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The first time Wilson sees House masturbating in public, it happens in the clinic.
Wilson isn't meant to be there. He came down from oncology to catch up with Cuddy before the next day's board meeting. He knows House is scheduled for clinic duty, but when he doesn't catch sight of him in the lobby, assumes he's with a patient. Wilson rakes his eyes across the exam rooms: the blinds are drawn across the window of exam room one, and Gatlin from urology is leading a patient into exam room three.
Then, Wilson catches sight of House through the window of exam room two, his back to the rest of the clinic. The blinds are pulled across the glass, but open, making it look like House is behind bars. He's standing awkwardly hunched over, his left hand braced on the exam bed. Wilson briefly takes House's posture for one of pain, but then House turns so that he's facing the window, and Wilson realises his mistake.
House's jeans are undone and his boxer briefs pulled down, his balls hanging red and heavy over the elastic of the waistband. House's right hand is clutching his penis, which is sticking out, hard and pink, in front of him. His arm pumps back and forth: House is furiously masturbating, in full view of anyone in the clinic who might happen to glance towards the exam room window, just as Wilson had done.
For a moment, Wilson is gripped with dread. What is House doing? Has he gone crazy?
But he can't tear his eyes away. He's rooted to the spot as House's fist speeds up, watching the small pink head of House's cock punching through the ring of his fingers, foreskin stretched, proud and glistening. House is staring out at the people in the clinic, occasionally snatching a glance down at what his hand is doing in full view of the general public. All his weight is on his left leg and left hand, clutching the paper sheet covering the exam table.
Wilson watches as House brings himself to orgasm, two or three spurts of cum dripping down over his fingers on to the floor of the exam room. After a moment, House leans his hip against the exam bed and tears off a corner of the paper cover to clean himself up. He clinically wipes the cum off his dick, fondles his balls for a moment and then tucks himself away, zipping up his jeans.
Wilson turns on his heel and escapes the clinic before House has a chance to catch sight of him.
The second time it happens, they're out drinking. Neither of them is feeling particularly chatty; Wilson is well on his way to drunk, and he's sure House is too. Wilson is sitting opposite House at a small, sticky table in the middle of the bar; he's half paying attention to House, half watching some minor league hockey game that's playing on the tv in the corner.
House is slumped down in his seat. He's finished his beer and has his hands in his lap, fiddling with his cane. Wilson can tell he's getting bored, so he sucks down the last few mouthfuls of his own beer and stands up, making for the exit. He'll call them both a cab home. He glances back over his shoulder to check that House is managing to stand up and walk, and then heads out the door.
Outside, in the cool night air, he pulls out his phone, searching in his contacts for a cab company. House makes his way awkwardly down the three steps between the door and the sidewalk, overly cautious and self-aware in his drunkenness.
"Gotta pee," he announces, and shuffles into the alleyway adjacent to the bar. Hooking his cane over his arm, he braces himself against the wall with his left hand, and with his right pulls his dick out of his pants.
"House, are you serious?" Wilson hisses. He's barely in the shelter of the alleyway, and the nearby streetlight means that any passing stranger will get a full view of House's dick.
House just grunts and starts to urinate, hesitant drips and dribbles at first that make the distant doctorly part of Wilson's brain wonder about the state of his prostate, before building up to a full hissing stream that splashes against the wall and down onto the sidewalk.
With a sigh, Wilson plants himself next to House, back against the wall he's pissing against, facing the other side of the alley, providing the pretence of a barrier to the street. He tells himself not to look, but he can't help glancing down.
House's penis is small when he's flaccid, and it's mostly hidden in the careful cradle of his hand. House's pee has covered the wall in front of him, staining the bricks a dark, pungent brown. Eventually, the urine slows to a trickle, then stops. House shakes himself off, and Wilson looks away quickly.
But House makes no move to stand up straight or to put his dick away. He stays standing hunched against the wall, weight braced on his left leg and left arm. Out of the corner of his eye, Wilson sees House's right hand start move back and forth in an all-too familiar motion.
He chances another glance down. House is masturbating. The knuckles of his right hand are wet with piss, and the head of his penis is peeking out of the clutch of his fist, also shining with moisture. He's not even fully hard, and it makes a pathetic sight, this middle-aged man hunched over himself in a stinking alleyway trying desperately to get himself off.
Wilson wipes sweaty palms down the front of his trousers and tries not to feel disgusted. He's about to step away and leave House to it when a rowdy group of drunken college students appear at the end of the street.
It's obvious what House is doing, clenched and grunting as he is, and so Wilson has no choice but to stay put, shielding House from view. Nevertheless, Wilson watches House look up, almost desperately, as the crowd passes them. It's like he wants to be seen, Wilson realises. To be caught.
"House…" he starts, but then House is groaning and spilling over his own fist, flecks of cum mingling with the piss on the wall in front of him.
The third time it happens, they're on a plane.
It's an overnight flight back to Jersey from a conference in Hawaii to which House had been dragged on pain of death from Cuddy. Once there, however, he'd actually taken the whole thing pretty seriously, giving his talk and participating in a panel discussion on methods in diagnostic medicine with a bare minimum of snark.
Wilson had been waiting all week for the other shoe to drop, and when they'd finally boarded the plane home without mishap, had let out a prolonged sigh of relief. He's now realising how premature that had been.
He'd fallen asleep soon after take-off, and muzzily comes to after a few hours. The cabin is dark, and it seems all the passengers around them are also asleep, or quietly watching movies. House is in the window seat next to him, swathed from neck to knee in complimentary blankets, having somehow liberated three from the flight attendant's cart when they'd boarded.
Wilson feels the bottom drop out of his stomach as he notices House's hand moving under the blanket. There's no hiding what he's doing: the thin blanket bobbing in his lap makes the action seem somehow even more obscene.
Wilson watches as House shifts in the seat. He slouches a little, shuffling his legs forward, and as he does so, the blanket slips off and on to the floor. Wilson gets a full frontal view of House's dick in his hand, erect and dripping. House has also pulled his balls out of his pants, and has his left hand on them, tugging and grunting. Wilson wonders how long House had been masturbating before he'd woken up. There's a dark, wet stain in the middle of the blanket that now lies pooled on the floor by his feet.
House grunts again, pushing his hips up and thrusting his dick into his hand. Wilson knows that House must be aware by now that he's awake and watching. At the same time, he realises with horror that the cabin lights are coming on, a gentle orange glow that mimics the sunrise outside the windows. At the front of the cabin, he can see the flight attendants starting to prepare the breakfast service.
"House," he hisses in panic. "Stop it!"
House doesn't answer at first. Wilson can hear the wet sound of his cock moving in his fist, and he can smell House's pre-cum. Then, House moans, quietly, brokenly.
"Can't. Wilson, I can't."
The cabin lights are close to full brightness now. The woman across the aisle on Wilson's right rolls her neck and sighs, one hand going up to adjust her eyemask.
House, watching her, desperately tugs harder at his cock.
Wilson realises he only has one course of action if he wants to get House to stop before he's caught.
"House, someone is gonna see you," he mutters under his breath.
House keens in response, shaking his head, eyes tightly closed.
"You're gonna get caught masturbating in public."
That does it. House's hand grips his cock convulsively, his hips buck, and a fountain of cum spurts out of him. There are splashes on the tv screen in front of him, and all over the front of his shirt.
Wilson hastily grabs the blanket off the floor and throws it over him as the flight attendant arrives with coffee.
The fourth time is in a movie theatre. House has dragged him along to some cheap action flick with the promise that he'll come to the Hitchcock screening in the indy cinema with Wilson next weekend. Wilson's already regretting the bargain because the lights have barely dimmed before House is palming the front of his jeans, rubbing himself tenderly, the glow of the big screen reflected in his eyes.
House sits like that for ten or fifteen minutes, large hand cupping his semi-soft cock through his jeans, occasionally rubbing himself and sighing. It's a Tuesday afternoon (House has just wrapped up a case and Wilson is never averse to bunking off with him) and the theatre is half-empty, but Wilson feels a frisson of anxiety as he watches House toy with his dick through his jeans.
That anxiety ramps up three or four notches when, after about half an hour, House slowly and deliberately unzips his fly. The button of his jeans is still fastened, and Wilson watches out of the corner of his eye as House gently tugs the head of his dick out into the warm dark of the cinema and lets it hang there over the front of his pants, plump and wet.
House lets out another sigh and shifts his hips slightly, settling down into his seat. His eyes are still fixed on the screen, seemingly perfectly happy with the fact that his cock is out and on view to anyone who would happen to look at him.
Over the next thirty minutes or so of the movie, Wilson watches surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye as House's cock slowly gets harder and harder. Every so often, House reaches down and runs the palm of his hand over his exposed tip, which is drooling a constant stream of pre-cum into his lap. Wilson can see the wet, saturated denim glistening in the half-light from the cinema screen, and the tip of House's cock bobbing up as he tugs it down and lets go, trapped as it is, poking out of his jeans.
Wilson can hardly bear it. House is close to panting now, drawing deep breaths each time he touches his cock, his left hand squeezing his balls through his jeans. Wilson aches to reach down and pop the button open, to relieve the horrid throb that House must be feeling in the fat, engorged tip of his cock every time he touches it.
But Wilson keep his hands to himself, and watches the movie. Three minutes into the end credits, just as the lights are turning on, House orgasms noisily, both hands framing his cock, just shy of actually touching it. The tip is almost purple, bursting, and cum pulses over his lap.
The fifth time, Wilson finds House in the grocery store.
House is, by and large, a creature of habit. Once a fortnight he takes his car over to the biggest Walmart in town and loads up a shopping cart with bread, peanut butter, fruit cups, and whatever else counts as reasonable sustenance in his rat maze of a brain. (Wilson tries not to think too hard about how much House's eating habits reflect what, between the pain and the medication-induced nausea, he can manage to stomach, rather than what he actually likes eating.) These grocery store runs usually happen late on Sunday afternoons, when the place isn't too crowded.
Knowing this, Wilson anticipates him, heading to the store and lying in wait in the parking lot. Sure enough, after half an hour or so, Wilson spies House's ancient sedan pulling into one of the handicapped spaces near the front of the lot. Hopping out of his own car, he tails House into the store, keeping a safe distance.
Inside, Wilson double-takes as he watches House settling in to one of the motorised shopping carts. Mobility – on two feet – is such a point of pride for House that seeing him make any kind of concession towards his disability is a shock. But, as Wilson follows House down the first aisle, he realises that there's another motive at play for House. With the cane, he can't walk and touch himself at the same time. Even standing still would be awkward and difficult for any longer than a minute or two. The motorised cart means that he's sitting down, and gives him a free hand for indulging himself without interruption.
House's chosen location is near the back of the store, where the clothing section morphs ambiguously into cheap home goods and knick-knacks. Wilson pretends to be browsing through a rack of end-of-the-line polyester shirts, whilst watching House out of the corner of his eye. He's not sure if House has noticed him.
Relaxing back in the padded seat of the cart, House has a hand down the front of his jeans. A casual glance might mistake it for him adjusting his genitals or scratching an itch – a little unnecessary, but within the bounds of acceptable male public behaviour. But then, House's hand starts to move. It's different to the clinic, when House had been relatively hidden from view in the exam room. Different to the darkness of the alleyway, the blanket cocoon of the plane, the mostly-empty movie theatre. Here he is, masturbating in a Walmart on a Sunday afternoon, under the harsh, unforgiving buzz of fluorescent strip lighting, surrounded by oblivious fellow shoppers.
Wilson's breath catches in his throat as he watches House slowly draw his erect penis out of his pants and continue masturbating. Then, to Wilson's horror, he starts to move, driving the cart up the aisle towards him. Wilson stays resolutely facing the racks of clothes as House approaches.
He stops directly behind him. Wilson can hear the obscene sound of House's fist moving on his damp cock, the suck-slap-squeeze accompanied by House's harsh, panting breaths. After a long moment of grunting and wet noise, the motor of the cart whines again, and House continues up the aisle, away from Wilson.
God, Wilson thinks, he's still masturbating. He's driving a motorised shopping cart around Walmart with his erect penis out in the open air, in his hand. Then, another even more horrifying thought strikes him. Is House going to approach anyone else?
Part of the game, Wilson knows by now, is the potential to be caught. And House is not a man who shies away from a knife edge. Wilson turns away from the rack of shirts and sees House parked near the far end of the aisle. In a few quick steps, he's by House's side, angling himself to block the view of House available to any unsuspecting passers-by.
"You've got to stop this, House."
House merely shakes his head, his right hand pumping faster. Wilson makes a grab for his arm, but House is surprisingly strong, twisting free and getting his hand straight back on his cock.
"I said, stop it!" Wilson doesn't know where it comes from (only later will House remind him of how a certain antique mirror met its fate thanks to Wilson's temper), but he slaps House sharply across the face.
House cums the moment Wilson's palm connects with his cheek, eyes wide and mouth open in a silent 'O' of surprise, dick pulsing messily into his hand.
The last time Wilson sees House masturbating in public is in the park near the hospital.
Wilson had seen House leave in the mid-afternoon, tracking his lopsided gait across the lawn behind their building from his office window. He'd watched as House had made a beeline for the park in the distance, the sunlight reflecting off the water in the lake coming close to blinding him. He'd known almost immediately what House was going to do.
Wrapping up his own work as quickly as possible, Wilson had followed House down to the park, keeping his distance so he could watch House without interfering.
Without preamble, House sits down on one of the concrete benches at the water's edge and unzips his jeans, pulling out his cock. He's completely brazen about it, making no attempt to turn around so that his legs are under the table, or to hold a fold of his jacket across his body.
It's broad daylight. People are jogging by the lakeside. There's a family having a picnic a handful of yards away. And House is masturbating.
His fist slips up and down his cock, the little pink head poking out proud and shiny. As Wilson looks on, House reaches down with his left hand to pull his balls out of his pants as well. They hang, red and plump, over the crotch of his jeans.
The second anyone looks his way, they will see what he is doing. Wilson can't let that happen. All of a sudden, he realises this has all gone too far. He lets out a shuddering breath, pulls his phone out of his pocket and makes a quick call, watching all the while as House strokes himself at a concentrated, steady pace. Wilson knows that it takes him a while to orgasm, the drawn-out pleasure-danger being part of what gets House off.
In the end, it takes long enough that House hasn't finished when the police arrive. The cop car pulls up in the distance, away to Wilson's right. Out of House's eyeline. Wilson watches as the two cops get out, zero in on House and walk towards him rapidly, deliberately.
Wilson inches closer. He wants to hear.
"Sir?"
House jumps out of his skin, turning to see the cops right behind him. His hand freezes on his cock, which is jutting out of his jeans. It would be obvious even to a child what he's doing.
"Sir, I'm arresting you for public indecency. You don't have to say anything."
And House doesn't. Wilson watches as the cops tug him to a standing position and cuff his hands behind his back. A small crowd is starting to form. House's dick and balls are still hanging out of his jeans. His erection looks small and pitiful in the face of so many onlookers.
"Was he masturbating?" someone asks, incredulously.
Suddenly someone else in the crowd spits at House, and there's a surge forward, pushing, shoving.
"Pervert!"
Wilson presses forward with them as he hears a yelp. House has gone down.
Eventually the cops clear everyone away. Wilson backs off too. His last sight is of House curled on the ground, his bad leg painfully bent underneath his good, his flaccid cock still hanging out of his jeans and shining with cum. Had House orgasmed at some point? From this distance, Wilson can't be sure. Limbs tangled and exposed dick bobbing pathetically, House is hauled away, unresisting.