Chapter Text
The revelation did nothing for House’s mood. He took another couple of vicodin on the way home. He sat on the couch and just stared at the tv, not really paying attention to what was on it. He thought about jerking off just for something to do, but its appeal soured when he remembered how he got his rocks off yesterday.
It wasn’t very long after he got home that Wilson knocked on his door with takeout in hand. House let him in without a word. Maybe they would just watch the L word like normal. House Tivo’d the newest episode.
It seemed like maybe that would happen. They ate their dinner on the couch, and they had the previous episode of the L word on so they could go into the season finale prepared. They talked a little. Wilson offered some insignificant gossip about the nurses in his department, which was really a peace offering. House took it and ran, recounting his day with his patient, briefly mentioning his silly lunch with Cameron, hoping that they wouldn’t have to talk about anything. Wilson was letting it happen, even after he mentioned Cameron as bait. It seemed hunky-dory.
Which is why he hardly noticed Wilson’s arm slung around his shoulders.
It wasn’t unusual for them to sit right next to each other, even when there was more space on the couch. House’s sentence died in his mouth when Wilson gave his shoulder a squeeze.
“If you’re looking for my tits, they're a little lower.”
Wilson laughed, arm still weighed easily on House. The squeeze turned into a relaxed rub as they continued watching tv. The worst part is it felt good. Did Wilson forget about their earlier conversation, or did he just think House was easy?
Was House easy?
House got up off the couch. “Little boys room,” He said to Wilson’s puppy-dog face.
He glanced at himself in the mirror, noting that his stubble was getting long. He looked tired, he knew. House took a washcloth and wet it with warm water. It felt nice in his hands as he wrung it out. He hadn’t had a bath recently, too focused on making more pain as a distraction than soothing his old pain.
The washcloth only stayed warm briefly, but it felt good on his face. It gave his brain some room to think.
So Wilson and him had sex yesterday. And it wasn’t a quick handjob with the lights off. It was intimate, maybe the most vulnerable sex he’d had. And House had had a lot of sex. It wasn’t clear what Wilson’s motives were. Even if he were in-touch with his sexuality to accept that he may not be straight, House didn’t understand why he would fuck him in the first place. All the women he’d ever gone for were Nice Girls.
Was it just that this thing with House was illicit? That House himself was a bad boy? He’d hung out with Wilson and Julie enough times to know that he was merely tolerated by her. Could it be a weird cucking thing? That just didn’t sound like Wilson.
House knew that he liked needy things, broken things. But House’s neediness was nothing like the wives’ Wilson neglected. House’s neediness was vicious, violent. Maybe Wilson just was that much of a sadist. Maybe he got off to the fact that House will always need him, no matter how cruel he would be.
He threw the washcloth at the rim of the tub, knowing that his reprieve in the bathroom was up.
Upon returning, he saw that Wilson took their containers into the kitchen, putting the leftovers in the fridge.
“I paused the tv, I figured you didn’t want to miss the new episode.”
“How rough would you be with me?”
Wilson was illuminated by the light of the still open fridge.
“Uh. What—”
“Let’s have sex again. I want you to be as rough as you want.”
Wilson closed the fridge. “Did I miss the earlier part of this conversation, or am I hallucinating?”
“Definitely the former. You know, drug use can cause memory loss. You should get that checked out,” House said.
“Yeah I’ll ask my doctor how to stop my friend from dosing me.”
“That was one time, and for your own good, I might add!”
Wilson waved his hands in the air, as if to wipe away this derailment.
“Let’s go back to the sex part,” he said.
House leaned against the counter. He really didn’t want to be standing, his day running around the hospital already pushed it. The vicodin was doing a lot today, and he knew that tomorrow he would be paying for it.
He gritted his teeth and didn’t move.
Wilson inched closer to him, telegraphing where his hands would go as not to scare House away. Like he was fragile. (He was.)
By the time Wilson got his hands around House to pull him into a kiss, House was shoving at his chest. Wilson pulled back but remained close.
“You’re sending some mixed signals here.”
House looked past his shoulder. “Maybe that’s part of the sex, the fact that you have to convince me.”
“As hot as that would be, somehow I think this is not about sex at all.” He tried to move his head to get House to look him in the eyes. It wasn’t going to work. It probably looked quite comical, the way House had to also bob his head to dodge him. Wilson eventually gave up.
They were just stood there like that, locked in a loose embrace in the twilight of the kitchen. House put his arms on Wilson’s shoulders, if only to use them to support his weight.
“What did you mean, ‘I like you because you’re broken?’”
House sighed. “Is this the real sadist foreplay? You cajoling me into talking about feelings?”
He looked in Wilson’s eyes, and despite their solemnness, they held a sparkle of mirth still. House hated that he loved him. He hated the lightness in his belly, the hope in his chest. It was impossible not to need him.
“I thought that this was just a ploy for you to fix me, or whatever. You probably still think it is. But deep down you know that this is who I am. Even though you see whatever stupid goodness I can’t bare to let others see, you still like the cloying, conniving, irritating me. Which means that you don’t really want me to change. Because you’re broken too.”
The moonlight came in through the kitchen window and glinted off Wilson’s eyes. They shined like they were wet. Why would they be wet?
His voice came out a little hoarse too, “And the- the roughness, why…?”
The emotion was laid so bare in Wilson’s voice that House forgot to monitor what he said.
“Because you can’t hit your wives.”
Wilson recoiled, pulling out of the embrace suddenly. House stumbled slightly, but caught himself quickly enough he hoped Wilson wouldn’t notice.
It didn’t really matter because Wilson turned away. House couldn’t say sorry, not when he meant what he said, but he probably could have phrased it gentler. Too bad gentle didn’t come easy to him.
Wilson walked towards the door. House couldn’t let him leave, they couldn’t end the conversation here—
“Don’t go,” he said, rather lamely.
Wilson turned and looked at House full on. House knew he was angry, but his eyes were red-rimmed with sadness.
House’s heart was hammering in his chest. He overplayed his cards, Wilson was walking away. But these were the cards he was dealt, and he only had one measely one left. A low heart.
“I don’t know how to do this right. I don’t know what you want from me. I can’t promise I could even give it to you but. Tell me and I’ll try. I’ll probably fail a thousand times, and I’ll try a thousand more. I just. I need you in whatever way you’ll let me.”
House had to sit on the back of the couch, his leg was really killing him now. He rubbed at it. Wilson saw him grimace and walked back to sit on the couch. House followed suit and propped his legs up on the table. Wilson just hung his head in his hands
“So, what? You think I’m doing this, not because I care about you, but that I’m perverse and enjoy abusing you?”
House withheld it was kind of true, that he kind of did enjoy abusing him. House’s definition of abuse was probably more broad though, so it wouldn’t help the conversation to mention it. Also it went both ways, so it didn’t really matter. None of that was really the point.
“I think that you’re the most important person in my life.” House said. It was hard for him to say, it came out barely a whisper. “And I hate that you make me want to be open and vulnerable. I hate that you make it feel safe. Because its not, it can’t be. But you don’t even see that.”
Wilson looked up, his expression softened. He was about to say something, but House couldn’t handle it.
“That look right there! That hurts, because you see this wounded creature and you think there is something left that’s able to be saved. But that’s not true! And if you were honest with yourself, you’d see that’s why we’ve been friends for 15 years and you’ve been divorced three times. You like that you can be yourself with me, in a way you couldn’t with your wives. Your wife.”
Do you understand why it hurts? Do you know what power you have over me?
Wilson just shook his head. He looked carved out. The softness his face held an instant ago was shadowed by his thoughts.
“You’re right, House, about some of that. But I don’t see a broken man. I see an impetuous genius, a man who is loyal and kind and hot-headed. I see my best friend being consumed by his addiction, by his work, by his self-hatred. Those things don’t make you bad, they show you’re human. And I like your humanness, even if it terrifies you.”
House wondered briefly if emotional states are technically contagious, because he really wanted to cry. He refused to look at Wilson, afraid at whatever expression he might find.
“Is this the part where we have sex?” House said, trying to ease some of the tension.
Wilson laughed. House decided he wanted to see that. When he looked, Wilson was looking back. Smiling.
...
Wilson laid House out, taking him apart slowly and methodically. The force of Wilson’s full attention was staggering. House felt bowled over, like it was all he could do to lay there and take it.
“There’s no way this is your first time bottoming,” House said breathlessly.
Wilson looked smug perched atop him. “I may have done some research at work today.”
“How industrious of you.”
He held onto Wilson’s hips for dear life, as he was ridden to oblivion. He tried to match Wilson’s thrusts with the bucking of his own hips, but Wilson wouldn’t let him.
“Settle down, big boy. Let me take what I want.”
House nodded and tried to stay as still as possible. It was difficult, considering how Wilson looked. His hair moving with the rhythm of his body, his lithe form. The idea that Wilson was so inspired by their sex yesterday that he looked up how to bottom nearly made House’s consciousness leave his body.
He could tell that Wilson was trying to do what felt good, was savoring the sensory experience. House will never forget the image of him sliding onto his dick for the first time.
“Why haven’t we been doing this for the past decade,” Wilson said.
“Because you’re a closet case.”
Wilson slowed his riding to a stop, just sat with House fully inside him. The look in his eye was suddenly shy, curious, a little serious.
“If I hadn’t been?”
House huffed out a breath. In for a penny and all that.
“I would have fucked you in that jail cell if you let me.”
That startled a true belly laugh out of Wilson, which House could feel in his dick. He tried to jostle Wilson into moving again.
He did, but barely. Small up-and-downs that were all tease. Wilson was still smiling, leaning down to kiss House.
They made out like that, and House forgot that he had wanted to come for the past half hour. He could make out with Wilson all day. He could live inside him.
They parted after a while. Wilson looked thoughtful.
“I think I’m gay.”
House just looked down at where he was stroking Wilson’s dick on top of him.
“You just got that? Yeah. Congrats or whatever. Can we have our epiphanies after you’ve let me come?”
“And let you bask in the fact you can call me slurs now? No way.” Wilson rolled his eyes, but sounded fond.
“Aw, Jimmy, I can save that talk for the office if you’d prefer.”
“Don’t make me slap you in front of your fellows.”
Wilson picked up speed, fucking both House’s dick and hand. He knew he was close because his moans were getting longer, more guttural. That idea was kinda hot actually.
“I didn’t know you were an exhibitionist,” House struggled to speak with how overwhelmed he felt, but he was genuinely interested in the subject matter. He thrusted as much as he could up into Wilson.
Wilson was gone, the only thoughts in his head were probably the broken words coming from his mouth.
“House, yes, right there, fuck, I’m gonna come.”
“Do it, come on me, yeah.”
Watching Wilson come, feeling his hole clenching in time with the spurts of his come was all House needed to let go inside him. He held Wilson’s hips so that he was flush to the base of him.
“Mmm, fuck yeah.” House said. They sat and caught their breaths like that, House inside him, Wilson’s come obvious and possessive on House’s stomach. It should have scared House, how whole it made him feel.
“You’re right. How have we not been doing this? We’re so good at it. We could have been brokebacking it on all our camping trips… We could have been barebacking.”
Wilson just snorted, pulling himself slowly off of a now-softening House. He leaned over and got a tissue from the bedside table and wiped House clean so he could lay on top of him.
They laid together, House enjoying all the oxytocin in the after-glow.
“How do you feel about baths?” He asked.
“Positively?” Wilson answered. Which was fair. It was hard to feel negative about baths. House would run them one, but it could wait. It was nice to just sit together.
Wilson sighed.
“Also, I think Julie is cheating on me,” he said.
House laughed, and watched Wilson bounce softly atop his chest with it.
“Serves you right.” House spoke into Wilson’s hair. If his smile was hidden there too, well. Wilson could never tell.