Chapter Text
“Tweedler. Differential diagnosis?”
His team stops their chitchat and looks up at him. “What?” Chase says; Foreman rolls his eyes at him, while Cameron says, “His name is Turlington, House.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” He flips the whiteboard. “Turner. Go.”
“We are not diagnosing a healthy person,” says Foreman.
“How do you know? Have you run tests on him already? MRI, CT, the whole fruit basket? Attaboy, Foreman. I’m impressed.” He points his cane at the other two. “This is what you have to live up to.”
“There’s a dying six-year-old downstairs,” says Chase, “Forgive us for not engaging.”
“Wide-eyed, agile, chatty, young,” he tilts his chin, grimacing as if made to concede, “good-looking. To some people. What else?”
“If you’ve got a crush,” says Foreman dryly, “why don’t you go downstairs, find him, and confess yourself. After you cure this girl.”
He smacks his lips. “Spoken like a true teenage girl, Foreman. Always the romantic. No,” he pokes at the whiteboard with his cane, “too bad I’m too shy. Besides, he’s always with Wilson.”
His ducklings exchange a look. “Right,” says Chase, watching him with some level of suspicion. “The girl, House. Low sodium level, arrhythmia, internal bleeding—”
“Could be haemorrhagic shock?” Cameron suggests, “Bleeding causing the other two?”
“Then what caused the bleeding? No signs of trauma.”
“Physically, perhaps—”
He waves a hand. “Scan her for tumours,” he says, getting up to leave.
“We’ve already—”
“Do it again. MRI for her head.”
“Where are you going?” Cameron accuses, but he’s already out of the door.
- -
Cuddy narrows her eyes at him above the file in her hands. His least favourite expression. “For the twentieth time,” she says, alert and wary, “I’m not giving you private personnel files, House.”
He feigns a look of hurt. “C’mon. A favour for your favourite employee.”
“You are not my favourite,” she states, each word spoken with heightened pronunciation. Unnecessarily hurtful. “Why are you so insistent on prying into his life, anyway?”
“Well, boss,” he says, the face of a good Samaritan, “I’m simply concerned for Turbay’s wellbeing. The poor fella. Freshly out of the Allegheny—”
He’s met with Cuddy’s steely gaze. He blinks at her.
“Turlington,” she says. “This is ridiculous.”
“A six-year-old is dying in my care,” he says, “Forgive me if the name of my new colleague over at the oncology department slips my mind.”
“Yet you’re in my office and not her bedside,” says Cuddy.
“I’m just concerned—”
“Concerned enough to want his file but not remember his name,” she squeezes a sardonic smile at him. “Cut the crap, House. You’re nosy, obsessive, for what reason I don’t know and don’t care. Every time you’ve been here in the last three weeks, we circle back to the same damn thing. His file. And I’m telling you, you’re not getting it.”
“You’re growing shallow, Cuddy,” he lectures in a purposefully condescending tone, “Names are nothing but labels. Me, I see the essence of the man. A promising star with a background in the Allegheny emergency room, suffering from the trauma of life and death, only to be thrown in the world of more races against death in the oncology department—”
“Seems to me you know all about him already,” interjects Cuddy ruthlessly. “Me, I’d love to hear more of your poems on the sufferings he’s faced. Perhaps a recital at the fundraising party?”
“This is a hostile work environment,” he says. “Discriminatory to the disabled—”
“Get out of my office, House.”
- -
He walks into the dark room to find his overgrown children crowding around the computer, their heads huddled together, and Wilson standing in the corner with his back the door. The smudge on the wall, as expected nowadays, perches by the oncologist’s side.
None of them seems to notice his arrival. His team is busy bickering and correcting one another, while Wilson operates the machine with heightened caution, shoulders tense and back straight. Slender Man has his side to the door, his half-lit profile sharp with concentration, watching Wilson’s every move. Wilson’s arms give a sudden jerk and Slender Man’s hand shoots up to his shoulders.
The loud bang his cane makes on the door turns all their heads. “Well,” he says, “results?”
Cameron perks up. Always his most loyal echo. “You were right,” she says, “we found a dark mass—”
“Yet to be determined,” says Wilson. He’s grasping his left arm, wearing a vague look of pain. House’s eyes snake around his face and he averts his gaze.
“Losing your edge, Wilson?” he says, eyes not leaving the senior oncologist. The pile of solid human waste beside him is also watching him intently, earnest concern on his face.
“Why don’t you give your lackey something to do?” he says, walking over to the space Cameron’s just made for him in front of the computer. He can feel Wilson’s sigh without looking back.
“For the thousandth time,” says Wilson behind him, sounding exasperated, “Not my lackey. Douglas’ my supervisee.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, the black-and-whites on the screen burning into his retinas, “Seems to me he’s not learning anything under you.”
“Dr Wilson is a wonderful supervisor,” says the donkey, “I can’t be more grateful—”
He pulls back from the computer and utters a string of instructions to Cameron, Chase and Foreman. “Do it now,” he orders, pointedly at a lips-wriggling Foreman, “and fast.”
They rush out of the room. “And you, lackey,” he says, without turning, “Cuddy’s asking for you.”
- -
“Cuddy did not ask for him,” says Wilson, once they’re alone in the corridor.
He doesn’t bother feigning innocence. “I’m appalled,” he says, “you letting him run around on a wild goose chase. Not very oh-my-wonderful-supervisor of you.”
The way he mimics the man makes Wilson grimace. “What do you want, House?”
“Everyone’s so cynical nowadays. Assuming I always want something—”
“You obviously want to talk to me about something.”
He doesn’t say anything to begin with. Then, as Wilson presses the elevator button, he finds a way to open his mouth without letting a certain sentiment slip out.
“What happened this time?”
- -
Douglas Reuben Turlington. One in three thousand, genius among geniuses. Or so he was told, by Cuddy. The recipient of the new and prestigious clinical fellowship in PPTH’s oncology department. The first day he got here, House was playing wallball in his office instead of going to his welcome drinks. Cameron came in to touch up her makeup half-way through, face flushed, whether for alcohol or excitement it couldn’t be determined. She told him, excitedly, inebriated, that the new guy was a delight. House wanted to ask her which feature on his face spelled out interest.
“Since when is my office your changing room, Cameron?” he said instead, absent-mindedly, looking at his phone. The photo Cuddy just sent him depicted an embrace that could’ve been seen as warm and lovely, perhaps, if the protagonists weren’t Wilson and a stranger. Wilson had his back to the camera, but the other guy’s face was visible, a wide smile, eyes looking down at the older man while clasping him in his arms. His hands were clutching Wilson’s back and waist. House could tell from the back of Wilson’s neck and ears, and the way he was nestled up against the new guy, that the oncologist was drunk. Your new competition, wrote Cuddy.
She never makes much sense with alcohol in her veins. Sprawling on the sofa, House tossed his phone and that image behind him, which had nothing to do with him turning up at the party fifteen minutes later.
Wilson personally conducted the final interview that determined which candidate should become his new clinical fellow. Despite House’s obvious lack of interest, Wilson’s informed him repeatedly of his admiration for a Douglas Reuben Turlington with an air of expectancy. With a pure and altruistic intention to stop Wilson’s narcissistic rambling about his own life (“really, Jimmy, it’s driving everyone away”), House hacked into the system and read through the man’s file. Boring, he’d thought, and told Wilson as such (“so please, shut up”). Wilson defended the young man’s honour and House rolled his eyes when the fellowship was announced. But really, House has nothing personal against the new guy. Indeed, he might’ve been fine with Dr Douglas Reuben Turlington, if Dr Douglas Reuben Turlington hadn’t been going around injuring Wilson every five minutes since he started.
It first started with coffee, morning of his very first day. House just happened to be around the corner to the ward when Wilson and Turlington were walking out, Wilson talking with his eyes down, clipboard in hands, and Turlington tripped over thin air. The cup of coffee in his hand spilled all over Wilson’s arm and House watched the senior oncologist wince. Steaming still even as a spreading brown stain on the white coat, the coffee was wiped away by a frantic and apologetic Turlington. His angular face looked on the verge of tears, and Wilson, face contorting, hastily reassured him.
Turlington was sent away to fetch washcloth and presumably a fresh coat. Wilson turned and narrowed his eyes when he came face to face with House. “What are you doing here, skulking around?” he asked.
“These hurtful allegations,” said House. “I’m checking in on a poor kid of a friend of mine. Dying of cancer. What a pity, only eleven years old.”
He pushed open the room door to prove a point, locking eyes with a frail old lady on the bed. “Oops,” he said, “kid’s looking different.” Wilson swatted his hand on the handle and closed the door.
“I was going to do that,” he protested. His eyes were fixed on Wilson’s hand; aggressively red.
Wilson hid his hand in his stained sleeve. “What are you doing here, House?” he pestered again.
“Your intern pours boiling coffee down his throat?” said House. “Make that a habit, and you’ll have a new patient soon.”
Wilson sighed. “Not boiling,” he said, a bald-faced lie. His brown eyes were sharp and alarmed. “Also, not an intern. Don’t you pick on him, House. I know how you are when you feel threatened by someone else’s intelligence—”
House walked away before he could utter another word. Because it was nonsensical, of course. Turlington might be branded a genius, but he was still a moron, and House would have started berating Wilson should he have stayed. Too bad he’d spotted Turlington turning the corner behind Wilson, and promptly left before he could be forced into an unnecessary social engagement.
Soon after the boiling coffee, Turlington’s developed a habit of tripping and crashing into Wilson, flattening him against the wall in the stairwell. That’s happened twice on two separate occasions, counting only the times House was witness to. Each time Turlington apologised profusely, backing his tall frame away from a pained-looking Wilson, who rubbed the back of his head and mumbled forgiveness. Turlington was an overly friendly man from Minnesota, and this manifested itself in the way he would embrace Wilson—who froze with a startled look the first time it happened—while spilling out apologies. “I’m so sorry, Dr Wilson,” he would say, invading Wilson’s personal space again to clasp him in a bear hug, his sincere voice reverberating in the stairwell and into House’s ears.
Then it was the accidental dropping of an empty cabinet, God knows what he even was doing with it, which collided with Wilson’s feet. That time House thought Wilson might finally lose his temper. Indeed he seemed close to, but in Turlington’s storm of self-deprecating apologies, and panicked caring of the injury he’s caused, Wilson’s anger dissipated. “It’s fine,” he eventually said, sitting on the bench like a defeated housewife. To which House couldn’t suppress an eyeroll, from just behind the corner.
The good-natured doctor expressed frustration to a totally innocent House instead. “You’re stalking me,” Wilson accused to the corner plant, after Turlington was sent to attend to a patient.
It certainly would seem that way. “Oh my,” said House, emerging from behind the plant, “someone thinks he’s more important than a dying, suffering young mother.”
House had seen him and Turlington pass by from inside his patient’s room, but he’d been done with the questioning and the patient had started crying uglily, so naturally, he’d come out and follow them. Not that he’d ever let Wilson know.
It was Wilson’s turn to roll his eyes. “Please go do whatever it is Cuddy pays you to do,” said Wilson, staring into space with an irritated look on his face. House assumed his feet hadn’t magically healed from Turlington’s apologies.
“So should you,” said House, “before the village idiot kills you.” Then he took off, before Wilson could throw insults at him.
Now he asks Wilson again.
“I said, Jimmy, how did it happen this time?”
The suspicious silence Wilson has kept since his first question turns into an even more suspicious flush that infects his cheeks. “We were at the gym,” he says, avoiding House’s eyes, “he used the pulldown machine before me, and I forgot to check the stack pin to adjust the weight.”
House is silent. The elevator doors open with a ding and Wilson speeds forward, but House clutches his wrist. Wilson flinches. His feet stop dead and the flush now spreads onto his neck.
“Wow,” drawls House. “Isn’t that embarrassing.”
His hand slides down to grip Wilson’s hand. The oncologist seems to freeze. His hand is soft and warm in House’s, lightly calloused at the knuckles. Slowly, purposefully, House bends his hand so his palm faces inwards to the forearm and Wilson winces. His arm makes a sudden jerk but House grips him in place.
“Pulling your muscle at the gym,” says House, “in front of your subordinate. New low even for you, Jimmy. Did he caress your arms and kiss your boo-boo?”
Wilson tries to shrug him off again and this time House lets him. “There’s nothing wrong with hanging out with your colleagues,” he says, face still flushed, this time with defiance, “only you would find it demeaning, because of your inflated ego.”
“He’s not your colleague, he’s your junior,” says House, following him into the elevator. “Besides, going to the gym with someone who’s tried to kill you on multiple occasions is simply idiotic.”
“He has not—” Wilson closes his eyes and his lips are pressed into a thin line. “He’s just clumsy. Besides,” he emphasises sardonically, “in case your hearing’s impaired, this time it’s entirely my own fault.”
“This time,” repeats House. “Glad to know the sandbag does remember who’s hurt him before. This is why I never go to the gym. Some sandbags might be capable of revenge, you see, actually getting angry, for example.”
Wilson walks out without looking back. House calls out after him, voice landing in the midst of nurses and patients,
“Masochism isn’t shameful anymore, Jimmy!”
Wilson flips him off as the elevator doors close.
- -
So. Wilson’s going to the gym with Turlington now, inviting him to his “safe space” where his mind can “blank out” or some other stupid words like that. Wilson’s not ever invited House to the gym—not that House cared, or would have cared for going—but now Wilson and Turlington do it sneakily, and Wilson’s avoided telling him until today.
“Just because he hasn’t told you,” says Cameron, her arms crossed, “doesn’t mean it’s sneaky, or they’ve got something to hide. Definitely not using it as a front to sneak out hospital meds.”
House ignores her. He twirls his cane, narrowly avoiding the whiteboard. “Ten bucks for the first person to pinpoint what’s wrong with Turtleton.”
“Are you bribing us to trash talk our colleague?” accuses Foreman. Cameron turns away, knotting her eyebrows disapprovingly, while Chase says,
“He’s clumsy sometimes, sure, but there’s nothing wrong with the guy, or how he works. Able doctor, (“Brilliant, even,” adds Cameron) friendly, smart. What is your problem, exactly?”
Foreman sniggers. “He’s just—” he drifts off when House looks over. “Nothing,” the neurologist says, poker-faced.
Same answer as the one everyone gives him, whenever he talks about Turlington. Nothing’s wrong with him, House. They look at him as if he were a villain trying to upstage the hero.
The nurses obsess over Turlington, discuss his every move and wear an extra-large grin while talking to him; the interns and residents watch Turlington with an idiotic glow in their eyes, and House hears them talking about Turlington’s articles in the breakroom. Groundbreaking, eloquent, cutting edge. All other doctors are extra patient with Turlington’s stupidity, in fact it would seem like they all mistake it for brilliance, everyone save for House, who would take clinic hours over running into him. Wilson has assigned Turlington to the children’s ward for the time being, and even the cancer kids, waiting for their impending doom, light up when they see him.
“Have you ever noticed,” House once said to Foreman, when they were walking past the playroom, where Turlington was sat with the kids, “that look he always has on his face when he’s with them?”
Behind the glass window, Turlington was trying to do a magic trick with a stupid-looking top hat. The children gathered around him, watching intently. “Yeah,” Foreman said, looking at House as if he were the stupid one, “it’s called a smile.”
The room erupted into applause and screeches when Turlington succeeded. They could hear the excitement from outside the glass window. “Yeah, exactly,” said House, mimicking Foreman’s attitude, “it’s psychopathic. They’re dying and he’s giggling.”
Foreman shook his head and mumbled something under his breath. Probably an insult, not that House cared.
Everyone loves Turlington. He’s kind, he’s proactive, he’s patient, he’s a sweetheart. And House is annoying. But he’s never wrong.
In the three weeks Turlington’s been here, aside from his extremely violent tendencies (Wilson rolled his eyes violently when House labelled Turlington’s behaviours as such), there’s something else about him that’s been bothering House. He can’t quite put a finger on it, but it’s there.
House has been watching him closely. In the cafeteria, in the break room, in the corridors. Always smiling, always affable. Always with Wilson. Turlington lingers around Wilson in a way that makes House’s skin crawl. He’s smiling, sure, listening intently to whatever Wilson has to say (and yet Wilson is not that funny), sure, talking to Wilson like a normal person, sure. But the way his arm droops around the back of Wilson’s chair, how his tall frame looms over Wilson when they’re standing together, or the way he looks at Wilson, just looking, pricks something in House’s mind. “Dr Wilson!” he laughed aloud when Wilson said something in the line of the cafeteria, three days ago, and House wanted to smack him on his open mouth.
Nobody else seems to notice. “You’re losing it,” they point their stupid fingers at House instead.
According to them, Turlington is perfect. Too bad House doesn’t believe in perfection. There’s something about Turlington, an anomaly in his smile and his demeanour, that scratches at House’s brain and sets off an invisible alarm. But in the three weeks he’s been here, everyone but House has converted to his side, and it drives House insane that nobody seems to be able to feel what he can.
“There aren’t sides here,” said Cuddy, eyebrows shooting up, when he first indicated his frustration that everyone seemed to have gone blind and dumb. “Get your head out of the high-school burn book and get on with your case. Do not even try to give Dr Turlington a hard time.”
He couldn’t even if he tries. Wilson watches over Turlington like a mother hen would her chicks, and he seems to be able to anticipate House’s every move. “No,” he said last Friday, point-blank and sudden, appearing behind House out of nowhere in the storage room, when House was trying to innocently review one of Turlington’s cases. “Put that back.”
House resents his pecan hair and soft brown eyes in moments like those. He always blames his preference for brunettes whenever he finds himself relenting under Wilson’s gaze, which is, as much as it’d hurt the other man should he hear it, never threatening in the slightest. Brunettes just have a way of making him concede. If Wilson were a woman, sometimes he thinks, he’d be the death of me. Then he stops pursuing that line of thinking, not for a conscious effort, but because some other puzzles have distracted him.
He’s familiar with Turlington’s file. His application file at least. He knows the man is thirty years old, six-feet-four, 200 lbs. College at 16, Harvard Medical School at 20, residency then attending in emergency medicine at Allegheny General, bouldering enthusiast. House has read his toxicology and neuro-oncology research. Athletic, intelligent, sociable, professional, positive reviews on all grounds.
Such a person can’t be the clumsy, harmless (harmful to Wilson) idiot he appears to be. The records reflect someone immaculate, worldly, experienced, calculating, or perhaps strategic.
“You’re blowing it out of proportion,” Cameron said, last week at lunch, “it was just a few accidents. Bad days. Everyone has those. Wilson doesn’t even care.” But she was never there. And Wilson is too much of a pushover for anything to hang on his judgment.
“Successful people can’t afford to be all nice and simple,” he said. When Cameron made to protest, he pointed his cane at the neurologist at the end of the long table, whose mouth was stuffed with an egg salad sandwich.
Foreman glared at him. Cameron rolled her eyes. He read on her face what she didn’t say.
“Oh, Cameron,” he said, condescending with a hint of sincerity, “I’d never call you simple.”
Why do they always think he couldn’t read their thoughts like a book? He watched a smile creep onto Cameron’s face. She’d thought, that by picking Foreman out as an example of worldly cynicism, he was undermining her success as a highly accomplished doctor. He would have hoped that by now she’s moved on from the complex of constantly needing his approval. Not that he cares for her personal development in any way, of course, it would just save him the time and energy to constantly watch and respond to her body language.
He can read Cameron, and everyone else in his life, like an open book. Strangers are even easier because they haven’t the motives to conceal and lie. Ergo, if his mind tells him there’s something off with Turlington, even if everyone else tells him the contrary, he’s going to believe it.
- -
“Where’s Turtle?” he pokes his head into the office to ask the three little ducklings, when it’s time to get off work. “Need him to sign something.”
Foreman glares at him. “You’re not even trying this time,” he says.
“On the contrary,” he retorts, “I always try. I just free up my mind for the more important things.”
“Why are you looking for him?” asks Cameron, alarmed and suspicious. He shrugs.
“Little girl’s been cured. Release papers should be signed soon. In a good mood, thought I’d wrap up some loose ends. Cameron,” he points out, “that look is very hurtful.”
“Since when do you run towards and not away from paperwork?”
“I just—” he jumps when he feels breath on his neck. He swings around, nearly falling over. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to sneak up on a cripple, Wilson?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you not to try to sabotage my fellow?” accuses Wilson. His tone is irritated, but his eyes glint a mischievous glow, for having freaked House. “Why are you trying to request 3,000 MRIs under Turlington’s name?”
“Well, I have no idea how your fellow thinks,” retorts House. My fellow. That sent a chill to behind his ribcage, for some reason. His stomach feels discomfited. “Concerned for all the patients’ welfare, perhaps?”
“Juvenile, House,” remarks Wilson, turning to leave. “Even for you.”
House narrows his eyes. “How did you know?”
“Please,” snaps Wilson, striding away, “who else would be hacking Turlington’s system?” Then he pauses. As if suddenly struck by something, he turns, and marches towards House.
House doesn’t back away when he comes straight up to him. “He’s never done anything to you,” fumes Wilson, voice low and contained yet notably vexed, “Never. Just been doing his job, diligently. He’s a good doctor, a good person. Why do you have to be like this?”
Back pressed against the glass door, he lowers his eyes to look at Wilson, who’s staring up at him, inches away. His round eyes appear almost translucent under the ceiling lights, a deep, honey brown. The mild esotropia in his left eye makes them seem dazed: unfocused, droopy, particularly at this distance. Soft, though the expression on the rest of his face argue the contrary. Whenever Wilson’s riled up, he starts colouring, beginning with the rims of his eyes. The blush would then seep downwards, to his cheeks, neck, and finally disappearing below his collar.
“I know why you have it in for him,” Wilson’s still continuing, lips moving, cheeks pinkening. He smells like cotton and osmanthus, the detergent he uses. House counts his lower lashes. “His brilliance doesn’t take yours away from you, House. You’re acting like a conceited schoolchild. At least try to get to know him first.”
He storms off. House blinks as he disappears into the elevator. He feels a strain in his shoulders. He rolls them, only then realising that he’s been stiff as a ramrod.
He turns to see his team on the other side of the glass door, gaping at him. At his eyes they quickly lower their heads, hastily pretending to be packing things away.
- -
Cuddy’s reproach means House is the last one to arrive at the celebratory drinks. He wasn’t planning on going, initially; he rarely attends this kind of things. He solves the case, then he goes home. But when Cameron was leaving the office, she said to him,
“Wilson just texted to say he’ll be bringing Turlington.”
House thought about it in his dark office. Wilson’s eyes and the way he accused House, tense with wariness and frustration, played over in his mind. Eventually he got up to go to Cuddy’s office, sitting down for the meeting he was twenty minutes late for, and when he got so bored by her yelling he began pretending to fall asleep, she screamed at him to get of there.
Foreman coughs out his mouthful of beer when House appears behind Chase. “Aloha,” says House, sending Chase jumping in his seat and spilling half his wine. “What have I missed?”
Cameron looks at her watch. She’s smiling, a dazed, giddy smile. “You’re late,” she says, “for an hour and thirty-six.”
House purposefully doesn’t look at Wilson and Turlington, until they’ve shuffled along to make space for him at the end of the booth, next to Chase. He passes a look at the two men squished together in the centre of the round booth. Wilson’s tie and the top buttons on his shirt have come loose, and he looks positively drunk. His cheeks are a full blown shade of pink, his smile is almost ditzy, and his eyes are glossy under the dim lights. He’s practically half leaning against Turlington, their shoulders overlapping.
“Wilson,” says House. Wilson looks at him. No signs of residual fury. They’re always like this; House pretends like nothing happened after a fight, and tests the waters, sees if Wilson would go along. Wilson almost always goes along. “Shuffle forward, then everyone’s got more space.”
Wilson does as he’s told. He puts his elbows on the desk to shuffle forward and Turlington’s hand snakes around his waist, a pointless motion of steadying him. “There we go,” Wilson slurs, and everyone shuffles along again appreciatively. Turlington’s hand does not let go, even when Foreman half squeezes into the space behind Wilson.
House frowns at that. His eyes shoot up to Turlington’s face, to see the young man smiling giddily at some joke Chase just made, a slate of insobriety and innocence.
- -
They’re left alone when his team goes up to get another round of drinks, and Turlington goes with. House looks at Wilson, who’s propping his head up with his elbow on the table, lids drooping.
Only now does he feel the air in the bar grow more bearable. The music isn’t so deafening, the lights aren’t so overwhelming in colours and motions, the smell isn’t so nauseating. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t left yet, but his feet stay drilled to the floor, or perhaps to the scotch in front of him. I have better scotch at home, he reproves himself. And yet he stays where he is.
“House,” Wilson drawls. He looks at him. Wilson looks half asleep.
“I’m not moving over there,” says House. Wilson lets out a heavy sigh. But then he half opens his eyes, looks at House from beneath the droopy lids, and he smiles.
“Thank you,” he slurs. The alcohol flush has spread all the way past his collarbones and disappears into his shirt. House stares at him for a moment. “What?” says Wilson, appearing momentarily alert, or at least more alert than before.
House’s eyes move back up to his face. “You look like an idiot,” he comments dryly.
Wilson laughs. He tries to move, perhaps to get to House, but he folds over instead, sprawling face-down on the cushion. House catches him before he rolls onto the floor. “God, Wilson,” he complains, “you’re heavy.”
He’s warm. He lies face-down on House’s lap, and he’s laughing again, the tremor seeping through House’s jeans. House pulls him up, almost aggressively, shoves him back to a sitting position, and shuffles next to him.
This is more exercise than he’s done in a week. He’s never coming out again.
Wilson’s forehead finds his shoulder the second he comes beside him. House raises an eyebrow. “Thank you,” Wilson mumbles against his chest, his voice coarse, and House can’t decipher whether the man's feeling disoriented, or exhausted. “Tur-Turlington.”
A sudden and inexplicable anger soars in his chest and reaches his hands before his mind. He grips Wilson’s chin, forcing his head up to look him in eyes. “What did you just call me?”
His voice comes out more menacing than he intended. Wilson looks up at him, eyes widened under the lights, a befuddled look on his face. The skin under his hand is warm and dry to touch. “No, H-house,” he slurs, increased difficulty in his pronunciations due to House’s steely grip on his chin, “I meant, thank…thank you, for coming out to see Tur…”
He trails off before finishing that word, which House is fine with. Wilson is staring at him, dumbly. Pinches of soft pecan hair fall over his forehead, coming undone after a day of work. His pupils are blown wide, darkness inside rings of honeyed brown, reflecting the lights above. House considers briefly whether he’s been drugged. His cheeks are too red, and his skin is too hot.
His eyes fall on Wilson’s half-open mouth. Wilson’s lips are almost always reddish in colour, looking soft. Probably are soft, considering the way his skin feels.
He looks back up into Wilson’s eyes. They seem glossier, or perhaps waterier.
Perhaps it’s the pain. “How are your arms?” he asks, kinder than he registers, releasing Wilson. Wilson’s head dips as if unable to support his own weight, before lifting back up to stare at his shoulders.
“Okay,” he replies. He seems to have drifted away for a moment. Then he looks up, vaguely at House’s face but not meeting his eyes, and he’s smiling, though his eyes are dazed. “Douglas knows how to massage.”
House blinks. The chills that came when Wilson said my fellow earlier stir again, slithering behind his ribs. “Really good,” explains Wilson, smiling contently, though clarifying nothing for House. House takes his hand, at which his smile falters. House rolls his eyes.
“Relax, Jimmy,” he says, “not giving you a massage.” He bends Wilson’s palm inwards, as he did this morning, but this time Wilson doesn’t flinch. He smiles at House victoriously.
“See,” he says. His eyes are impossibly soft. “Turlington’s good.”
- -
House hears the door open behind him before seeing Turlington come beside him. “Dr House,” smiles the young man, clearly still under the influence.
House is a man of few words when he’s standing near a urinal. Turlington doesn’t seem to mind his silence. “I’m aware you don’t like me,” he says, a humble yet sincere smile, “but I’ve been a follower of your work since college, and Dr Wilson speaks really highly of you. Hopefully one day I can change your mind.”
Silence still. The young man starts again. “Dr Wilson—”
“Listen,” says House, impatient. He curses Wilson and his damned puppy-dog eyes and nagging voice. He would’ve liked to tease, mock, or perhaps insult Turlington, but none of those words make it out of his throat. “You’ve hit the jackpot with Wilson. Treasure it. Whether I like you hardly matters.”
House zips up his trousers and flushes. Beside him, Turlington seems to be in reflection, a thoughtful look on his face.
He turns on the tap and runs his hands under. Just when he reaches for soap, he hears Turlington chuckle.
“You’re right. I have hit the jackpot, haven’t I? Who wouldn’t tap that?”
He stops in motion. Even the bubbles seem to freeze mid-air. He turns his head to look at Turlington, who’s smiling at him.
He’s not even undone his fly. He’s just standing there, looking at House.
He’s come here to taunt, House realises.
“I thought so when I first met you,” says Turlington. His smile is slowly broadening, the features nurses fawn over growing alien. “You want the same thing I do. We’re alike in so many ways. Look at him, right? I’ve wanted to fuck him stupid the second he shook my hand, in that interview room.”
He tilts his head. There’s a strange glow in his eyes, a sense of challenge, provocation. House looks at him, transfixed.
“I don’t think that’d be too difficult, do you?” Turlington whispers. His voice has dropped low, seeping with menace. “Doesn’t he just let you do anything to him, get away with anything, if only you ask sweetly?”
He walks over to House. He swirls on the tap for the older man, smiling at his stupor in the mirror.
The door clicks shut behind him. House doesn’t move. He watches the water run down his hands, his mind blank, until a throbbing pain in his thigh tears him out from the haze and back into the dim, dingy restroom of the jazz bar.