Familiarity (Breeds Contempt)

by bell (belldreams), belldreams, usomitai (belldreams)

Summary:

House and Wilson stumble into a relationship, but they run into problems before long.

Part I - Takes Two (to Tango)

To go where all the strange ones go

And just like that, Wilson decided to move out.

House found him one morning reading through the classifieds, drinking coffee and circling an ad here and there with a blue pen. “What did you in?” House asked.

“You didn’t replace the toilet paper,” he said smoothly, automatically, without even looking up from the paper.

“Huh.” How disappointing. After all that trouble yesterday to fill Wilson’s briefcase with extra-large tangerine-flavored condoms, it was something this banal that defeated him. “How camelish of you, to collapse under the weight of straws.”

“Remember, we camels spit,” Wilson warned.

By the end of the day Wilson had squared away a new apartment. When House heard of its location, he tried to remind him that the bogeyman and his nefarious friends hung out there. Wilson waved off his concerns, saying that he’d been there before (“buying drugs?”) and that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as people made it out to be. As long he was careful, he’d be fine. He seemed quite determined to move out, and House wasn’t one to insist on defending his friend’s best interests. If he wanted to live in a crack-whore den, so be it. Maybe while he was there he could pick up some new hooker contacts for House.

With the apartment empty of both foreign persons and objects, House was exuberant. Wilson’s presence didn’t demand too much propriety or many social niceties, but he still required some nonetheless. And, finally, a full night’s worth of sleep!

All in all, he was feeling something nearing jovial the next day. He did catch himself nodding at Cameron’s good-morning smile, and stopped himself just in time. He scowled instead—wouldn’t want to give her the wrong idea—but she kept right on, lips still bent upward. Maybe she could smell the cheerfulness on him. This was bad. He didn’t want to let his slaves get happy; it led to bad work ethics. The way his department worked, someone would probably die if anyone got too self-satisfied.

He swung by Wilson’s balcony door, just to see how the old doctor was getting along, but his door was locked. It turned out that he hadn’t even come in that morning, with the flimsy excuse of setting up his new apartment. House snorted when he heard the news. He could just see Wilson carefully planning, as if it mattered, where to put up each painting— but Wilson didn’t have any paintings to hang at the moment. What little he did have wouldn’t take that long to arrange. Perhaps he was buying a whole new apartment’s worth of furniture and goods, to help wash away the taste of the memories from his old place and ex-marriage.

House didn’t take Wilson’s absence to heart on the first day, nor on the third, and didn’t wonder at the lack of phone calls updating him on the latest prices on bookshelves and tables. In fact, he was so overdosed on Wilson from the past few weeks of living together that the lack of contact came as a relief, like going for a cruise on the Caribbean.

By the fifth day of work House was tired of his metaphorical vacation and wanted to go back home. It had been over a week since he’d last seen or heard from Wilson, and while he tried to fill the gap by annoying his fellows instead, it wasn’t the same; they didn’t annoy him back. Not intentionally, anyway. Cuddy wasn’t a good substitute either: instead of annoying House back, she tended to rip him new holes where he least needed them.

He asked Wilson’s new aide (or personal assistant or whatever politically correct term was currently in fashion) if she knew when her boss was coming back in. She blinked her beautiful clear blue eyes at him—the reason why Wilson never criticized House for hiring Cameron was because he too preferred to work with pretty women—and supplied, “He’s been back for two days.”

“Just testing to see if you’re on your toes. Stay there, little ballerina,” he said and she rolled her eyes, thinking it was another one of his unfathomable pranks.

Wilson had vanished while in plain sight. This was curious and, therefore, fascinating.

 

You will succumb to me

A couple of days later House caught and cornered him the cafeteria.

He plopped himself into the seat next to Wilson, who all but jumped up and left. Edginess in his presence: another symptom. They just kept adding up.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Wilson couldn’t leave without confirming the statement, and they both knew it. He was forced to endure this. “Because it all comes back to you.” And now he was saving face by ridiculing House.

“It’s all relative, baby, and I’m stuck with my point of view. But it’s you we’re discussing. Avoiding me.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Not.”

“You’re going to force me into listing the evidence, aren’t you? Couldn’t you be less annoying?”

“It’s not in my nature, sorry.”

“Annoying it is, then. Symptom the first, you come back to work and you don’t drop by for tea and biscuits or even a hello.”

“I was busy catching up on my work- next time I’ll be sure to check in with you.”

“Symptom the second: you do not actually have meetings every day.”

“Have you ever looked at my schedule? My secretary will be happy to show you my calendar. The thing’s booked.”

“Symptom the third: lunch seems to have become a thing of the past.”

“I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”

“There’s always an exception. So you forgot to pack a lunch today and got hungry, like people are wont to do.”

“This is so eighth-grade of you, by the way. Later we can form a secret group and hand-shake.”

“Symptom the fourth: you haven’t been answering my phone calls.”

“What, the ‘I’m watching an Everwood rerun marathon’ series of messages? I hadn’t realized they required an actual reply.”

“Symptom the fifth: whenever we’ve been in the same place at the same time, you’re undeniably jumpy. Which brings me to symptom number six which with all the evidence makes for a damning verdict: you’re having difficulty maintaining eye contact with me. It’s a clear sign of guilt.”

“This is the sound of paranoia.”

“I’ve known you for how many years? And you’ve never been too busy to leave your client for a second or half an hour, to leave a wife in the lurch- I’m not buying your innocent act. Are you going to eat that?” House nabbed a fry from Wilson’s tray.

“Fine. Say I have been avoiding you. What of it?”

“I want to know why.”

“Sometimes a man needs his space.”

“Don’t lace it with sugar. Be a man! Say it straight: I need my space.”

“I needed space. I needed to get away from you, because you were getting on my nerves. It’s the same reason why I moved out in the first place. There. Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” His voice was devoid of all ecstasy.

This deflated Wilson. “Look, I’m so—“

“Maybe we should work something out. A sign on your door, perhaps. ‘On nerves’, ‘Not on nerves.’ That way we can avoid mixed signals.”

“It’s—“

“My fault, I know. I should know my boundaries better. I’ll paint out guide lines, I promise not to step into your precious space anymore.”

“You did ask, House.”

“And you felt that way.”

“It was too much! I felt like I was overwhelmed by you. You were just always there, everywhere I looked. I got out before I snapped.”

“That explains why you moved out. Which, by the way, I think was a fine move. It doesn’t explain why you’re still treating me like the plague.”

“Recovery.”

“You’re lying.”

Wilson threw his hands up the air. “Glad to establish that, and gladder still that you trust me. It was a very productive conversation, thank you ever so much.” He took his lunch tray and left.

“It was the first time you looked me in the eye!” House yelled after him. “Of course you were lying!”

 

To stand on the line of hope

A familiar knock sounded on his apartment door. “Come in!” House yelled.

It was, of course, Wilson, looking mildly sheepish. “Hey.”

“If it isn’t Mr. Liar. Care for a drink?”

“Please.”

“Get it yourself. You know where everything is. While you’re at it, get me a beer.”

It was very odd how ordering Wilson about put him at ease.

Wilson came back with two beers, sat down on the couch in front of the T.V. House debated staying in the single-man couch, the one he usually used for reading, and decided he wasn’t in the mood for across-the-room yelling. Not without a sigh, he limped to the other side of the couch, sans cane.

“I freaked out,” Wilson explained.

“Did you now.”

“I—we were too close. And I didn’t mind. That bothered me.”

“You left because you didn’t want to?” House took a swig of beer.

“Something like that.”

“Still doesn’t explain your avoiding me.”

“They’re related. I thought it’d be better to distance ourselves. A break.”

“Without saying a word.”

“I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“Right on that account. You’re the one who sounds like an eighth-grade girl. Can’t tell you how many women have used that excuse to break up with me. ‘We should spend some time apart.’ ‘We need to grow as separate people.’” These last two phrases House mimicked in a high pitch voice while bopping his head from side to side. Wilson grinned, in spite of himself.

But he took a deep breath, and the grin was gone. “I was scared you wouldn’t want the same thing.”

“What’s that? Try me, you’d be amazed at all the things I want.”

“Better leave it be, House.”

“You can’t have given up on it all that much, if you went so far as to arouse my curiosity. You know me, I’m not going to stop bugging you until you—“

Wilson picked up House’s hand, the one not holding the beer, held it in his palm. His thumb found its way to his wrist, and he stroked downwards, into the center of House’s hand, slowly, once, twice. He interlaced their fingers, squeezed gently. “Oh.” Shivers ran down House’s spine.

“I told you,” and Wilson pulled his hand away. “Don’t worry, I’ll get over it. Halfway there already.” He laughed, though it was more mechanical than anything. House had never heard him sound that way before. “Not that it’ll stop you from mocking me for all that I’m worth!” House watched Wilson as he slumped back, his head falling onto the couch. “Wow,” he said, after staring up at the ceiling for a few seconds, “it’s good to get that out.” He laughed again, but this time he sounded normal. “Maybe now I’ll let it go.”

“Let it go,” House repeated, and mentally hit himself for acting dumbstruck.

“You’re surprised, aren’t you?” Wilson analyzed. “I guess it is surprising. Maybe you could get your rat pack to do a differential diagnosis on me, for a straight man showing homosexual tendencies after a lifetime of hetero—“

“You’re defending yourself,” House interrupted, “with self-mockery.”

“I— maybe a little.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Because you’ll do it for me?”

“Just don’t.”

Wilson looked away. “Thank you.”

They drank their beers, and then a couple of more, in silence. When Wilson left, it was without a word, but House accompanied him to the door.

 

All the dreams sing their song

Wilson had said it was done and over with.

Maybe it was, for him.

House couldn’t sleep: insomnia was his old buddy from way back when, and it came back to visit whenever he had something to puzzle out or a thought process he needed to digest. He’d long since learned to not even bother going to bed on nights like these.

After Wilson left, he pulled up the cover of his piano, removed the cloth covering the keys. While he was a slob (his apartment being testimony to this fact) he took care of what mattered. The piano was clean, regularly tuned. It was comforting, that. As a place where he often went to when he had problems, it was good to have it in fit condition.

Not yet having picked out what to play, his left hand, the one that could still feel Wilson’s thumb running over it, trailed along aimlessly, tinkering out a benignly boring set of notes. His right one followed along with the melody. Eventually he settled down for a lento version of Norwegian Wood.

Wilson’s guilty demeanor this evening implied embarrassment, and the way he had been all but running away these past few weeks indicated fear. Wilson was usually bold with his conquering (and House would know, having witnessed him do so, so many times); that he wasn’t this time around meant he thought House would mock and reject him.

And he might. He was still working on that.

His hands, always so sure, hit a wrong note, then another one. He cursed and started over from the beginning.

This had to be a recent development, since Wilson hadn’t previously exhibited any signs of physical affection, or, at least, no embarrassment over them. Probably dated back to the day he decided to move out, which would explain his sudden and overwhelming urge to get the hell out. Epiphanies, what bitches they are, never letting you live your life the same.

What about himself, where did he stand in all this? Did his life have to change too?

He had to admit, he was dreadfully curious. He had watched the last few years’ worth of Wilson’s romances (sometimes with a bucket of popcorn) and had a fair idea of the general plot. They meet in some quaint way that bears the retelling a dozen times over. There is instant attraction, followed by conversations over long lunch hours, which leads to dinner invitations. The length and content of the middle part varied, but whatever it was, the ending was always the same. House had seen this movie before. But he’d never been in it, never been the costarring actor. And unless he was wrong, the plot wasn’t the same. He wouldn’t fit into any of the pretty dresses, for one. And he knew what Wilson was like. There couldn’t be the shocking scene wherein the heroine realizes her lover’s dark past, because House had already met all the skeletons in Wilson’s closet. In fact, he had put some in there himself.

He didn’t know the ending to this film, and it was his to make. He could let it finish here, and that would be that. Over before it started. But that was too boring. He wanted to write that script, see where it led. Wanted to be in the scene, to feel what it was like, for once, instead of sitting in the audience, looking at his watch and wondering when he could leave.

At some point his playing had gone from lento to presto.

 

How does it feel when you’re inside me?

The very first thing the following morning, before anyone could try to force on him a new patient, and before Wilson could begin his typical morning oncologist routine, House bounded in through the balcony entrance and into his friend’s office. Wilson, who was still transferring papers from his briefcase onto his desk, crossed his arms and set his feet apart, as though that were enough to ward off whatever ammunition this crazy cripple had packed away in, say, his cane. “Let’s give this a try,” House cheerfully suggested, giving him a wink as he loped to the main door. He turned the lock with a satisfying click.

From the way that neither Wilson’s defensive stance nor his wary expression changed, it would seem that he had expected this outcome. “Oh, definitely,” he drawled, “of course.”

“Even lazy jellyfish fish do it, let’s do it,” House sang as he mimicked a top hat off his head, twirling his cane, which he then let fall. It went down with an equally satisfying rattle as it hit the floor. Wilson looked at that, then looked back at House, one eyebrow raised.

“What are you up to?” But his arms had uncrossed.

“Look, there are only so many ways a man can say it before he gets tired and gives up.”

Now both of Wilson’s eyebrows went up, straight straight up, reaching up for his hairline. It made his eyes kind of bulge. “You’re s-serious,” he stammered, his face tilting up as House came nearer. “This is sudden.”

“Yes, because you weren’t all over me last night.”

“I was not--“

“Were you thinking of doing anything in particular?” House spread his arms wide open. “I’m here.”

Wilson thoughtfully raked his upper teeth over his lower lip, and though House wouldn’t ever admit it even to himself, he felt his bravado flicker. “You’re serious,” Wilson said again, this time more to himself, angling it so as to see all the possibilities. He took a step back, to have the perspective to look over House. His eyes traveled down, then up, then down again; House suddenly had an idea what those mannequins in store windows felt like.

“Wouldn’t say serious per se, I don’t do serio—“

“Sit down,” Wilson interrupted him.

“If you’re going to be bossy--“

Wilson’s were hands were on his neck and right shoulder, and before House could get used to that- he’d never held him that way before- he was being kissed, hard and insistent and with tongue, which was yet another new feeling to get used to, that is, having Wilson’s breath in his mouth, and while he was still reeling, Wilson bit him. Like, bit the tip of his tongue. While it didn’t hurt, House hadn’t realized he’d signed up for teeth, or, come to think of it, getting aroused over it. He began to suspect that he’d jumped into this gay sex thing a little too willy-nilly.

“Sit down.”

This time House did, falling backwards into Wilson’s leather chair.

Wilson got on his knees, and House was thankful for a moment because he couldn’t kiss him from there, and maybe he’d have a moment to catch his breath. And as Wilson worked at his belt, he thought at least this much he could handle, because with blow jobs, it didn’t matter the sex of the blower, the mechanics were the same. So long as he didn’t look down, he wouldn’t see his best friend’s face there, and he could put off panicking for another, more convenient time.

Maybe because Wilson was disturbingly good at this, House found his hands grasping the sides of Wilson’s head, his fingers slipping through the long brown hair. He came quickly, his eyes closed, and without a sound.

“Well?” Wilson asked, a little expectantly, a little smugly. House was aware that, normally, at this juncture one should offer to return the favor. Attempt to reciprocate, make it nice and mutual. That would make sense to be the next step.

But all House could think of was how his semen, after being expulsed through his urethra, had gone through Wilson’s mouth, his epiglottis, and was now making its way down his esophagus. Before long the semen would pass through the cardiac sphincter, where Wilson’s stomach would quickly break it down with acids and enzymes. From there, the remains would travel through the intestines, and Wilson would absorb what little fructose, minerals, and vitamins there were to be had. Before of the end of the day, he’d have relieved himself of what remained.

As these thoughts ran through his head, Wilson, still on his knees, was becoming progressively horrified. “I sucked, didn’t I.”

It was testament to just how disoriented House was that he didn’t take up the cheap shot. “No, it was—thank you.” Wait, oh god, Wilson wasn’t going to try to kiss him, was he? But he’d just-- he would be the type who thought that orally returning bodily fluids to its creator was sexy. As if the teeth hadn’t been enough. “I should—there’s probably some patient dying for me to get their hands on them—“ He could use the front door. But he wanted to go through the back route, sneaking away like nothing had happened. Zipping his pants and buttoning the top, House reached for his cane and stumbled out to the porch.

 

Racism in among future kings can only lead to no good

By the end of the day House felt like a downright tool.

 

Treat him like a lady

It was the first time House had tried looking for Wilson’s new apartment— address courtesy of the pretty nurse/aide/secretary-- and he got lost for half an hour. It was on some unheard-of street, one that curved and twisted around another tiny avenue. He didn’t believe in asking for directions, and maps were for long-distance traveling, not going across the city. After circling many, many, many times over, he finally found the damn place.

Wilson had been right. The neighborhood wasn’t as bad as hearsay painted it. Still wasn’t anything to boast about, either. He must have been desperate, to snap up the first apartment that was available.

He lived on the third floor—bastard—but the elevator worked. Creaked, but worked.

Wilson looked surprised when he saw House. What was it about Wilson, that he could never predict anything, that everything caught him unprepared? House had tried to teach him how to think ahead. It was the only way to keep life from catching you with your pants down. So to speak.

Wilson asked, “What’re you doing here?”

House chewed at his cheek, tried to think of how to put it in the least embarrassing way possible. “I freaked out too.”

Wilson moved away from the doorway, opening the way into his apartment. “No kidding.” The room was bare, no furniture, nothing on the walls. There were only the curtains, leftover from the previous owner. They might have been beige once, now they were just dirty. Once inside, Wilson looked at him expectantly, perhaps waiting for a set of magical words to spill out of House’s mouth.

He had to start somewhere. First he cleared his throat. “I’ve got a theory.”

“Do tell.”

“We’re actually dancing-- you take a step back, I take one forward. I move back—well, in this case I’m the one moving forward, though most dance routines would have you follow. You’ve missed a step, but don’t worry, I’ll let you catch up.”

“House.” Wilson pinched the top of his nose. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but—are you hitting on me? Again?”

House hit his forehead with the palm of his hand, purposefully making a loud smacking sound. “Dammit! My Flirting for Dummies book told me to play it cool—now that you know, my game is totally given away!”

Wilson did this thing that House could only describe as sputter. “You… try to seduce me, run away like the demons of hell themselves were after you, and now you’re trying again?”

“What can I say, I don’t know what I want.”

“Aside from lots and lots of pain,” Wilson remarked dryly.

“Well, duh, I wouldn’t be here but for the prospect of hurt, despair, and depression.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

His tone was so disapproving that the conversation died right then and there, and though House was used to that (it happened to him a little more often than constantly), it’d been a while since it’d happened with Wilson. He suddenly wished there was some distraction available—something to sit in, something to spill, something to make him feel less like a shooting target for Wilson’s resentment. Instead they were just standing around like a couple of morons. “Well, this is just as awkward as I thought it was going to be.”

“Hard to be any worse.” Wilson nodded, folding his arms.

“It could be a lot worse. I mean, if you were angry, this would be even less fun.”

“What makes you think I’m not angry?!”

House leaned in, as if to whisper a secret. “I notice a distinct lack of ass kicking.”

“Maybe I’m waiting to hear what you have to say before I get to that.”

“Maybe I have nothing to say.”

“Then maybe I’ll skip the violence and just rant your ear off.”

House was horrified. “You’d do that.”

“What can I say? The women get all the credit, but scorned men are no laughing matter either.”

Frankly, House wasn’t going to put up with this. He’d come here all nicely, to offer the man exactly what he’d wanted, and now not only was he still angry, he was threatening him with lectures. “Thanks, but no th—“

Wilson grabbed his arm. “Just say it, House.”

The thought that he could end this all, right now and here, ran through his mind. He could shake off Wilson, leave, and they’d probably continue being buddies, because that’s how they were. But this particular path would be closed to him, and he’d never be able to explore it further. And as much as Wilson could drive him crazy, he still wanted to know what it was like to have him. “I freaked out.”

Wilson’s grip on his arm relaxed. “So you said.”

“I’m not so freaked out now.” House took a deep breath. “Look, we’re not going to go so quickly this time. And there’s never going to be anal sex, unless there’s a lot, and I mean a lot, of booze, enough to make me forget who I am. It’s not that I’m old, I’m just too fussy and set in my ways to pick up new tricks.”

For the first time since he’d moved out, Wilson smiled at him and it was embarrassing how much of a relief it was to see it. He shouldn’t be so worried on what he thought of him- then again, if he didn’t, he probably wouldn’t be here in the first place. He’d be at home, safe and far away from this insanity. “Don’t worry, this dog is feeling the weight of his years, too.”

“Okay. Good. Good. …Anything else we ought to get off our chests, to avoid further freak outs?”

“I think this is a mistake.”

That was not, exactly, what House wanted to hear. “Way to step with your right foot forward, Wilson!”

“I mean it. We’re already in each other’s hair more than we can really stand to be, and now we’re going to add this?”

“That’s fear I hear talking.”

“I call it realism, you call it fear. Let’s call the whole thing off.”

“Are you always this much of a wimp? How did you ever bag that many women? I’ve gotten this far because of you, and you can bet your bottom dollar I’m not going to let you go this easy. Now, come on. What do two gay men do when there’s no ass fucking?”

Wilson paused, and for a moment House thought that he really was, after all the trouble he’d gone through, planning to chicken out on him. The moment passed. “I hear that, like with heterosexual pairs, kissing is a common start.”

“How extraordinary. The things one learns! Well?”

“You want me to make the first move.”

“This is your apartment. It’s your duty as my host to make me feel as welcome as possible. Besides, I’m new to this gay thing. You need to drive me around the town, show me the local attraction points. Get me acquainted.”

“The only man I’ve done anything with is you. I’m as new to this as you are.”

“Wimp,” House said in a sing-song voice.

“You think—“

“Wiiiimp~”

“You’re so-“ Rolling his eyes, he took House’s hand, the one without the cane, and led him towards what had to be the bedroom. “If we’re going to be slow about this, we might as well get a comfortable place.”

“Lead the way!”

 

Days of Grass and Sun

“What are we going to tell the others?”

“There’s something to tell?”

“Sorry, must have hallucinated the last hour. And my senses deceive me; you didn’t push me onto the wet spot.”

“Hallucinations and delusions, it sounds serious, Mr. Wilson.”

“No worse than denial.”

“Probably less wet there than where I am now.”

“Probably.”

 

Put away my black book

Within a week, Wilson’s “I’m going to your place tonight,” became synonymous with “Let’s have sex.” Since things were going so swimmingly, House decided that it was time to try pulling at the plug—better now than later.

The T.V. was on, so that they could pretend that they were watching an Everwood rerun. What they were doing what House fondly remembered from his college days as ‘necking.’ When Wilson’s hand started to snake up his shirt, House held it down. “You should know.”

“Your parents will be home early?” Wilson suggested, biting at his ear.

“If we do this thing long-term, you’ve got to mean it.”

Wilson pulled back, and House saw that he was grinning like one of those plastic clowns you can punch and punch and punch, and they’ll bounce right back, every time, with that maniac grin still there. Great. “Well, I’ll be. Are we really having this conversation?”

“On second thought, no, let’s skip it and get back to the making out.”

“Oh, no you don’t! You started it-- let’s lay down the law, establish the rules of this—“ and House could tell that he was savoring what was coming next, “relationship.”

“Sorry, changed my mind, it’s over.”

Wilson kissed him, all demanding and annoyingly hot, and dammit, he was one of those clowns, coming back for more. That persistency of his made it very impossible to get rid of him. “I’m sorry too,” he breathed. “You’re not getting away that easily. Admit it, you wanna go steady. Lay it down, what’s your condition?”

House sighed, then gave in. “No cheating.”

Oh, so it was possible to knock him down, as long as he had the right weapon.

Wilson slid his hands out of House’s shirt. “It’s not going to be an issue. I won’t.”

House jabbed him in the ribs. “How many women have heard that one?”

Wilson jabbed him back. “Allow me to kindly inform you that the most recent of my marriages was ended by her infidelity. I don’t mean to repeat my mistakes.”

The jabbing became tickling, and House doesn’t know how they could joke around when they were talking about such serious Weighty Important Things—none of his ex-girlfriends would have stood for it—but within minutes most of the cushions had been flung off the couch, and he was on his back, laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. Bastard.

“Convinced?” Wilson asked, and unable to pull in the air for words, House kind of wagged his head. “Good.”

He got air back into his system—still on his back, Wilson was straddling him, not getting up—and said, “I don’t think you’d be so stupid, anyway.”

“My stupidity does have its limits,” Wilson admitted, “but—“ and he started to unbutton House’s shirt, slowly, as if he weren’t terribly interested in seeing him naked, “I get to set some rules of my own.”

“I’m not giving up the Vicodin,” House defended, “or lowering the dosages.”

“Wouldn’t dream of asking,” Wilson assured him. “No, I want to move back in.” House got impatient with Wilson’s pace, and undid the last set of buttons himself.

“You’re the one who moved out.”

“That a yes?” And Wilson was smiling again, the clown, but not for long, because they were kissing and it’s hard to do both at the same time.

 

Part II - Familiarity (Breeds Contempt)

Wait for other bedtime treats

Sunlight was peeping in through the cracks of the Venetian blinds when Wilson’s brain began the slow process of awakening. The deep, regular guttural snorts next to him assured him that House was still on the other side of consciousness, though that was a given. He always slept longer. Wilson stretched his arms and legs out, relieving himself of the night’s cricks and muscle cramps. The bed dipped in his favor and sprang back to place when he stopped stretching.

He put his hands behind his head, wondered what to do with his Sunday. It was too late for jogging, which he preferred to do while the sun was still rising, but there were other things to be done. There were small chores, like vacuuming and replenishing the kitchen’s supply of foodstuffs, that neither he nor House ever had the time for during the week. Or he could relax. He was still fifty-two pages away from finishing “The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers,” and if he read it now, he could avoid any more of House’s jokes about his similarities to the British monarch.

House had turned away from the light source and now faced Wilson. He was frowning, as he often did while asleep, the wrinkles in his forehead set in deep lines. His mouth was open, though if he had been aware of how idiotic he looked he would have promptly shut it. Wilson made a mental note to someday leave the digital camera within arm’s reach so that he could shoot a picture of him in this state and use it as taunting ammunition. With House, one needed to stay several steps ahead.

Wilson would have liked to reach out and touch House: his arm beneath the sheets, his throat, his chest. Unfortunately, such attempts had in the past led to an instantly awake and very irate House. He needed his space in bed- Wilson didn’t know if this was a natural or learned condition, but House’s personal bubble of space was wider when he was asleep than awake. No snuggling, no reaching out, no anything. It was a disappointment to Wilson, who enjoyed physical contact in bed, for it felt more intimate under the covers than it did anywhere else. On the other hand, House didn’t expect it of him, and was therefore never annoyed to discover that Wilson had gone off to the hospital at four a.m. for an emergency.

And there were other ways to feel House. There was the way the bed sagged to the other side, how the bedsprings communicated what the other person was doing. There was the eternal tug-of-war with the sheets, with House generally being the victor - come morning Wilson inevitably discovered his feet exposed and House wrapped in the sheets.

Wilson pulled back some of the covers, settled on his side, closed his eyes, and let himself go back to sleep.

 

Let the world around us fade

They agreed to tell their coworkers.

House would have preferred to stay mum and let them worry their pretty little heads off, have them figure it out for themselves. Wilson was against that because, as he said, “they’re going to come up with all kinds of rumors, most of them unflattering and none of which I want to hear.”

“That’s the fun of it,” House pointed out.

In the end, Wilson got his way, if only because House couldn’t stop him from going up and talking to people or control the content of his conversations. Since this was the case, House wanted, at least, to partake in the burden of letting their coworkers know about their homosexual relationship. Their expressions would be brilliant. That wasn’t an opportunity he could let slip by!

Wilson told the people in his department as well as Cuddy, who after ten minutes of ill-humored skepticism (she kept looking for where House was hiding, expecting him to pop up laughing the minute she believed it), wavered between happiness for House and dismay for Wilson. “You’ve gone crazy,” she assured him.

“It’ll be good for him,” he reminded her, and eventually she had to concede that it was probably for the best and really not any of her business. In fact, the less business of hers it was, the better.

His colleagues didn’t care that much. In terms of general reactions, with a few exceptions, his male employees were overjoyed that Wilson was off the dating market, and the female ones were disappointed for the same reason. Wilson noticed a sharp decline in the amount the nurses flirted with him; in fact, they toned it down much more than after any of his marriages.

He passed on the news that evening, with House’s feet in his lap (“massage them,” House demanded, and though Wilson had made vague noises about the unbearability of their odor, he obliged).

“Cuddy wouldn’t stop leering at me after you talked to her,” House complained. “Don’t be such a sissy, my toes aren’t going to snap off. I think she’s turned on by the thought of us getting it on.”

Wilson stopped being a sissy and pressed the ball of House’s foot harder between his finger and thumb, squeezed the foot with the whole of his hand. House leaned his head back as he exhaled, eyes closed. “Well, who wouldn’t be?”

“Foreman, for one.”

“A man of limited imagination,” Wilson agreed, working on the right heel.

“I tell you, I despair at ever dragging him away from textbook knowledge.”

“Did he say anything in particular?”

“Asked me to wait to break up with you until after he’s finished his fellowship.”

“Shock of shocks, Foreman does not predict a happy ending for us. I bet Chase was more impressed.”

“If what you mean was that he was more sycophantic, then, yes, he congratulated me, with his Aussie smile—“

“Foreigners smile differently from us, too? No wonder we hate immigrants.”

“—He asked me to congratulate you too, by the way—“

“Thanks, I think.”

“—And that was that. Boy ought to get more worked up over the changes in his tiny little world.”

“I realize this is a lot to ask for, but will you ever be satisfied with any of them?”

House pretended to mull that one over, making a loud “hrm” sound. “Maybe when they become better doctors than me… no. Not even then. Wouldn’t want them to get complacent.”

“Poor kids. How about Cameron, I bet she was delighted.”

“That’s the thing- she didn’t care.”

“Wait, are we speaking about the same Cameron? Long brown hair, wears vests, has an opinion on everything?”

“My mistake, I was talking about the bimbo working the register.”

“When you say she didn’t care, you—“

“Imagine this—I walk into the office, fling my arms open,” and House demonstrated physically, nearly swatting Wilson in the face, “and declared, ‘I am off the market, for, lo, Wilson and I are doing the horizontal tango!’--”

“God, House, I asked you to be discreet—“

“The other two did what I just told you, and Cameron—she just looks at me and says, ‘okay.’ Okay! Like I said I wanted boiled eggs for lunch, or something.”

“You’re miffed, aren’t you.”

“Not miffed. …Am I that easy to get over?”

What Wilson didn’t say was: I wouldn’t know, since I haven’t gotten over you myself. “Pretty much,” was what he actually did say, giving House’s foot one last squeeze before letting go.

 

An electric love in her eyes

What House didn’t tell Wilson—he didn’t need to know absolutely everything, after all— was the conversation he had with Cameron, in private, afterwards.

Before she could run off to interview their latest potential patient (sixteen-year-old girl came in for pneumonia and presented symptoms of anorexia; Cameron and Chase thought there was more to the case, Foreman and House thought she just needed to learn how to get over herself and start eating again), he cornered her in the hallway.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it, what? I haven’t taken her history yet, give me at least that much time before you declare her too boring to even exist in your general vicinity.”

“Not her, you.”

“What about me?”

“I want to know why suddenly don’t care about my dating life.”

“You’re dating him? Like, you’re going out for movies and a dinner, you kiss him after driving him home?”

“If what you actually mean is take-out, HBO marathons, and fucking, then, yes, we’re dating.”

And she had to have been working for him too long, because not even flinging the f-word at her was enough to make her flinch. “If you think I’m going to get all weepy and doe-eyed, think again. I used to like you, yes, but you didn’t like me, so I remembered how to think of you as my boss. And speaking of work, I’ve got Belinda to interview.” She skillfully maneuvered out of the corner House had tried to trap her in.

He was proud and disappointed, but mostly, he didn’t believe her.

But if you've known love like these jokers before

What Wilson didn’t tell House—he didn’t need to know—was the conversation he had with Cameron after she’d gotten the news.

He’d been on his cell phone, and after hanging up, he turned around and nearly jumped out of skin when he found Cameron not two inches behind him, arms crossed and looking severely severe. “You’re calling him House,” she said, and Wilson felt like he was being accused of murder.

Taken aback, Wilson tried a joke to calm Cameron down. “We did consider me calling him sugar-nose, but we decided it might make everyone within hearing distance nauseous. We figure there’s enough work in the hospital without sending more patients to the clinic.”

“You’re sleeping with him and yet you don’t call him by his first name.”

“It’s ten-year habit. These things are hard to break.”

“Do you love him?”

Wilson stared at her; she certainly looked serious. He wondered if she’d always been that nosy and audacious, or if it was a practice she’d picked up from her boss. “You’re kidding, right?”

“It’s not an absurd question,” Cameron defended herself, raising her chin defiantly.

“I didn’t realize you had the right to be asking me anything like that.”

“You’re the one living with him. Are you too embarrassed to admit to something as banal as ‘I love you’? I always took that to be one of the minimum requirements.”

“We’re not like that. And anyway, I don’t think this falls under your jurisdiction.” He tried to shake her off by turning around and walking away- this really wasn’t an appropriate discussion for them to be having- but she followed, persistent.

“Don’t play with him.”

“What makes you think he’s not the one playing with me?”

“Don’t think I forgot the advice you gave me when I went out with him. He wouldn’t consider jumping off this particular building without someone to there push him off.”

“I’d say it was a mutual endeavor.” Something clicked in his head: maybe it wasn’t jealousy, not entirely, that had her invading his personal space. “Are you concerned over him?”

If she had been crossing her arms before, she seemed now to be huddling into herself. “I saw what Stacy did to him. I don’t want to catch the rerun.”

“Cameron. I’ll be careful.”

“All right,” she nodded, after a pause.

 

There’s something magic in the air

Once the prospect of scandal died down, and once they came around to the fact that there was an “us” that referred to just the two of them, their lives started to settle down again, gelling into routine. House found his life entwining even further with Wilson’s, and he wondered if they hadn’t become Siamese twins, with two heads and a single pair of arms and legs between them. Then again, he only had one good leg to start with, so perhaps he wasn’t losing much, in the long run, by getting another one via Wilson. (Wilson remarked, upon hearing this theory, that he himself ought to be getting a third leg in the deal.) He would have to wait and see.

Wilson was there in the morning—and all night as well, but, asleep, House didn’t notice—and always, always woke him up when he tried to sneak out of bed and slip into his running shoes. Then he kept House awake as he thudded and squeaked along the floor, flushing the toilet, opening and closing doors. Once he was outside, House was free to sleep once more. That is, until Wilson returned with his jangling keys and running tap water.

Wilson would come back reeking of his own sweat, his skin filmy with it, and House would kind of hate him, because the best he himself could do was juggle multiple objects, twirl his cane, or lift heavy pieces of metal up and down.

But kind of hate him or not, when Wilson came in smelling of armpit and teenaged-boy socks, foppish hair wet about the neck and forehead, breathing in great gulps, he was somewhat irresistible. House had to have him, run his mouth over that layer of salt-water. Still high on endorphins, Wilson’s eyelids would go aflutter. He was more languid, as though his muscles were already considering taking a break after the work-out, and at the same time more forceful, pushier, because he was at the edge of his limits. Under any other circumstance House would forbid all strenuous morning activity, but if this was the only time Wilson came like this, so be it.

Whether or not they had messy sex after Wilson’s jog, they went through the rest of their morning schedule, which, in no particular order, included: breakfast (which House ate only because Wilson, who cooked far too well for a male, made it. House would joke about how Wilson was trying to get use his stomach to reach other organs, but he had already exhausted all the variations. Let the dead horse rot in peace), showering, changing clothes, hunting for lost papers and books, and spats over how to get to work. Depending on how persistent Wilson was, House sometimes let himself be talked into getting a ride, despite how it crimped his style. Most days, though, House was adamant about riding the motorcycle, and it was with a ridiculously inflated sense of triumph that he mounted the thing.

If they went separately, House reached the hospital first. If they went together, he had to put up with Wilson’s driving (“Driving at the speed limit does not make me a senile old biddy,” was Wilson’s general reply to House’s complaints). Once there, they inevitably ran into each other, and how could they not, given that they had neighboring offices and balconies. To add insult to injury, Wilson often invited him for lunch, which, frankly, House thought was overdoing it. Didn’t they already spend all day together? But it wasn’t a pain to eat with him, and there was generally some traumatic experience from the clinic or Cuddy to whine about, so if he accepted the invitation it wasn’t entirely for altruistic reasons. After lunch they ran into each other some more, and if they had gone to work together, together they went back home. There they spent the evening quietly, taking care of their own projects, occasionally making some comment to each other. Wilson always went to bed early, the wimp, and when it came time for House to crash for the night, he purposefully made as much noise as possible to wake Wilson up and get an exasperated, if fond, “good night, you freak case.”

House was of the opinion that he ought to be sick and tired of Wilson, but he wasn’t, and that was odd and almost disquieting. Shouldn’t he be?

Born through the winds of time

Wilson had noticed a trend, but didn’t dare check until he was absolutely certain.

The vial tended to stay in his pants pocket-- if not next to the heart, then at least close at hand—and it was a just matter of fishing in, when House wasn’t paying attention, to get it. “Hey!” House tried to snatch back his precious medicine, but Wilson, with full use of two legs, nimbly pranced out of reach.

“Produced: March 2006,” Wilson read off the label, still maneuvering so as to keep hold of the bottle, “Odd, that; there was a time you used to go through one of these per month. How much are you taking daily, now?”

“Enough,” House growled, holding Wilson’s right shoulder and reaching for the bottle with his other arm, “We agreed that you wouldn’t try to change my dosage. Now give it back.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” Wilson assured him, extending his arm, holding to bottle out of House’s reach, “But, out of curiosity, how much is ‘enough’?”

“The quantity that meets my needs for pain-killing.”

“Which translates, in scientific measurements, to…?”

House made one last swipe before giving up. “60mg.”

“Oh! Excuse me for asking, but—“ and Wilson tried to stop his face from lighting up, but it was hard, if not impossible, to keep from being ecstatic to hear it from House himself, “isn’t that a quarter less than what you were taking a year ago?”

“I’m feeling the need for one now,” House muttered, and Wilson decided to be magnanimous enough to give him back the bottle. His point had been proven; he didn’t need it anymore. And House didn’t even pop a pill, he just shucked it back into his pocket, into a safe place far away from evil kidnapping doctors like Wilson. “I don’t want to hear any of your crazy psychobabble extrapolations about this. And you’re forbidden to tell Cuddy, or anyone else. If they ask, tell them that I’ve doubled my dosage. Tripled!”

It was all Wilson could do to keep from bursting out, in a sing-song voice, “You’re taking less, you’re taking less!” Any more House grumpiness would detract from the triumph.

This is a mystery not to be solved

His name was Elton Denver, and from the first that Wilson heard of him, he knew that he’d be trouble.

He was thirty years old and had checked into a Rhode Island hospital for rapidly declining memory. All the usual reasons for this to happen in a man so young—head trauma, hormone imbalance, medication, recent surgery—were absent. Tests were taken, family histories recited, and nothing was out of place. He was bounced from one specialist to the next, from neurologists to endocrinologists, only to be sent off to the next doctor. He traveled from hospital to hospital, often crossing state borders, and eventually found his way to the Princeton-Plainsboro’s diagnostics department.

He was utterly befuddling, and very much up House’s alley. Wilson worried for his own, and the hospital’s, sanity.

First came the insomnia, which, while perhaps productive for House, just made everyone else’s life harder. As could be expected, one by one he incurred the wrath of those around him.

Wilson was sure it was just a matter of time before the side-effects caught up to him too.

 

God made the distance between me and you

What surprised House was how long it took.

“Oh, yes,” Wilson grimaced, “Because you’ve never accused me of infidelity before.”

Spats were one thing. They were a regular occurrence, as warming and comforting as showers and almost as frequent as the number of times they struck up a conversation. House often started one up for the hell of it, and though Wilson recognized this as an attempt to ward off boredom, he played along. They bickered over what kind of pasta dinner should be, stem cell research, and the ethics of experimenting on animals. If they happened to share an opinion, House took on the mantle of devil’s advocate.

“Infidelity is a thing of the past, isn’t it—you’re starting to see that you’re running out of options. Haven’t got the time or the steam to date, haven’t got the crystal-clear record most women demand from a boyfriend. And you’re almost too old for children. You’re used and damaged goods, Wilson, and you know it. Which is why you’re shacking up with a cranky, old man. It’s better than being alone when the divorce lawyer calls you up for another appointment.”

Fights were another thing altogether—then it was no-holds-barred, and more often than not, no survivors left the ring. House appreciated Wilson for being his equal, he really did, but regretted, when they fought, that he ever let him know his weak spots. Wilson could be, and was, ruthless, tearing House up into fine strips and pinning him up on the wall, exposed and explained.

“I’m used goods-- what about you? You’re settling by staying with me. You wanted- and got- the moon, and once she was yours, you didn’t want her anymore, it was too much, it would have made you happy. An obnoxious buddy who gets on your nerves constantly is a much better partner than your one true love. Safer.”

And House fought back, with claws and teeth, but damn his need to always rile up everyone; when he needed to shock Wilson, he had little material left to hurt him with. Wilson had already become desensitized to the rest.

“You’d like to think that, but that’s where you’re wrong. I’m with you because I was curious. What you’re better than is—nothing! Congratulations, I’m your prize.”

In the past, when one of their fights broke out, they were able to walk in synch again and go back to normal. Neither one forgot the insults, the truths laid stark and bare—they just stored up their resentments for next time. House would have preferred to think of it as a cycle, something without beginning or end. But it was headed in a definite direction. Each time, House was convinced that this would be the earthquake that broke apart the platform between them, isolating them from one another. That this time, there could be no recovery, no going back. And each time, House discovered that the connection hadn’t been severed.

“You’re my prize, and, what, I’m your punishment?”

This fight was what it was: a rehashing of old, crusty criticisms with a few new themes. In its barest form, it was the same old thing, a decade old, fit to the form of their current lives.

But now they were “involved,” to use a term from those trashy teenage dramas House watched, and though they were still the same people, and though things should be the same as ever, this fact could change everything. There was no telling what a fight could do to them.

Knowing all this, House could not resist taking the fight to its ultimate conclusion.

“It does feel that way.”

 

This pain in our hearts

House would worry, except that his brain was occupied with what’s his name, the Amazing I Can’t Remember A Thing Man, and was thus spared the sheer patheticness of agonizing over whether or not Wilson would bounce back from their fight. Picking on Wilson had seemed like a great way to work off his building frustration and to get his mind off his aching leg, but Wilson went and picked back at him. The whole thing had escalated- and Wilson must have been so pleased that they started yelling at each other in public, and, worse, in a place everyone they knew could see- to the point that, at the end of the day, House had gone back home by himself, in a taxi. Though House would have preferred to take the bike in, he had let Wilson drive him in. He hadn’t wanted a ride back.

Hours had since passed, and Wilson still hadn’t come back home.

House stayed awake as long as he could, to hear the moment the door opened, but he was already exhausted from the insomnia. He’d been running high on the case, with its intricacies and its quirks, and that had kept him going for a while. But he was starting to crash. Sleep finally claimed House as its victim, and he fell asleep on the couch, still waiting. He slept in fits and starts, thinking each sound a sign of Wilson’s return, and even as he dreamed he tried to figure out the patient’s problem.

The woman in me shouts out

After running a never-ending series of lab tests, Cameron noticed that the lights were on in Wilson’s office. Common sense bid her stay away; this wasn’t anything to do with her and Wilson had already gotten angry at her for interfering with his personal life.

But Cameron always did listen to her feelings of pity more than anything else.

She knocked. “Come in,” Wilson said.

He was lying on his couch, which was just long enough to fit his entire body’s length, if he propped his feet on the armrest. She suspected that the couch’s size was not mere coincidence. “Something I can help you with?” he asked, letting the report he was holding drop to his chest.

Cameron tried to remember if there were any knots with the current case that she could ask Wilson about. Somehow she didn’t want to ask directly how things were with House; she wanted that little lie, maybe then she could casually slip in—

“It’s not a fight, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He laughed a little dryly, and it bothered her to hear him that way. “Not really. Though he might think it is. I’m just looking for a break from the wave of negativity he’s been surfing all week. Couldn’t take it anymore.”

“You’re going to spend the night here?” she blurted out before thinking.

“Wouldn’t be the first time. We’ve got a history, this couch and me.”

“Oh. Um. If it’s a place to crash that you need, I’ve got a pull-out sofa—“

“Next time I don’t want him to ever talk to me, I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“I wasn’t—“ she started, with indignation.

“But House wouldn’t take it that way.”

It made sense. She’d seen how obsessive House could be; it figured that he’d be the jealous type. “If there’s anything I can do…”

“Unless you can get him to cool down, no. Thank you, Cameron.”

“Okay, um, good night, then.”

“Good night.”

She closed the door softly behind her, unable to stop a sense of relief that she wasn’t in his place.

I’ll throw you to the floor

House didn’t seek out Wilson the following day at the hospital, because he’d been pathetic enough the previous night. At least he’d done that in private. No one need ever know. Especially not Wilson.

His thigh was still bothering him, even with the extra Vicodin, and he tried to walk it off. His travels eventually led him to the bathroom, where, through sheer coincidence, he ran into Wilson.

They studied each other carefully, tentatively, warily, two soldiers trying to determine if they were on the same side or not. They looked for tell-tale signs, like more wrinkles than normal about the eyes, a depressed air, and any traces of relief. House noticed that Wilson had changed clothes since yesterday, but he always had been a freak who kept spare outfits about his office. More to the point, Wilson looked like he’d slept just as well as House had.

Their appraisals took less than a second, and Wilson broke the silence that never came to be. “Any news on Elton Denver?”

Instead of answering, House kissed him, without even checking to see who else was about, forgetting that he’d wanted to limit the displays of their affection in public. And as Wilson responded with equal force, as he crushed House against him, arms around his back, House understood that things had, indeed, changed between them, just not in the way that he had imagined. Their platforms weren’t drifting apart; they were crashing into one another. They pulled apart, slightly, and stood there hugging, clinging to one another, their heads nestled in each other’s throats.

“I love you,” House let out, because once you got this far, there was no point in hiding it.

“Thank god,” Wilson said, his words somewhat muffled.

House pulled back his head back a bit, enough to look into Wilson’s face again. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

“No.” Wilson looked straight him in the eye. “Of course I love you. Idiot.”

“Of course,” House sighed, and buried his face again in the crook of Wilson’s neck.

 

I cannot stop hungering for otherness

And just like that, the mystery was gone.

With the fight, and its rapid resolution, he learned every last detail about Wilson. If before he had wondered what an argument of such large scale would do to them, he now knew; if anything, it would bring them closer. There was no risk of them separating, and there wasn’t anything he didn’t know about their relationship.

Routine was one thing; predictability was another. And House could predict everything.

When Wilson started to touch House, House could guess what he was planning. “Hand job,” he’d say, his eyes flicking to Wilson’s mouth with more boredom than arousal, “with me on my back.”

Wilson would lie, saying that that wasn’t he had intended at all, he wasn’t in the mood for that, but it was as if House had read his mind. He couldn’t hide it, and Wilson knew that. Yet he still tried to lie, unwilling to throw in the towel, to admit that House knew him that well, or that he was that predictable. He would try to cover up by trying something else, though he knew that House knew what he was thinking.

He did love Wilson. He was also tired of him.

 

You’re my front-page story

“Lunch?” Wilson asked from the doorway.

House made one full circle in his chair. “Who did I eat lunch with yesterday?”

Wilson rolled his eyes and left.

Cameron, Foreman, and Chase glanced at each other quickly to see if any of them had understood what had just taken place. Cameron in particular looked worried, but she always did want things to be picture-perfect with her hospital family. House decided to clarify the situation.

“Ladies and gentleman, what you have just witnessed was an abridged version of conversation, oh, let’s number it three hundred and sixty-three. The full version goes something like this.” House held out his two hands, each joining its fingers in two separate groups. He moved the two groups on either hand to simulate a flapping mouth.

“Who did you have lunch with yesterday, Wilson?” He flapped the right hand, speaking in his normal voice.

“Why, you, House,” flapped the right hand, accompanied by a squeaky voice.

“And dinner?”

“You!”

“Breakfast today?”

“You again!”

“If I have to watch you chew one more bite, I will be forced to kill you to preserve my mental health.”

“’Fuck you!’” concluded the left hand. House looked up from his hands and back at his employees. “Did you get all that, or do you need actual puppets?”

 

Am I encased in this devil’s plan?

“I don’t know how you put up with him,” Cameron insisted, waving her fork about in the air almost accusatorially. Wilson was learning that as much as people thought her to be always poised, it was a bit of a lie. She had her moments of discomposure.

“Excuse me, isn’t this his employee talking, the one that spends all her working hours in the same office? The one that blackmailed him into a date?”

She sniffed and staked several layers of lettuce. “I had my rose-colored glasses on. Once the crush wore off and the awe faded into respect, I realized that he’s insufferable. I care about him, but I can’t stand him. How can you put up with him?”

This was a question Wilson had asked himself before. “It’s not so bad when you know the reason behind his, er, crankiness.”

“There’s a reason?” Cameron leaned over, spoke in hushed tones. “C’mon, tell me.”

Wilson didn’t answer immediately. He’d learned dramatic delivery from the best: House himself. “It’s because that’s how he is.”

Cameron slumped back into her chair. “That’s not a reason, and it doesn’t make it better at all.”

“No, it does. Once you realize that you’re with an insufferable jerk, you can move on to the fact that you’re with him because he’s a jerk. And then how can you complain, when you’ve got what you wanted?”

There was a pause in the conversation as Cameron thought about this and Wilson ate a few bites of his beef stroganoff or whatever the cafeteria had meant it to be. “I don’t know what’s worse,” she declared, “that you think that way or that you don’t mind.”

“They call it Stockholm syndrome.” The cheer in his voice was only slightly forced.

 

Your companion of soul understanding

“Didn’t I tell you? I could have sworn that I told you.”

Wilson looked exasperated; he looked like that a lot, these days. “I think I’d remember you telling me that you’d upped the Vicodin back to the maximum recommended dose."

“Ohh,” House nodded, “that’s right.”

“What?”

“Well, I did think of telling you, but then I thought of what you’d say, then what I’d say in reply, and… after going through the conversation once, I really didn’t feel like repeating it. Certainly you understand.”

“No, actually, I don’t.”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” House sighed.

“Let me this straight: you’re going to take on both sides of our conversations now? Should I let you and your imaginary Wilson be alone? Give you two some privacy?”

“Nah, there’s nothing to hide about you from you. Feel free to peep.” House winked at Wilson. “Voyeurism doubles the fun.”

“Seriously, House! Am I supposed to read your mind?”

“The nagging, the sheer nagging! Do you mind if I continue this with the imaginary Wilson? Easier on the eardrums that way.”

“Fine. Do it in your head, if I’m that predictable.”

“I will.” House leaned back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling for a few moments. “There. This ends up with you storming out of here and a future conversation in which I still make no promises to tell you anything at all.”

“You’re a pain,” Wilson snapped before leaving.

“Told you so,” House said to an empty room.

Ignoring your conscience allows you to justify everything

House didn’t know what to do; the pain was only getting worse. The morphine he used to squirrel away was long gone. He’d thrown it out the first week Wilson had moved back in, because had it stayed, sooner or later (and more likely sooner), Wilson would have found it. Between the prospect of definite nagging and the possibility of pain, he preferred the latter. And now he regretted it, because at this rate he’d gnaw his thigh off, if it meant that it would just stop hurting.

Additional Vicodin, of course, was proving ineffective. Any sort of whinging at his fellow medical authorities would get him lectures about how it was all psychological, stress-related, and just in his ratty old head. Which, given that it was all feeling downright physical, thank you very much, House was not in the mood to hear their new-age trash.

House went with a tried and true solution: get hurt elsewhere even more.

Though they weren’t as active as they had been in the first months of their relationship, Wilson was still conditioned for sex after the jogging, and his brain was as close to getting shut off as it ever got. That was the best time to try it; Wilson was the least likely to notice something off then.

House had been suspecting for a while, from the way Wilson’s hands would linger on his ass before straying onto less controversial territory, that Wilson wanted to try out penetration, and that the only thing keeping him from suggesting it was what House had said when they first got together: no anal sex.

One Wednesday morning, when their limbs were entangling themselves in a debauched kind of way, House reached for a bottle he’d placed in a strategically easy-to-get-but-out-of-sight location and then ran it down against Wilson’s back. “What’s that?” he asked, with equal amounts of curiosity and irritation; he hated being distracted during sex. He took it very seriously, Wilson did.

“An idea,” House said innocently, and whipped the bottle to right in front of Wilson’s eyes, which kind of glazed over upon realizing what it contained and what that, in turn, implied. Lubrication.

“Are you—I mean, won’t it—“

“Just do it,” House insisted, and Wilson did, and they did it, and it hurt like a motherfucking bitch. It was cold, with the lube, and uncomfortable, like being constipated, except not at all. The angle they picked put pressure on his thigh, which screamed at first, but then was finally, thankfully, silenced by all sorts of new complaints. He started to lose his erection, which was bad, because Wilson was definitely going to notice something was amiss. He tried to get his dick back up by massaging it, all the while distorting his facial features into something that could conceivably be interpreted as pleasure.

Of course, Wilson was too sharp to be fooled. “You’re—“

“It’s fucking great, don’t stop,” but it came out more a snarl than a groan, like he had meant it to, and Wilson pulled out, for good. House couldn’t tell if he felt better with or without the friction. At least the throbs from his anus, and now again from his thigh, made the fury written all over Wilson’s face seem far, far away. House knew that he was in trouble, deep trouble, but he couldn’t seem to summon the will to care.

“Thank you very much for including me in your sick, twisted quest for self-torture-“

“Isn’t that what sex is about?”

Wilson couldn’t even speak, he was so livid.

“See, it’s your own fault, you can always say ‘no.’” House was used to trying to act normal through the haze of pain and had mastered the art of rambling. No one ever suspected that someone who was talking so much could have something wrong in their head. Everyone, that is, except for those that knew him, which included Wilson, so the non-stop talking was pointless. He couldn’t quite stop himself, however. “I know what ‘no’ means, they taught me during those priceless sexual harassment workshops. I’d have respected your boundaries if you weren’t such a horny slut.”

“I don’t even know why I’m surprised,” Wilson said dryly, “since this is your specialty. Destroying anything good in your life.”

“You didn’t think I’d stop just because you got into my pants, did you?”

“How would you feel if I used you to hurt myself?”

“Oh, I’d be so upset that I’d break up with you, definitely.” House closed his eyes. “Look, can we do the yelling at me thing later? I’m not in the mood.”

“No, we’ll jolly well do it now, without the imaginary Wilsons,” and House could hear the grimness in Wilson’s voice. Well. Perhaps that too would distract him from his thigh. He could use all the distraction available. “You can’t stand being happy,” Wilson yelled, and while some women could pull off being beautiful in anger, Wilson couldn’t. He looked positively hideous. “You don’t know how to be. Just as things are starting to go well--”

“Didn’t you read the warning label before jumping into bed with me? No, wait, sorry, I forgot—you wrote the warning label.”

“You can’t stand being happy,” Wilson continued, undeterred and determined to unravel this yarn unto its conclusion, “so you’re sabotaging this. Us.”

“Who needs sabotage?” House shot back. “You’re starting to regret this—don’t think I can’t tell—“

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Wilson pleaded, “You could—“ he shook his head. “You wouldn’t even know how to begin to be happy.” He got off the bed, and the sudden movement jarred House’s legs and rear, which did not appreciate it. “This is pointless. Stay here and mope, I’m going to work.”

“I’m going too.” House tried to get up, and regretted it at once. He fell back onto the bed, straight onto his back.

“That’s the problem with getting high off pain,” Wilson droned, “it fucks up everything else. I’ll tell them you’re sick. It’s just about true.”

House hated to ask this, but he had to know. “Will you be coming back home tonight?”

Disbelief was a better look for Wilson, but it didn’t make House feel any better. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

 

Part III - Doomed (to Repeat)

I got my secret weapon

She unbuttoned her blouse, he his shirt. As she slipped her arms out one sleeve and then the other, Wilson said lightly, “He is going to find out about this, you know.”

“Which means you want him to.” Cameron neatly folded her blouse and placed it on top of the dresser. Wilson wasn’t anywhere near as conscientious; he let his shirt drop to the floor.

“Wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, her rear end facing Wilson. “Is this to hurt him?”

“Yes. No. But that doesn’t matter.” Skirt followed blouse, and then she reached behind her back in a movement so oft-repeated that it’s thoughtless, automatic. “Let me. I mean, may I?”

Amused, “Go for it.”

He unhooked her bra deftly, and with her cooperation he pulled it off, threw it onto the floor with the rest of his discarded and forgotten clothing. He massaged her breasts, feeling their weight, their consistency. “It’s been a long time,” he sighed.

She sat next to him, and then their noses bumped as they kissed; they apologized simultaneously. Despite the excessive politeness their personalities brought in, Cameron felt comfortable; Wilson had a good touch, sensitive and considerate.

At the same time, it was the most mechanical sex she’s ever had.

The next morning greeted them with the insistent beeping of Cameron’s cell phone’s alarm clock. It took each of them a silent, wary moment to reassess where they were and why they were there with the other. Within a few moments Cameron got up and walked straight into the bathroom. Wilson heard the sound of running water as he lay there in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He expected her to take half an hour, but she was out within a few minutes, rubbing her hair with an extra-white and extra-large towel, with another towel wrapped around her body. “Aren’t you going to shower?”

“Not sure. I don’t want it to be too obvious, that’d arouse his suspicions. On the other hand, walking in smelling of you and sex would rub it in his face, really drive the point home.”

“You’ve got problems,” Cameron concluded.

“I’ll shower,” he decided. “It’ll look like I’m trying to hide what happened.”

 

Calling all avenging angels

By the time Wilson got to his office, House was there. This, Wilson thought, this is what it takes to get the man who’s been avoiding me to willingly place himself in my presence. House was sitting behind the desk, making a tower of all the paper weights in the room, along with other objects like staplers and medical encyclopedia volumes. The tower teetered.

They stared at each other, and Wilson knew that House was reading, like a book, all the pages on his face- his posture, his recycled clothes. Knew that in those few seconds House was drawing the conclusion from all the evidence he had available.

“House,” Wilson began.

With a swipe of his hand the tower fell, crashing in a tremendous cacophony. Wilson noted with abstract interest, as though he weren’t a part of this, that several items broke; others spilled their contents in all directions. “You’ll move out today,” House’s voice was level. “Get your things out before I go home today.”

Wilson nodded.

“Do I know the bitch? The bastard?”

“She’s in your office now.”

He looked so enraged that, for the first time, Wilson felt pangs of guilt and self-hatred, and wanted nothing more than to apologize and explain himself. But this is not the time for that, nor would it ever be. He made a point of keeping his head raised, and watched as House hobbled to the door.

House turned the doorknob, and after what seemed like a moment’s consideration, he looked, with an unwavering gaze, again at Wilson. “I never thought you’d do this to me.” Wilson made note of the roughness of House’s voice, and its lower tone.

He smiled wryly. “I know.”

Once alone, Wilson called the janitor to clean up the broken glass. “Knocked some paper weights off my desk accidentally,” he explained and even threw in a weak joke, “Maybe I ought to get a doctor to see how my motor skills are running.” But it’s a building full of intelligent, educated, and nosy people. By lunch the whole hospital would know what had happened.

 

The past is a well-closed book

She came over, a cardboard box in her arms. From the way she carried it, it seemed to be a light load—lighter, perhaps, than what she’d been carrying under House’s supervision.

“So he—“

“He didn’t fire me, I quit.” She dumped the box onto the floor. “Between sticking around and being tortured every day and leaving, the latter sounded better. It’s okay. My fellowship was nearly over anyway. I’ve got some other possibilities lined up.”

Perhaps Wilson should have felt guilty for having used Cameron. He certainly felt as though he should have. But there was no remorse in him when he started to say how sorry he was.

Cameron cut him short. “Yeah, right. And now you’ll tell me that if you could do it over again, you would. It’s not as if I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

“You don’t even want to know why I asked you to sleep with me?”

“I do,” she admitted, “but I don’t think you’d tell me.”

“Pretty much.”

She shrugged. “And I had my own reasons.”

“You did?” Wilson asked before he could stop himself.

She picked up the box again. “Now I can’t come back, even if I wanted to.”

The censorship of my skin

Wilson expected House to take his vengeance on him, like he had on Stacy. And he did. Just not in the way he expected. There were no open pranks, unveiled insults, nor petty yet infuriating schemes of annoyance.

There was just silence.

They went from being together all the time to not at all, and when they ran into each other in the hospital, which was a daily occurrence, House looked straight through him, as though he weren’t there. It was unnerving, to say the least. And Wilson missed him; missed that prickly wall of a boyfriend he used to lean against, missed the sound of him breathing and his commentary which made the world feel like a worse, but at least funnier, place.

Wilson ached to indulge in his usual post-breakup ritual, namely, find someone else to kiss, hug, hold, fuck. A one-night stand, a girlfriend, whatever, as long as he didn’t have to be alone. But he didn’t allow himself this liberty.

A vision to illuminate your mind

Wilson always knew that however long it took, House would eventually return.

He walked into his office one day to discover House sitting in the chair behind his desk. Seeing him there, memories from the previous times House had sat there rushed through Wilson’s mind. His heart contracted with regret and determination.

“You haven’t slept with anyone else since,” House started without preamble, “Given your dependence on sex, this is nothing short of shocking.”

“Is it?”

“You’re acting as if you’re committed to a monogamous relationship- no sex with your partner and no sex with anyone else. As I’m fairly confident that you’ve kept to yourself, it seems to me that you’re trying to be faithful to me after the fact.”

Carefully, as though not to frighten him into running away, Wilson walked towards the desk. “How do you know that I haven’t been around?”

House rolled his eyes and, with an arm against the desk for the propulsion, moved the chair side-to-side, side-to-side, on its base. “Please. I don’t need to talk to you to know what you’re doing. You’ve had less sex than a Tibetan monk in a desert. And you must know that this wouldn’t be enough for me to forgive you, nor are you sensitive enough to remain single this long after a failed relationship.”

“Get to your point.”

House suddenly stopped his chair-swinging, sitting perfectly still. “I don’t have one because I don’t get it.”

By now Wilson was standing almost directly in front of House. No furniture separated them, just a few feet of space. He decided not to approach him anymore, to keep House from feeling closed in. “The mighty House is stumped? And admits to it?”

“I know why Cameron did it—wanted a pretext to abandon the nest—and I thought you did it because you were so frustrated with me.” House raised his eyebrows. “I must have been wrong, since your behavior isn’t consistent with that hypothesis. There’s only one other explanation I could think, but it makes no sense.”

Wilson crossed his arms and leaned against the bookcase behind him, feigning casualness. “And we all know how you feel about sense.”

“You want to hear the explanation?” As if to counteract Wilson’s faked coolness, House took his cane and thumped it repeatedly against the floor. Thump. Thump. The rhythm didn’t match the speed of Wilson’s racing heart.

“I think you’ll tell me either way,” Wilson tried to sound bored, refusing to let on how much on edge he felt. He didn’t let himself flinch when House raised his cane and jabbed its tip towards him as if he were about to attack him. The aggression and anger were to be expected.

“You slept with Cameron to keep me invested in you.”

So it was out, at last. Wilson’s shoulders slumped. “Did it work?”

House lowered his cane and drew back, as if he were shocked in spite of himself. “Who would cheat in order to save his relationship?”

He couldn’t help himself; his own anger finally burst out. “And who looks to his boyfriend to feed him his pain addiction? Or only lets himself get closer when he’s pushed away?!” He was starting to yell, and though it wasn’t his intention to be so confrontational—not now—he didn’t think he could stop himself.

House was glaring at him, and Wilson could practically hear his thoughts: don’t blame this on me. He could see him starting to move his lips to say this, to rail at him about how Wilson was the one who overstepped the boundaries.

Without warning, Wilson grabbed the chair’s armrests, looming over House. “I only gave what you wanted.”

“What, an achey-breaky heart? Sorry I forgot to send a thank-you card.”

“Unpredictability. Pain.”

House was more or less trapped between the chair and Wilson, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t doing his best to get out. “Move.”

Wilson ignored the demand. “You can complain all you want that I’m boring, that you know everything about me, but you yourself admitted it: you never thought I’d cheat you, much less with Cameron. You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

House tried to shove one of Wilson’s hands from the armrest. “And the more I learn, the less I want to know. Funny, your charm is inversely proportional to how well someone knows you.”

Wilson only hung on more tightly. “Don’t think I’m letting you go. You can drive me away all you want, but I’m sticking around.”

Abandoning the physical attempts to get out of the chair—perhaps he realized it wouldn’t get him anywhere—House leaned back, taking on the air of a man with all the patience in the world. But Wilson could still feel his resentment. “Tell me, if I were to let you stick around, where do you see us in twenty years?”

His hands still on the armrests, Wilson sank onto his knees, and was again reminded of the previous times House had sat in that chair. That first blow-job had been a disaster, but things had worked out. “More angry and bitter than ever. You’ll still be an annoying prick who’ll attempt to destroy your own, and therefore my, happiness at every turn, and I’ll still be finding new abusive ways to keep us together.”

“Well, that sure makes me want to jump back into your dirty, scheming, cheating arms.”

“It should. You’re a pain junkie and you need a reliable source of irritation, anger, and frustration.”

This didn’t sit well with House either. “You’re nuts.”

“I am,” Wilson admitted, “but that’s hardly the issue. You’ve always known that I’m nuts—and however much you do know me, you keep forgetting one thing: I know you just as well. And I wouldn’t have slept with Cameron if I wasn’t convinced it was the one thing that would keep you from getting bored.”

His knees were hurting and his arms were starting to ache from being held in the same position, with all their strength, for so long. If he felt like he still needed to corner House he’d have stayed, but he felt safe with getting up. So he rose, and House took advantage of this to stand up as well, the chair rattling back.

They were standing face to face, now.

“You’re basically saying that I’m nuts.”

“That, everyone knows.”

House turned around. “You’re an asshole.”

“Which is why you like me.”

It was House’s turn to let his shoulders slump. He didn’t reply, and Wilson let him stay as quiet for as long as he needed. Now that he’d let his anger out, he felt calmer, more assured, and he felt like he was close to his goal.

At long last House, his hand turning white from how hard he gripped at his cane, asked, “So, what? We start all over again? The next time you think my attention is starting to stray, you saw my left leg off?”

“I’m okay with that.”

House whirled around to glare at him again. “I’m not.”

“Fine. I’ll saw off your arm. Or your ear. What limb are you least attached to?”

House stared at him, then sighed. “We are so screwed.”

Tentatively, Wilson reached for him. When House showed no sign of aversion, he picked up his left hand, and squeezed it. House didn’t squeeze back, but Wilson wasn’t worried; one step at a time. “So we are.”

House studied him, his eyes darted back and forth as he studied Wilson’s face, and Wilson knew that he was trying to read, to understand, him. “I’m never going to forgive you, you know.”

“No,” Wilson smiled wanly. “I didn’t expect you to.”