotter, growing hazier and fuzzier and mind-bogglingly dizzier as the world slipped away and it was just House under his nails and House’s heat on his breath and House’s dick against his thigh.
House’s rough-coated fingers and calloused palms slipped under Wilson’s shirt and mapped out every inch of skin, from his waist to his chest to each vertebra of his spine. Wilson panted. House’s fingers could spread across piano keys and wrap fully around the ball in his office with ease. They stretched out rubber gloves like they simply couldn't be contained and had that rugged delicacy to them that made everything he touch work like magic.
Wilson couldn’t stop imagining what else House's fingers could curl around and how deep inside him they could reach. Fuck. His hips stuttered and his head fell back.
Then House was mumbling against his lips and Wilson collapsed into his chest because his voice dropped into a gritty, silky bass that sucked the coherent thought right out of his brain and sent it spiralling southwards. Wilson shoved his face in House’s neck and bit down. “Take these off. Now. You gotta,” House whined like a bitch as Wilson sucked the sensitive flesh of his neck, “-gotta get these off and prove you’re not the slut you say you are.”
Wilson kissed up the side of House's jawbone and smashed their lips together again fiercely. “Only if you keep kissing me to prove you’re not head over heels in love.”
House practically ripped the buttons off of Wilson’s shirt. “Deal.”
Wilson grabbed House’s chin between his fingers and dived right back in. “Deal.”