| |
Trivial Pursuits
by Milkshake Butterfly
Notes: Written before Detox aired; I don't think the episode necessarily invalidates any of this, but it's worth noting.
Warnings: I did something worse than this to Cheetos once, but suffice it to say, if you proceed past this warning you forfeit all right to complain if you can never play a game of Trivial Pursuit without giggling again.
Thanks: To Canthlian and RosaleenDhu for the alphas, Chrissy, Marisol, Commodoresexual, and Nivcharayahel, for the betas, and Tris B. and Z for the emergency edit consults. It takes a village, people.
He'd been divorced for four weeks, six days, and eight hours--and just because this was the third time didn't mean it necessarily hurt any less--when House finally did something, possibly because after all this time Wilson had stopped expecting him to.
To be fair, he didn't see how anyone wouldn't have. Wilson had met House when he was still healing from the double blow of losing both his brother and Marie, and had become friends with him during a time when any romantic entanglements, man or woman, had simply seemed impossible. They'd stayed friends while Wilson had found himself coming out of that and falling in love with Elizabeth at the same time, and House had never made any comment, though sometimes James had seen the doubt in his eyes. When, a too-brief time later, Wilson had fallen out of love with Elizabeth, starting a long, painful breakup process that made even Wilson want to go back in time and beat himself up, House had managed not to hit him over the head with his newly required cane, or even point out that this could have been predicted, really. And despite the fact that House had told Wilson he was a complete and utter idiot for marrying Julie, he'd still taken part in the wedding, though he'd declined to make a toast on the grounds that he didn't want to say something that would start a war.
Julie thought he'd been exaggerating. Wilson knew better.
But the point remained that through all of that, House had never made that one, last, essential move that would take things beyond the friendship they had. They'd settled into an easy holding pattern, a friendship that puzzled and confused their friends and associates--although most of them were more perplexed about why Wilson put up with House than vice versa, which Wilson had always figured proved just how little they knew. Time went on, and he accumulated more divorces and breakups from the women in his life, relaxing slowly and comfortably into the stability of his relationship with House, who looked on through all of this and didn't try to change the balance in favor of the underlying tension between them that they both knew was there.
All of which meant that he was completely unprepared when House looked up at him from his cane-twirling one day while they were sitting around House's office waiting for lab results and said, "So, do you think we should go out on a date first, or just cut directly to sex?"
His first reaction wasn't surprise, because on some level he'd been expecting it for years, even if he'd become used to the idea it would never come. No, Wilson's first reaction was a combination of a guilty flush and something that came uncomfortably close to panic.
House's eyebrows went up, and Wilson blinked twice, suddenly acutely aware that he'd been staring. He swallowed, and managed to say, "What?" in a voice that was only faintly strained.
Which was the precise moment Foreman and Chase came through the door, bearing test results and thankfully ignoring the fact that he was staring at House like he'd been hit on the back of the head by a brick. He wasn't sure if he was grateful for the interruption or not--particularly when the results sent House off on another one of his gleeful marches of, "I know what's wrong and now I'm going to go kick some ass for it."
It didn't help that he'd found House in verbal ass-kicking mode unaccountably attractive for years now.
Wilson kind of hoped House had just brought the matter up because he was bored, or feeling especially perverse today--a trait of his which had only gotten worse over the years--or quite possibly because he just liked seeing Wilson give him shocked looks, and he'd forget it later. But he didn't really believe that any of those things were the case, and so it wasn't really a surprise when he found himself back in House's office at the end of the day, watching as House got ready to leave for home, and House spoke again, not looking up from what he was doing.
"So, have you given any thought to what I asked you earlier?"
Wilson hesitated and glanced around as casually as he could, but the doors to the office were both closed, the conference room beyond was empty, and House gave him a sardonic little, 'I already thought of that, please keep up,' sort of look--which reminded Wilson of exactly why the thought of House going to this particular place with their relationship had always filled him with a sort of vague, queasy dread.
"I have," he admitted.
"And?" House said, exaggerating his impatience.
"And... I think it would be a really bad idea."
For a moment, just a moment, House started to reply exactly how Wilson expected--the sarcastic, evasive, bitter remark that was probably instinctive by now. He caught himself before it actually came out of his mouth, but House's expressions were probably as evocative as his actual words were, and anyway, Wilson had been his friend for a very long time now, so he knew what had just almost happened.
But instead he checked himself, almost visibly, and hesitated for a moment, looking down at the bag he was packing, and then glanced up again, face carefully blank. "And why is that?"
It was Wilson's turn to hesitate now, watching as House continued his packing. It was sort of odd to realize he didn't actually know why House took his headphones home at night--wouldn't it make more sense to just have two pairs? "I just... don't think it would turn out well."
House paused again before tucking the headphones away. "Really," he said, fastening the bag shut and then shrugging it on. "We've managed pretty well this far."
"A friendship... is one thing. This is something else entirely."
"Supposedly not if you're doing it right." Wilson just looked at him, and he rolled his eyes as he grabbed his cane, starting for the door, James falling into place with him without even thinking about it. "Oh come on. You have to know I'm not going to just accept nebulous feelings of dread as a valid reason--particularly yours. As I recall, the last few times you've been sure things would turn out just peachy they've-"
Wilson stopped and threw up his hands. "Okay, could we just... not?"
House paused, and then nodded. "All right. You're right. I'm sorry." The apology came out grudging... but also sincere. "I still want something more concrete than that," he added, as he started to move again.
The corridor was empty, which irritated Wilson a little; it would have been nice to avoid the topic for a little while longer. It wasn't like there weren't lots of reasons to be leery of getting involved with someone like House, but House would rightly point out that Wilson had obviously dealt with a lot of them already just in the course of remaining friends.
"I just... don't want to enter into a relationship without a level playing field," he finally said as they approached the elevator, aware how weak that came out.
House gave him a look. "Oh please. That's not true. Your first wife was a preschool teacher, your second wife was a waitress, which was how you met, and Julie was a secretary."
"Personal assistant."
"Personal assistant is the term secretaries use when they want to feel better about themselves. Besides, how is that really any more close to things being 'level'? You don't care about an equal partnership, you just want the unevenness to be in your favor. You don't want to be the girl." House paused and pushed the button on the elevator. "For what it's worth, I think you're wrong."
"Oh, well, that's hardly new."
"You made Head of Oncology at a major teaching hospital before you even turned thirty-eight. It's not like you're an idiot." The elevator doors opened and they let a nurse pass out before getting in, House taking the side with the buttons as he almost always did. Wilson wasn't sure that he was relieved or not that they were alone.
"I never said I was. The problem isn't that I'm not bright, the problem is that you're a neurotic genius and you'd eat me alive."
House gave him a sidelong look that... made Wilson shift a little, uncomfortable in the best possible way. "Would have thought that would be incentive."
He didn't blush.
It was a nearer thing than he would have liked.
"You're ignoring the point," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"Of course I am," House said, giving him an entirely different sort of sidelong look now. "It's a stupid point."
"And see? There we go. Making the point for me," he said, turning to stare at the doors as if they could provide moral support.
"I didn't say you were stupid," House said, in a clarifying tone, "I said it was a stupid point."
"This is becoming repetitive," Wilson muttered, glancing away from the doors and back over to House.
House gave him a disgusted look, then propped his cane up in the corner, stuck two fingers on the 'Door Close' button, leaned over, and grabbed Wilson by his tie, dragging him into a liplock before he could think to protest.
Though to be honest, he wouldn't have fought very hard anyway--and if he had, he wasn't sure how much it would have mattered, since House tugged hard enough to make him stagger slightly. Greg's lips were surprisingly soft for someone who used words as cuttingly as he did, and his mouth yielded and opened to Wilson's tongue more easily than anyone else's ever had before, even though Wilson was operating on pure instinct at this point. His hands came half out of his pockets to grab House's shoulders before he could stop them, and then sort of hovered in mid-air when he did.
House snorted very softly and let him go, giving him a self-satisfied smirk as he did so. Wilson lowered his arms awkwardly and tried to remember how to breathe. The smirk got wider, and House said, "Now, there are two options here. One, you agree to go out with me. Two, we do that again, only I let go of this button so that the entire hospital staff gets to watch us do that again, and assumes that you're going out with me."
"I think they'd assume more than that," Wilson pointed out. His heart was still racing.
"Hey, that's even better!" House exclaimed, looking demonically chipper about the whole prospect.
"You realize this is completely unethical and unusually manipulative even for you."
"It's for your own good."
"Now where have I heard that before...." Wilson said, trailing off into a sigh.
House leaned forward again, and Wilson closed his eyes and resigned himself to having to explain to everyone that it was just a prank, really, and shouldn't they know House better than that by now?
Except House didn't kiss him, just paused, close enough that Wilson was breathing in the air House exhaled, and vice versa.
"You know I don't say 'please'," House murmured, quietly enough that Wilson almost didn't catch it.
He nodded, just a little, but they were close enough that it felt like a big thing.
"I'm saying please."
Shit. And this was what it came down to: he could almost never refuse House when House asked him for anything.
But it occurred to him for the first time that House almost never refused him anything, either.
He swallowed, his eyes still closed, and said, "I'm working late tonight. Tomorrow?"
He was close enough to feel the smile on House's face even if he couldn't see it, and then House was kissing him again, which meant he could really feel it, because this time the kiss was every bit as sharp as House's smile, as sharp as House himself. And, Wilson decided, they were really going to have to have a talk about the stubble, which lost some of its sex appeal now that he was learning how that felt against the skin of his own face. Of course, to have that talk in the first place, they would have to stop doing this, which Wilson wasn't entirely sure he actually wanted to ever happen. It was really terribly unfair that House only had one hand free, because the way he was moving that hand, sliding it under Wilson's coat and up his back, then slowly down again to brush over his ass very lightly, really ought to be illegal.
For about three seconds, Wilson wasn't sure what to do with his hands, again, or exactly how to position himself when he was the shorter of the two, but then his arms somehow settled around House's waist and he shifted so that House's good leg was between Wilson's, and everything settled into place as easy and as naturally as if they'd been doing this for years. House made a small, appreciative sound, and briefly departed from Wilson's mouth to scrape his teeth, followed by series of soothing licks, along the line of Wilson's jaw, and then to move on and kiss the upper part of Wilson's neck. He began to wonder why he'd ever thought this was a bad idea.
And then, right when Wilson was starting to seriously consider if it was possible for two people to have sex in an elevator without one of them ever taking their hand off the 'Door Close' button, House smiled against his skin again, stepped away, reclaimed his cane, and let go of the button, hobbling out of the elevator looking no more rumpled than usual, but a lot more self-satisfied.
Mildly dazed, and ignoring the stares of the staff, Wilson watched him go, and thought, Oh, yes, right. This was why he'd thought this was a bad idea.
He still kept their date the next evening.
Back in those furtive hours when Wilson would find himself contemplating what an actual relationship with House might be like, usually after a long day, or when his marriages and other romances were on the rocks or else freshly dissolved, he had always figured on odd. That it would be odd out of bed was, in fact, a given--as House's best friend, it wasn't like Wilson hadn't had enough experiences already with what life was like with the man around. He'd tried not to speculate about if that would extend to between the sheets as well, and usually failed. He'd never been able to quite decide if everything would be completely, perversely normal... or just completely perverse. His imagination, which was the main reason he tried not to think of these things, had always hovered somewhere between the relative average that he knew about from his extremely brief youthful experimentations and the wonders of the modern internet, and rather extreme, lurid fantasies, often involving leather ties, which he also knew about thanks to the wonders of the modern internet.
When they finally started sleeping together--nine days and a record-breaking twenty-seven make-out sessions after the first 'date' that House got him to agree to--neither extreme turned out to be entirely true, and Wilson told himself quite firmly that he was not disappointed about that, especially as far as the leather ties went. Really.
Of course, things were still odd.
They played games in bed.
Literally.
There was no role-playing, costume-donning, or any of the other lurid fantasies which that always-helpful internet connection had suggested. Instead, there was... Monopoly, a much-modified version of Clue, Sorry, Mastermind, Yahtzee, and now Trivial Pursuit. This hadn't happened every night of their six weeks, four days, and counting relationship, especially given the number of times they'd had sex on House's couch, but it was still a lot more often than Wilson would have ever believed possible... if he was involved with anyone other than Gregory House, who turned out not to have a mere drawer or shelf but an entire closet full of games.
House also almost always won, with the sole exception of Yahtzee, which Wilson always had done inexplicably well at. It didn't do a great deal for Wilson's self-esteem, which was already wondering why he'd done this in the first place. It didn't help that other parts of his psyche were in agreement, contemplating the fact that he was sprawled in his boxer shorts on a king-sized bed with a man, also in his boxer shorts, that he'd been dying to sleep with for the longest time, and all they were doing was playing board games. And, in this particular game, asking questions that House knew the answers to far too often.
Not that there wouldn't be sex later, but in the meantime House seemed to suffer from an almost insatiable need for victories that was, frankly, a little worrying. This couldn't possibly be healthy. Combined with the sort of mental hyperactivity of a six-year-old that seemed to categorize House at his worst, and Wilson understood, theoretically, exactly how they'd gotten here.
He just wasn't entirely sure why he was going along with it, but suspected it was because he couldn't possibly be healthy, either.
House was winning tonight, too, of course--in fact, the only reason he hadn't already won, probably, was that Wilson had flatly nixed one of the traditional rules from the moment he'd seen the game box, insisting that since there were only two of them, they would alternate turns. Left to his own devices, with that rule about a player continuing until he got a question wrong, House's insane memory probably would have swept the board, a feat which Wilson had no hope of matching. Which also meant they'd be having sex right now, but there were only so many blows Wilson's ego was willing to take for the sake of his libido--even if House did give better blow-jobs than any of his wives, girlfriends, one-night stands, or that one girl at that party that he'd always suspected had actually been a prostitute.
The girl, that was. Not the party.
Of course, he'd had to concede that asking questions on the category squares was pointless if the turns were alternating, which had resulted in House winning the right to have either of them claim pie wedges for questions correctly answered on any square. Wilson hadn't actually argued that point too much, because it would at least get things over with more quickly. So House already had yellow, green, and orange, but Wilson had his green and pink, so it wasn't a total rout. On the other hand, he'd just lost a Science and Nature question he should have gotten, probably because he'd been staring at Greg's stomach, so he wasn't necessarily feeling too proud of himself.
Life dating an eccentric genius was... pretty much exactly what he'd expected, actually.
House rolled, hummed thoughtfully at the board for a moment, and then moved his piece to land on an Entertainment square.
This, Wilson decided, had gone far enough. If he was going to lose anyway, the least he could do was speed the process of his getting laid along as well.
"Hand me the card, would you?" he asked House, trying to sound casual.
House did a thing with his eyebrows. He and Wilson were sort of angled around the board, which was in a diamond position relative to the bed, with the corners of the board, card dispenser at the top and a pile of pie-wedges scattered in rainbow profusion against House's navy-blue bedspread at the bottom, pointed towards the foot and head rather than in-line with the bed shape. So, theoretically, the card dispenser was no more difficult for Wilson to reach than for House. If asked, he couldn't even claim it was because he was the one stuck leaning on his right side, since House knew he was left-handed, but Wilson didn't think House would ask--not when it would be so much more fun to just do it and find out for himself.
After a second, House smiled one of his fractional grins and passed him the card, saying, "Aren't you worried I'll cheat?"
"You could. But you won't because you like beating me on your own merits just a little too much," Wilson told him, claiming both the card and the hand that came with it. House glanced down at their hands and quirked just the one eyebrow this time--interested, Wilson decided, but not yet engaged. Well, halfway to where Wilson wanted him.
He glanced at the card and held back a sigh. It would figure House got one he knew the answer to--which meant House probably did as well. Which meant unless he did something, House was going to be two-thirds of the way to winning, while Wilson languished a third behind.
Fortunately, he had a plan.
Still pretending to study the card, Wilson tugged lightly on House's hand, watching the expression on his face as he did so. Mild curiosity, nothing intense, until Wilson had the hand at his lips, which made House do another eyebrow quirk. Wilson grinned a little, and then ignored House's expression in favor of focusing on slowly, teasingly running the tip of his tongue along House's knuckles, and then turning his hand over to place a lingering but light kiss on the middle of House's palm before trailing his tongue up to the base of House's index finger.
When he glanced back up through lowered lashes, House wasn't even looking at the game anymore. Perfect.
"What movie was Bill Murray trying to film when an angry woodchuck took a bite out of him?"
House blinked and looked, briefly, completely lost, which was probably the biggest hit Wilson had scored off him since the time he'd rolled four sixes three times in one game of Yahtzee. "What?"
He raised his own eyebrows, still holding House's hand up next to his face. "You need me to repeat the question?" he asked, managing to sound skeptical, incredulous, and a bit smug all at once.
It worked like a charm. House glowered at him and said, "No," tersely... but didn't pull his hand back, either. Perfect. Wilson smiled and went back to what he'd been doing, moving his tongue up the index finger before slowly, teasingly sucking on the finger's tip, and hearing House's breath quicken slightly as a result.
He stopped for just a moment to say, "Time limit on answering."
"Since when?" House asked, eyebrows rising again.
"Since... now," Wilson answered, shooting him his best, 'Are you going to argue with me under these circumstances?' look.
There was a long moment during which House tried to glare at him and mostly failed, probably because Wilson had moved on to including House's middle finger in the attention his index had been getting. "All right. Fine. Caddyshack."
Wilson smiled and gave House's fingertips one last teasing flick of tongue before letting his hand go. "Nope. Groundhog Day."
"You did that deliberately," House said, voice low, but it looked like he might have been suppressing a smile.
"You think so? Pass the die."
House muttered something about 'die' that sounded vaguely threatening, but he did use his newly-freed hand to flick the die in Wilson's direction instead of throwing it, which showed things could be worse. Wilson rolled, contemplated the board, and moved onto a history square.
House stared at him for a minute, probably considering whether turnabout was fair play, before taking the card and reading, "What did FDR remove rationing controls from, on July 38th, 1943, to the delight of a drowsy population? And what kind of a history question is that?"
"Coffee. And what do you want, questions about Rome? English colonialism? Obscure African tribal practices that I have no prayer of knowing about?"
"Yes," House said, but he gave Wilson his pie wedge anyway and then reclaimed the die.
He landed on Sports and Leisure and gave Wilson a flat look before saying, "I'm not handing you the card again."
"I didn't ask you to," Wilson said smoothly, taking the card for himself. This one was a bit better, but he still didn't trust House to miss it on his own, so he casually slid his free hand down his side as he read, stopping to play with the top of his boxers, teasing the elastic down a little bit at a time. House's eyes followed the movement, and then narrowed.
"I could do this to you, you know," he said, but he didn't glance away from Wilson's slowly appearing hipbone.
"By all means, go ahead. I'm not the one with the all-consuming need for victory."
House's gaze came up to give him a flat look, but Wilson just smiled and licked his lips as slowly and deliberately as he possibly could, which made the flat look vanish very quickly.
"What became a fad first: the Barbie doll, the Hula Hoop, or Mr. Potato Head?"
House blinked at him, looking vaguely affronted. "The Hula Hoop," he said, as though it was self-evident.
Wilson smirked. "Mr. Potato Head."
House's head tilted, and then he said, "Give me that," and took the card to read for himself, frowning as he did so.
"Don't trust me?" Wilson asked, putting on mock-hurt.
"I don't trust them. I'm going to have to Google this tomorrow."
"Be my guest, but give me the die back for now."
House didn't mutter anything this time, and he handed instead of flicking, but he did glare at Wilson when he claimed House's hand again.
"It's not going to work now that I know you're doing it."
"I'm so reassured to know that," Wilson said, and somewhat awkwardly used his right hand to roll and move his piece.
"And I'm not going to be able to take a card with you holding my hand."
"I could always pass you it with my teeth," he suggested, mostly to see the reaction, which didn't disappoint. A healthy flush was creeping up House's sides and neck, and apparently that image was one he liked, because his pupils dilated slightly.
House didn't answer, just managed to awkwardly fetch the card with his left hand. Then he glared at the question for a moment before looking up at Wilson, who did his best to look innocent and harmless.
Which lasted just as long as it took for House's hand, still in his grip, to break free... and retrace the path Wilson's own hand had taken earlier, down his side. Except when House hit the edge of Wilson's boxers, he kept going, shoving that side as far down as it could go before the fabric, still trapped under his other hip, pulled taut. Which was more than enough to give new and interesting sensations to a bit of Wilson's personal anatomy that was already half-engaged.
"Fuck," he breathed, as House's hand slowly and deliberately slid down his hip, gliding under his boxers and moving with a familiar controlled slowness towards the promised land, so to speak. He tried to glare at the other man, but it didn't entirely work, all things considered. "That's completely...."
"I thought you didn't care if you won," House said, smirking, his hand now moving in teasing little swirls across Wilson's skin, very carefully avoiding his growing erection.
"I didn't say that...."
"Yes you d-" House began, then paused and looked thoughtful, hand still moving. "Well, no, I suppose you didn't. Still, are you going to ask me to stop?"
"I could really grow to hate you," Wilson breathed, resting his head on his arm and half-closing his eyes.
"What nation is divided by the Great Dividing Range?" House asked, sounding almost chipper, and moved his hand onto Wilson's cock.
His body jerked in response, and he had to bite his lip to regain enough focus to even process the question. He knew this one, thank god--he couldn't possibly have tried to figure it out any other way, with his attention so engaged elsewhere. "Australia," he managed to grit out, in lieu of actually moaning it. He wasn't that fond of the country, after all.
"Chase?" House demanded, hand stilling.
"What the hell?" Wilson demanded, opening his eyes and glaring, because you just did not stop in the middle of....
"I meant did you pick that up from--oh, never mind," House said, and pulled his hand back, fishing Wilson's pie wedge out of the pile and giving it to him.
"I could really grow to hate you," Wilson told him. House stuck his tongue out, which was juvenile, but from the way his boxer shorts were fitting, he wasn't exactly unmoved by the moving he'd just done, so all in all the brief flash of his tongue just put Wilson's mind to all the places that tongue could be busy right now.
Naturally, instead of doing any of those things, House rolled and moved onto a Science & Nature square, which was almost a guaranteed win, given their professions.
This called for desperate measures. House was giving him a narrow, glittery-eyed look that suggested he agreed and was expecting something, so Wilson reached over, took a card, and read both it and the answer as casually as he could manage.
Then he reached over, eyes still fixed on the card, and grabbed House's hand, surprised enough when House let him do it to look up at him.
House smirked. "It's a Science and Nature question, and you're doing your best not to look worried. Think a little finger-teasing is going to throw me off?"
Wilson smirked back with equal intensity, pleased to see House's smile falter a little bit even before he spoke. "Oh, but you upped the ante already, remember?"
House's smile faded even more, eyes widening slightly, and Wilson deliberately put the card down, the questions facing up, and levered himself up into something nearly a sitting position before he switched possession of House's arm over to his right hand.
He got to see House's expression slide into actually worried before Wilson kissed his palm again, less lightly than before. Then he smiled, moved on to licking and nibbling his way over to the base of House's thumb, and reached over to House with his free hand, managing to smoothly slide it inside House's boxers, bypassing any sort of teasing in favor of going directly to stroking down what was already a surprisingly hard erection.
House didn't say anything, but when Wilson glanced up from his grazing on House's hand, his eyes were half-closed, his breathing was labored, his left hand had clenched into a fist, and that flush had spread again.
"Still confident?" Wilson couldn't help asking, before sucking House's entire thumb into his mouth.
House's eyes still glittered under his lowered lids. "Ask the question," he said, voice as tense as it would have been if he was angry--except the entirely helpless twitch of House's hips as Wilson deliberately increased the pressure of one of his strokes strongly suggested it wasn't anger doing that at all.
Wilson smiled. "What fruit," he asked, as he moved his lips onto House's inner wrist, mouth open and wet now, scraping lightly with his teeth rather than nibbling, "gives slivovitz brandy its sweetness?"
Dead silence was the response for a long moment, and Wilson deliberately stopped moving his hand and glanced up at House with raised eyebrows.
"Oh don't even start," House said, in that same, tight voice, going a bit hoarse around the edges now. "I know this one."
"I'm sure you do," Wilson muttered, and started moving his kisses up House's arms, leaving a little pattern of bites in his wake. He started his other hand moving again, a slow, teasing stroke down, then a fast stroke up, then an equally fast stroke down before another slow, teasing stroke up.
"I... fuck," House said, voice breaking at last, and Wilson rubbed his thumb across the head of Greg's cock shamelessly, enjoying the resulting shudder. Remarkably, when he did finally answer, his voice was completely steady, if unusually tentative. "Pears?"
"Plums," Wilson told him, mouth on the bend of his elbow, with House's entire body angling towards him across the board.
"Damn," House muttered, not sounding upset or annoyed at all, and then he squirmed his hands free and grabbed Wilson's face for an intense kiss, knocking both their pieces out of place.
Wilson pulled free, feeling dizzy, and glanced down at the board. "I'm winning," he had time to observe, noting the pie-wedges in his wheel, and then House said, "You won," and shoved the whole game off the bed and onto the floor.
Messy, but under the circumstances, he could deal with that.
A couple pie pieces hadn't quite gone over with the rest of it; Wilson shoved them off with his feet as he squirmed the rest of his way out of his boxers, while House's kisses trailed down onto his neck, nibbling along the line of his pulse just gently enough not to leave marks that would still be there in the morning. House's boxers came off nearly as easily, even with the difficulty of his leg, through long practice on House's part and more dedicated, if more recent, practice on Wilson's own side of things. Then it was skin on skin as House pushed him over and dragged himself on top, kissing Wilson's mouth again and tangling his hands in Wilson's hair. The hardness of his erection poked into Wilson's right hip, but House did at least shave before bed, so the beard-prickle was reduced on his side--if probably increased for House himself, given that Wilson shaved in the mornings.
Five weeks ago this had still felt new, and a little strange, given the scarcity of his experiences before; now it just felt right, and... good. He rocked up against House, and got a nice little noise out of him, then smiled lazily, dragging his hands down House's back and over his ass, which made Greg make another appreciative sound and press against him harder, nipping his lower lip. That made him smile wider, and House muttered something about smug wonder-boy oncologists into the corner of his mouth, before moving his attentions down to Wilson's chest, which Wilson was perfectly willing to let him do. He panted, hands on House's face, and rocked upwards, rubbing his erection against House's stomach while House's erection pressed into his right thigh now, and House laughed softly while he slowly sucked on a nipple.
Wilson had been much more hesitant, at first, worried about Greg's leg and accidentally hurting him, but then House had told him that he was not made of china and he would not break, and if Wilson didn't stop acting like he was and could, he owned a cane and wasn't afraid to use it. And then he'd proceeded to give Wilson some of the best head of his life, as if to underscore the point. Wilson still wasn't entirely sure if it had been the metaphorical carrot or the literal stick, but he'd gotten the point in either case.
Which meant he was confident enough now to tug House's face back up to his and kiss him soundly before flipping him over, pinning Greg on his back, one of Wilson's hands holding House's wrists together above his head. He still took a certain amount of care not to hit House's bad leg while doing it, but he didn't panic over the fact that he might. Of course, it helped that being a doctor made him appreciate things like endorphin surges, but most of it was the realization that House had been right. And besides, knowing the way House behaved as he did, Wilson figured if anyone did break House, it would be the man himself.
House grinned up at him and waggled his eyebrows lasciviously. "Planning to ravish me to celebrate your victory?" he asked, and squirmed a bit, not, Wilson suspected, from discomfort, but instead to show himself off a bit better.
For about fifteen seconds he did seriously consider taking it as far as the potential implications of that question went. The thing was.... They hadn't quite made it to actual penetration yet. Wilson had decided that was probably somewhere on the future menu, though--hell, maybe House was saving it as a celebration for the day Wilson finally beat him at Clue, though Wilson hoped not, because he didn't think that day was going to be any time in the immediate future. Or maybe he was just waiting for Wilson to ask, in which case nothing would also happen in the immediate future, because he still in some ways felt too hesitant about this new development to risk getting it wrong.
Not even when House made deliberately provocative statements like that, and he knew there was lube in the drawer on the bedside table.
"Well, that depends," he said, shifting a little to make himself more comfortable. The problem was, House knew exactly what he was doing, and shifted with him.
"On?"
He lowered his face down close enough to House's face that they were staring eye to eye, inhaling and exhaling each other's breath. "Do you want me to ravish you?" Wilson asked, aiming for playful, and hearing his voice go husky instead.
House smiled, that knowing, 'I just figured something out,' smirk that he got sometimes and was probably going to result in him being tied down to the bed someday and made to thoroughly beg, just as soon as Wilson figured out how to do it without House seeing it coming. Which, going by tonight, might not have been as unlikely as he had initially believed.
"Do you want me to ask you to do it?" House said, his own voice low.
Wilson looked at him for a long moment of inhale, exhale, inhale. They were pressed closely enough together that Wilson could feel the muscles in House's stomach trembling against his own. Slowly, he nodded.
House smiled again, less knowing and more sincere this time, and twisted again in Wilson's grip. "Well then," he said, voice husky, "please, ravish me."
"Technically, that was a command, not a question," Wilson pointed out, but before House could reply he leaned down and kissed him, drawing it out as long as he could, until he had to surface for air and House looked almost dizzy from the lack of it. Wilson didn't give him time to recover, moving his attentions down to House's collarbone and licking his way slowly up one side, with occasional pauses for nips. House struggled against him again, not quite breaking free, and Wilson paused to grin into the skin of his shoulder as he realized House was deliberately holding back, that he wanted to be here.
Good. That made two of them.
He shifted so he was straddling House's good leg and thigh while his mouth got to work on the other collarbone, and then took the hand that had been freed from his weight and brought it up to tease House's nipples, pinching one lightly the way he knew Greg liked. House shuddered and rocked up against him in response, hip pushing against Wilson's cock, and Wilson broke off his kissing to suck in a breath.
He didn't have to see House's face to know House was smirking, and it wasn't just because he recognized the muscle movement in Greg's neck and jaw that accompanied that.
"I thought you said you wanted to get ravished," he pointed out, taking his hand away from House's nipples and trailing it slowly down his chest and across the flat plane of his stomach.
"I did. You didn't say I couldn't try to ravish back, though," House pointed out, in his most reasonable tone.
Wilson laughed and kissed him, hungrily swallowing down the moan that came when his trailing hand finally reached House's cock and closed around the base of it. House's hips pumped once, almost leisurely, and Wilson decided that the stretch of holding House's arms in place while doing this was too much, and let go of his wrists in favor of what was, after all, probably a more strategically important hold anyway.
He felt a little shiver and a deeper flush move through him when House kept his hands there, wrists crossed over each other, and lazily smiled up at him.
He moved his free hand back to House's chest, tweaking a nipple again, and watching the way Greg shivered in response, fingers on his hands clenching, then relaxing. Wilson's turn to smirk, now, as he started his hand moving back up and down House's cock, hot velvet smoothness under his touch, the muscles in House's stomach bunching and then relaxing as he rocked in time with his strokes. His eyes were nearly completely closed, his breathing was coming in pants now, and every movement of his hips was maddening against Wilson's own untouched erection, making him grit his teeth together to try and maintain control. Torture... and he almost didn't want it to stop.
He leaned down and kissed House again, slowly, lingeringly, and then pulled back to watch as he increased the pace and pressure, and House squirmed and panted and still somehow kept his hands in place. It lasted until he rubbed his thumb slowly across the head of House's cock at the same time as he delivered a particularly sharp pinch to one nipple, and House arched under him, eyes closing and hands finally shaken free from their crossed position by the intensity of the movement.
He grinned down at House until House recovered enough to open his eyes, and then asked, "Was it good for you, too?"
"If you stop...." House managed to get out in a choked voice, the last word nearly moaned as Wilson briefly squeezed, just on the edge of too-hard.
"Killing me would be counter-productive," he pointed out.
"I won't kill you," House said, voice rapid and condensed to get out past his lack of air. "I'll tell Cuddy you've been harboring a secret passion for her for years but are too embarrassed to say anything on your own."
For a second, Wilson completely stopped moving. "You wouldn't."
House just smirked, so Wilson leaned down and bit his lower lip, hard enough to be sure it stung, at the same time as he resumed the movement of his hand on House's cock. The resulting groan was satisfying, particularly when he could feel, through the hand now splayed on Greg's chest, the furious pounding of his heart.
He stayed there for a few moments more, the kiss gentling into something more normal, before he leaned away again, not wanting to be too involved in the moment himself. House was very close, James could tell by the way his hips were moving, by the gasps he couldn't hold back anymore, by the glaze on his eyes and the sheen of sweat on his skin, and Wilson wanted, needed to hear him lose control, to hear that break in his voice, to see that moment when Greg unashamedly needed him, and wasn't afraid to show it or feel it.
The word 'love' hadn't come up yet. He didn't know if it ever would, honestly. After three divorces, he didn't trust it anymore, and he didn't think House did, either, though for different reasons. At times like this, he wasn't sure it ever needed to come up, either. It wasn't as if it wasn't there, it wasn't as if both of them didn't know. And saying it, James had finally come to realize, didn't really mean anything at all.
He increased the speed of his hand again, upping the pressure slightly, and watched that flush on House's skin, that darkness in his eyes. Then he did his best to memorize how Greg looked as he came, the way his head threw back into the pillows, eyes closed, teeth clenched around a moan, one hand clutched in the sheet and the other digging into Wilson's hip, hard enough to leave marks, and make Wilson wonder if there might even be bruises there in the morning.
Wilson watched him take a few shaky breaths, shivering a little, and then his eyes half-opened and he gave James a sleepy smile. His hand came up from the bedspread, tangled in Wilson's hair, and dragged Wilson's mouth down for a kiss, while his other hand let go of Wilson's hip and took Wilson's hand away from him, finally placing it together with House's hand on Wilson's own cock, by now so hard it almost hurt, the shock of that sensation alone enough to drag a choked noise out of him. House didn't make him wait, didn't tease, just started moving immediately, stroking him in time with Wilson's hand, Wilson's thrusts.
Wilson swallowed down a moan of his own, giving up on his carefully-held control and rocking into House's hip and touch, kissing him and biting him and muttering curses and gasps with what little air he had when his mouth wasn't occupied with skin or lips. His hand sped up, and House's kept pace, and then he was coming as well, dropping his head and sinking his teeth into the base of Greg's neck without even thinking about it, feeling House shudder again in response.
And for a little while, everything was perfect.
Post-coital was odd, too, but that was more for what it wasn't than what it was. Wilson had appointed himself to cleanup duty after the first couple times, and suspected this might be a more or less permanent fixture of the relationship--not because House didn't care, but because a good orgasm reduced House to about the physical and mental consistency of jello. He wasn't really vulnerable, needy, or anything so dramatic, he was just astoundingly... mellow. His team probably wouldn't have even recognized him.
Not that House's team knew about their relationship to begin with--so far, no one at the hospital did, though from the looks Cuddy was giving them, she either suspected it, or else had installed spy devices around House years ago, which was actually both not entirely implausible and a really creepy thought. In any case, Wilson wasn't particularly looking forward to what would be said when people did finally find out... and wasn't really sure how to keep that from happening. Especially when House was just as likely to, in the middle of working on a patient, take a sip of his coffee and casually say, "Oh, by the way, Wilson and I are sleeping together now, just thought you should know."
He was really hoping if House did, he wouldn't be there to endure the looks--although he more than half-suspected at least one of the team would just glance up and say, "You mean you weren't already?"
So he dug out the Kleenexes and then rolled House under the sheets, torn between amusement and annoyance at the particularly boneless state Greg had somehow achieved. It was remarkable the man had gone as long as he had without being in a relationship; if sex had left Wilson in that comparatively good a state, he'd have been doing everything in his power to get laid on a daily basis--and they weren't even doing that now.
As he crawled into bed, House, who was sprawled on his back, murmured in a tone of distinct laziness, "I guess tomorrow is a turtleneck day."
Wilson curled onto his side and glanced over at the red mark on House's neck and tried to figure out how bad the bruising was going to be. "Actually, I think it might be turtleneck days for a while."
House smiled a little. "You're just trying to get me into a suit and tie."
"Which would cover that up, true."
"I hate ties." House sounded sulky, and Wilson gave him a little smile of his own.
"I've always wondered about that. Metaphorical choke-chain?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"You realize," House said, completely without heat, "if you're going to compare me to a dog, that I could bite you, and I haven't had my shots?"
"I realize," Wilson said, drawing the word out, "that after sex you can barely move yourself enough to get under the covers. Inflicting physical harm on me might be a bit beyond your capabilities right now."
"Oh, sure, it's fun to taunt the helpless House."
"Please," Wilson said. "Besides, we've had sex. Anything you have, I've probably gotten by now, too."
"Good thing cynicism isn't catching, huh?"
Wilson laughed a little, and got out of bed, padding naked into the bathroom and ignoring the appreciative whistle House gave him. When he came back, he flicked off the wall switch for the overhead light, leaving him to negotiate to the bed by feel, memory, and dim glow the small floor-light House had installed on the theory that with all his other problems, he didn't need to stub a toe on the way to the bathroom as well. Wilson was used to this by now, though, and it wouldn't have been a problem--if the floor had been clear.
"Ow."
"Ow?" House asked, after a moment, sounding half-asleep.
He lifted one foot, picked a plastic pie wedge off of it, and held it up to House.
"Ah," House said. "Yellow. History."
Wilson shook his head and crawled back under the covers, curling onto his side facing House again. "They're scattered all across the floor. Be careful when you get up tomorrow. And from now on, we're playing something else. Maybe Scrabble--you can spell out obscure medical terminology for triple word score and I'll settle for dirty words for letter bonuses."
"Wouldn't it be the other way around?" House asked, eyes only half open. "The brilliant young oncologist with the medical terminology and the cranky old bastard with the dirty words?"
"Well, you're the clever one, remember?" he muttered, halfway between sleepy and petulant.
House gave a sharp exhalation just short of a snort. "No, I'm the genius. You're the clever one."
Wilson was fairly sure there was a major point being made here, so he resisted the urge to drift off and tried to consider it. Eventually, he gave up. "Why?"
"Why what?" House asked, staring at the ceiling. He glanced over at Wilson. "I mean you're going to have to narrow it down a bit, unless you really do mean 'why everything', and I believe the answer to that is 42."
"Why am I the clever one?"
House eyebrows raised and then lowered. "Well, you won, didn't you?"
"I cheated," Wilson felt obligated to point out.
"I don't believe in cheating. You just did what you had to to win." House leaned up on an elbow, and Wilson could see his grin even in the dim lighting. "You leveled the playing field."
He smiled a little, without even thinking about it. "I thought you didn't want a level playing field."
"No, that was you. I'm okay with all sorts of playing fields. Level, unlevel, fair, unfair...." he gave a sharp flick of his eyebrows as if in punctuation, "As long as there's a game going on."
"And someone to play it with," Wilson said, slowly.
"Exactly," House said, and gave him a smile that was open and caring enough to take Wilson's breath away. "Now will you stop quietly angsting over the supposed disparity in our relationship and let me get some sleep?"
Another dead hit, but Wilson had learned how to deal with that sort of thing a long time ago, so he just raised his eyebrows and said, "And how is my angst affecting your slumber? Once you actually get under you sleep like the dead."
"I'm a sensitive soul," House declaimed. "Your mental distress is permeating the local ether. If we had a cat he'd be upset too."
"If you're sensitive," Wilson muttered, "I'm-"
"Come to think of it, why don't we have a cat?" House continued over him, sounding puzzled. "Neither of us could manage a dog with our hours, but a nice, independent, aloof cat could really spice up the place."
Wilson shut up for a minute rather than following with the obvious rejoinder there. He didn't think House really wanted a cat--though he could be wrong. He thought House was probably making another point, and it would be stupid to miss it.
Short term relationships... didn't usually invest in shared pets. And House had said, "we" when talking about that cat. Which... was... nice. Reassuring. And very... House.
Maybe Wilson really was over-thinking this and worrying too much about it. After all, not many people could even keep up this much with House, enough to even begin to follow the cat wherever he was taking it, or for that matter figure out where the hell the cat had come from in the first place, both things Wilson felt he was probably fairly on top of.
And he had won.
"All right. You-" he paused on the point of completing that sentence, "do not win, but I'll agree to a draw."
House laughed. "And a level playing field?"
"Or something."
"Good." House curled into him and he felt the presence of a smile against the skin of his neck just before he whispered salaciously into Wilson's ear, "But you're still the girl."
Wilson bit him where it would show even with a turtleneck on.
Please post a comment on this story.
Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
|
|
|