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Eggs For Breakfast
by Asynca
Even two Vicodin later, the piano stool felt like it had become spontaneously flatter overnight. Razor flat, House decided, as he shifted his weight to restore blood to his good leg. Similarly, the piano was probably pushing into his spine on purpose. Even his furniture hated him.
By the position Wilson was trying to sleep in, House suspected that the furniture might hate Wilson, too. Or maybe it was finding sneaky new ways of torturing House by proxy.
At some point during the night, a long time before House had abandoned sleep, the blankets had fled Wilson and snuck under the couch. Wilson had somehow compensated by unconsciously pulling his trench coat from where it had been neatly folded over the back of the couch to haphazardly cover random body parts. The exposed parts, which included a triangle of lower back and an ankle, were freckled with goosebumps. House considered them, and debated whether turning up the heater or rescuing the blankets would be too obvious. Wilson was snoring like some sort of disused power tool and would undoubtedly never know about either; but that was beside the point. The third option was hypothermic cardiac arrest. But then who would cook him dinner?
Happily, House sneezed.
Wilson stirred, exhaling restfully until his eyes peaked open. Narrowing, they regarded House with an exquisite cocktail of sleepy confusion and accusation, "You're wearing my bathrobe." His throat was dry and scratchy, and his hair was like a wild animal with stage two rabies. It was all so fluffy and gooey and charming. House felt suitably nauseous.
"Well, you seemed to be doing just fine with your trench coat." Wilson's head was clearly thick with sleep, and House had to ruin the spontaneity of the joke by gesturing at Wilson's torso. Even staring directly at the coat, it took him a couple of seconds to register that he was cold and blanketless.
House sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, "It's no fun sparring with you in the morning. You fall off the horse before you're even on it."
Wilson fished around under the couch sluggishly for the blankets, "What, no baseball metaphors?" He retrieved a handful of them and pulled them possessively around his neck; a half-eaten packet of Smarties had hooked onto the blanket and sent little coloured buttons skittering across the floorboards.
House watched an offender disappear under the shelves, "I'm not picking those up."
Wilson snorted, "Nonsense. That was a red one."
Rather than acknowledge how well Wilson knew his taste in confectionary, House decided to stare pointedly at Wilson's smooth forehead. "I'm hungry," He announced, the implication being a directive... or possibly and imperative. House always got those two mixed up.
"Why are you sitting in the semi-dark, staring at me?"
"I don't hear the sound of eggs cooking."
"That's creepy, even for you. And you don't have any eggs."
"Then you'll have to go and buy some, won't you?"
Wilson exhaled, face neutral. "House, it's..." A glance at the two-dollar alarm clock, "Five am. On Saturday. The Handimart doesn't sell eggs."
"Move over."
Panic. Pure, unconcealed, unadulterated panic. "What?" Wilson's voice was starkly devoid of his usual smug confidence. That, in itself, was worth it.
"Not 'What', 'Pardon'," House corrected in true preschool-teacher fashion, then leaned his weight forward onto his cane, using the momentum as leverage to hoist himself upright, "I'm cold. Move over."
Wilson's lips parted silently as House stiffly approached the couch, staring up at him with big, saucer-like brown eyes. House decided he should definitely try to market that expression to Disney.
He stood pointedly over Wilson until, wordlessly, Wilson dropped his eyes to the floor and shifted forward on the cushions. House was both disturbed and proud that he had Wilson Housetrained so well. Of course he'd want to be the one against the backrest.
Descending behind Wilson gracefully was probably best left to Olympic gymnasts, or possibly Moira from Paediatrics. She had that athletic musculature which suggested creative sex. Maybe he should mention it loudly to Wilson next time they were on level three.
However, he didn't fall awkwardly, for which he was sure he deserved brownie points. Weight on one hip, he fussed around with the blankets, the comforting heat a distraction from his sulky leg.
Once he settled, he remembered Wilson.
Well, it was a little hard to forget him, given the concrete-like solid state Wilson had set in. "Now I know why the called it Wilson's disease," he complained, his index finger poking into a paralysed Rhomboid.
For a moment he was terrified Wilson might not reply - and awkward silences inevitably lead to analysis, and sometimes honest, frank admissions.
"It's a little hard to relax when you're about to fall off a couch onto icy floorboards," Wilson's voice was shaky, but a welcome reprieve from his panicked speechlessness.
House opened his mouth to counter something about catching him, and then shut it very tightly. Instead, he adjusted the pillow so it at least dampened the jut of the armrest into his neck. One shoulder and one arm were touching Wilson; the rest of him was pressed very firmly against the back of the couch. It was almost feverishly warm sharing blankets with someone, House mused, remembering Stacy, and then he had to think of something to say quickly before his brain ticked over.
"I'm stealing your pyjamas next," House advised him, then quickly added, "But I'm washing them first. Don't want to get icky oncologist germs."
"Clearly, that's a grave concern of yours."
Keep talking. "I'm just using you for your warmth. Like a cheap heat-pack that you don't have to keep returning to the microwave."
"You really know how to make a man feel wanted, you know."
Don't even think about addressing that one, House instructed his brain. Let's change the subject. His brain ruthlessly ignored him. He could feel Wilson's pulse in his shoulder; it was racing. And, Wilson was obviously concentrating very hard on trying to mask how fast he wanted to breathe. He was doing quite well, actually. Even House hadn't noticed it at first.
"Oh, stop pretending to be uncomfortable."
"You're right. I've always wanted to share a couch-bed with a drug-addicted psychopath. Who am I fooling?"
That comment called for a hug. On second thoughts, no it didn't. Hugs only served two purposes, to get something House wanted or ... no, just one purpose, actually. Just maybe with slightly different phrasing. Stacy had been a total sucker for them.
"Why are you staying here?" House asked accidentally, and then immediately wanted to slam his head in the piano.
"Free cable," Wilson replied, using question intonation, but House could see right through that perfect comedic timing.
It was light enough that House had front-row view of Wilson's neck and throbbing, distended jugular - and arteries never lie. A hand reached out idly, his middle finger pillowing artery, driving it further into Wilson's neck, and then releasing. Fingertips followed it upwards into Wilson's ample hair. Wilson's breath caught in his throat for a moment, in a way that indicated he'd been about to say something and then reconsidered. Just as House was inspecting a freckle, Wilson's head turned, nearly taking out an eye-socket. Then, before House could discern what was happening, Wilson had kidnapped his arm, and was holding it captive flat against his solar plexus.
"Liar," House accused him, his chest pressed against Wilson's now somewhat relaxed back.
"Yup," The other man acknowledged, but thankfully didn't elaborate.
The knot in the bathrobe was digging sharply into his ribs, but laziness directed him to ignore it. Besides, feeling around Wilson's chest was much more interesting. "You don't have any breasts."
Wilson laughed once, either out of shock or uneasiness, "Surprisingly, no," He turned his head a few times, where House's chin was touching the base of his neck, "And most women don't have three-day old stubble, either."
"Oh, I don't know about that. Stavroula definitely had the one up on my pesky regrowth."
Now, Wilson laughed properly, "Her name was Stephania, and that's a bit cruel. You can't help your genetics."
"Doesn't mean you have to sleep with them to prove how politically correct you are."
"I didn't sleep with her."
"Oral sex counts as sex," House pointed out.
A long-suffering sigh. "House. I know this concept is difficult for you to understand, so I'm going to say it slowly. I haven't been cheating on Julie," He enunciated the last sentence as if he were speaking an exchange student. Although, he would make a poor English teacher, as he was using entirely the wrong tense to conjugate verbs relating to his marriage.
"Got a camera phone? I'm sure she'd love this." Actually, House wasn't sure he wanted a photo of himself and Wilson circulating the cell phone network. Even if it would make Cuddy pissy and Cameron sulky.
There was a silence, in which House begged the universe that Wilson wasn't actually considering the proposal just to punish him.
"I'm going back to sleep," Wilson told him, spoiling all his fun. "Shut up now, and stop wriggling."
"At least now I'll be able to tell everyone we've slept together," House mused, eyebrows somewhere in the stratosphere. "And I still want eggs for breakfast."
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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 NBC/Universal, 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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