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Blue Cotton
by Basingstoke
Thanks to Nestra for her helpful beta comments.
*
It was Wilson at the door, of course, with a white paper bag in his hand and a hangdog look on his face. House stared him down for a long second, trying to see just exactly how pathetic and puppyish a look Wilson could muster.
Pretty damn pathetic, as it happened. House hadn't see that particular twist of mouth before. "That's quite a talent you have," House said.
"What?"
"Elegant begging."
"I wasn't *begging,*" Wilson scoffed. He pushed past House and headed toward the kitchen. "You looked like hell today, so I brought you a pastry."
House shut the door and followed him. "I looked like hell until I took my Vicodin, you mean."
"You still look like hell." Wilson took two small plates down from the cupboard. He opened the bag and removed two croissants glazed with sugar and sliced almonds. "Can we not have the same argument again?" he asked, eyes turned down as he shoved one plate across House's kitchen table.
"Sure."
Wilson looked up, one eyebrow cocked. House sat down and stuffed his face. Almond paste filling. Yummy. "I can't believe that actually worked. It never does with my wife--with any of my wives," Wilson said.
"You have a taste for argumentative women. Nobody to blame but yourself," House said, gesturing with his croissant.
Wilson shrugged, silently conceding the point. He tore apart his croissant and licked out the filling first.
"As peace offerings go, this isn't bad," House said. "I could get used to this."
Wilson frowned and turned his eviscerated pastry over in his hands. "I thought you could use something to eat; I could smell the vomit in your office. You might want to buy the janitor something nice. Her name is Astra, and she already doesn't like you."
"Nobody likes me except my sister and, for some reason, you," House pointed out.
"Well, sometimes I don't like you much either!" Wilson's hands jerked and he glanced over at the cupboard, but then back at House to meet his eyes.
"Ooh, and we're down to one." House grinned and tipped back in his chair. "I should give Margaret a call, break the bad news."
Wilson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Is she still at MIT?"
"You couldn't pry her out with a crowbar." She was a mathematician. She worked on imaginary numbers and didn't think any of his jokes on that subject were funny. Possibly, he had to admit, because he didn't understand the subject enough to get a really good crack in, but he was reading up nights and working on his routine.
And Wilson was fretting, pulling his croissant into quarters and eighths. So good of him to worry.
"Are you okay?" Wilson asked.
"Me?" House cocked his head to one side and considered the state of himself. Leg, quelled. Hand, healing. Belly, filled. Best friend, present. Case, solved. Nobody had pulled his cork recently, but he was content to handle that himself. "I'm good," he said.
"You're fine. That's it, you're just fine?" Wilson seemed almost offended by that.
"This past week I was not fine, because I was in so much pain it hurt to think. Now I'm fine. Except that it's hard to open jars," House said, looking at his smashed hand. Stupid of him, but it would heal, and now he knew exactly how much he could stand before doing something drastic.
Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose, leaving sticky sugar behind from his fingers. He scowled and got up to grab a paper towel.
"Obviously *you're* not fine," House said. Wilson wet the paper towel at the sink and House regarded his back. "Bringing me presents? Fidgeting? You've got something to say, but you said you don't want to argue. If it's not a lecture, it must be... guilt?"
Wilson wiped his face and hands. He threw the towel away and stood against the counter; when he looked at House, guilt was all over his face, plain as the printed page.
"It was your idea to dare me, not Cuddy's. You put her up to it," House realized.
Wilson curled his fingers under the lip of the counter, admitting it with his silence.
"Obvious. I should have seen it already. That idea didn't come from professional concern, it came from love."
Wilson startled a little. Oh, yeah, that was one of those things you weren't supposed to say. "From friendship," House said, giving Wilson an out if he needed it. He was already jumpy as a bunny; one good goose and he might leave a Wilson-shaped hole in the wall.
"Yes. Love. I'm not *that* insecure." Wilson rolled his eyes. "Look, we already had this argument. You changed, of course you changed. But I miss you, and I thought..."
House gestured with his bandaged hand. "A little intervention might make time flow backwards?"
"It might make you more conscious of who you are and what you're doing," Wilson said sharply.
"Knowing is half the battle."
"Yes. Yes it is."
"Wanting to change is the other half," House said.
Wilson sighed. "Okay."
"Do you know what the worst part about lying in the hospital bed was?" House asked.
"The pain," Wilson replied. "I could tell by the screaming."
"The screaming was mostly recreational," House said, because ridiculous lies were the only lies worth telling. Wilson had been there. Wilson had made them treat the pain. He'd been the one who let House *think* well enough to figure out what was wrong with himself. "The real worst part was everyone coming by and telling me it was going to be all right when it *wasn't*. Even after I clued them in to what was actually going on. Even after they knew my leg was *dead*. Even when I was in a fucking wheelchair, people happily told me I'd be running the marathon soon. I hate being wrapped in pink cotton!"
"Most people call that hope!" Wilson snapped.
"Think how fucking depressed I would be if I had believed them!"
"You might have recovered."
"I didn't."
"You. Might. Have. And taking away that hope for other people--"
"Makes me honest!" House shouted.
"Makes you a bastard!" Wilson shouted over him.
They stared into each other's eyes for a second, then House laughed and Wilson dropped his head.
"What?" Wilson asked.
"You just noticed?"
"You don't have to be so damned proud about it." Wilson pushed away from the counter and sat back down in his chair. He folded his arms and stretched out, crossing his ankles under the table.
"I have high self-esteem. I can't help it."
Wilson took House's bandaged hand and examined the garish bruise critically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for things to go that far."
"Don't apologize for things I do. My choice, my action, my fault." His will, his pride, his stubbornness. His nature.
He let Wilson turn his hand over. Wilson opened his mouth and House cut him off, "Don't even. You're not the boss of me."
Wilson snorted. "Technically, I'm higher-ranked."
"Bah!" House waved his other hand dismissively. "But hey," he said, "guilt croissant, guilt masseuse--if I lay it on, will you buy me a guilt hooker?"
"No." But Wilson was smiling.
"I'm very tense."
"I don't want to hear about it," Wilson said, leaning back, laughing.
"I haven't gotten laid in--"
"I am, in fact, not listening." Wilson covered his ears and looked up at the ceiling.
House thought about how long it had been and blinked. "You know, you might have a point. I was having a dry spell even before the infarction." His last serious girlfriend had broken up with him nearly a decade ago.
"What about Cameron?"
"What *about* Cameron?"
"You took her to the monster truck rally."
"Don't tell me you're one of those people who believes that men and women can't be friends," House said. Then he considered Wilson's history. "Wait. *Have* you ever been friends with a woman and not gotten her into bed?"
"Dr. Cuddy. Dr. Sing. Dr.--"
House raised a finger and a point of order. "You put the moves on Dr. Sing. I saw you."
Wilson rolled his eyes. "Your sister."
"I believe you," House said quickly.
"Fine figure of a woman though she is--"
House grabbed his cane and stood up faster than he really should have. Wilson followed him pitilessly into the living room. "Flaxen hair," Wilson said, "cerulean eyes--"
"James, if you don't stop, you're going to see a grown man cry."
"Heh." Wilson stopped, and House started to smile, but couldn't quite manage it. A photograph had caught his eye.
Over Wilson's shoulder, on top of a stack of books on the end-cap of one of his shelves, there was a flip-stand stocked with the best of House's photograph collection. House reached over Wilson's shoulder and twitched the display over to the next leaf.
From a picture of his college soccer team leaping in the air after a victory to a picture of his parents, barely more than kids, holding his sister as an infant. "Cerulean, huh?" House said. "I'll mention that when I call."
Wilson glanced back at him from the display. "And skin of flawless alabaster."
"Ah, yes." House flipped to the next leaf, a shot of Jenny, his ex-fiancee, lying nude across the bed. Her chin resting on her forearms, her nose wrinkled, her cat curled up on her back. She'd asked him to scratch her nose and he'd grabbed the camera. They'd ended up staying naked for most of the day.
He took the display down and shook it sharply forward. When he put it back up, he and Wilson reflected as two dark shapes in the brushed metal cover.
"You really can't discount how much of it is just me," House said. "I mean, I turned Jenny into a lesbian."
Wilson laughed. House looked at him and smiled.
The end.
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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.
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