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Knowledge
by March Hare
One of my older stories. Mild spoilers for 2x24, "No Reason." My take on what happened before and after the episode.
~~
Wilson was on his knees, which was strange. He was also giving House a blowjob, which was stranger.
House sat at his office desk, head tilted back, carding long fingers through Wilson's brown hair, moaning with a definite note of encouragement as Wilson hit a sensitive spot. Wilson's hair, House noted in the tiny fraction of his mind still capable of rational thought, was soft and slightly damp; House calculated that Wilson must have showered somewhere between one and two hours ago, he could still smell the herbal shampoo that he favored, and then Wilson did this trick with his tongue and oh, God, that can't be legal.
Reminding himself to breathe through the dizzying rush of endorphins, House pried his eyes opened and looked down at his industrious friend. Wilson, who had helped and supported him in ways that House was unwilling to admit even to himself. Wilson, who took House's abuse and gave it right back in ways no other living soul could ever approach. Wilson, whose eyebrows were furrowed in a brand of concentration usually reserved for MRI and CT scans, as if he was searching for the right combination, the key that would push House over the edge, suck out his soul through his cock and send him falling right into endless oblivion...
The tumblers turned. Wilson pushed. And House fell.
By the time House made it back to himself, Wilson had already swallowed daintily and pushed himself back to sit on his rear, arms propping him up, pristine lab coat falling from his shoulders to pool under him like an angel's robe. Under the lab coat, he wore a Pink Floyd T-shirt, the one that used to be black but was now charcoal grey from years of washings, with a smattering of spots at the hem from a misguided affair with laundry bleach. His blue jeans were threadbare, with wide, smooth holes at the knees. He looked up at House with a small smile, brown eyes clear of doubt or worry, a simple happiness that the world never saw and House saw only rarely. There was a streak of white at the corner of his mouth.
He was so fucking beautiful.
"You'll never know, House," Wilson said affably, smiling wider, showing even teeth. "You'll never know."
"Know what?"
Reality stretched, hiccupped and shuffled sideways, and House found himself addressing his bedroom ceiling, with no company save the glowing digits of the alarm clock and the distant squeak of Steve McQueen's exercise wheel from the living room. A dream, apparently, and one that perturbed House. Not merely for the fact that his subconscious was implying that Wilson was hiding something from him, nor for the fact that he'd just had a rather satisfying sex dream about his best male friend, but also because his pajama bottoms were suddenly, uncomfortably sticky.
"Dammit," House muttered, and reached for the box of Kleenex on the nightstand.
**
Wilson was sitting in the cafeteria, eating a suspicious-looking tuna salad sandwich with all of the personal regard of a very polite kamikaze pilot. It sent a thrill of danger down House's spine just to look at him. Even House's admittedly self-destructive tendencies refused to play Russian roulette with canned seafood and too much warm mayonnaise. Wilson obviously had uncharted depths of either courage or stupidity, depending on House's mood at the moment.
The thought of uncharted depths recalled memories of that disturbing dream, and House focused his attention of his friend more closely. What was it that he was missing, that Wilson announced he would never know? Everything about Wilson looked the same, same tailored shirts, same pressed white coat, same god-awful Goodwill-dumpster tie. Nothing in his mannerisms suggested any shift in mood or temperament; the set of his shoulders spoke of no recent patient deaths, and the painful set to his jaw had long since dissipated with the finalization of the divorce. Wilson seemed perfectly normal, and that bothered House. What was he missing...?
"Hey, House. Ran out of souls to torment?"
With a start, House realized that his studious observations had carried him right next to Wilson's table. Wilson took another reckless bite of salmonella salad and smiled up at him, eyes bright and clear. There was a streak of white at the corner of his mouth.
"Never know what?" House blurted.
Wilson swallowed daintily. "What?"
"You've got some mayo," House tapped the corresponding part of his face. "Right there."
As Wilson busied himself with his napkin, House grabbed the bag of chips from his tray and left the cafeteria as quickly as the guise of sanity would allow.
**
Wilson was on the balcony, in the most literal sense. He was actually perched on the balustrade, legs dangling into space, the heels of his French shoes drumming disconsolately on the side of the building. His lab coat was gone, and House could see that his salvaged tie was marginally too tight. The sun was going down.
"Wilson?" House asked, limping out onto the balcony. "Wilson, get down from there, you're infringing copyright. Stupid stunts are my trademark."
Wilson turned to look at him, and even House took a reflexive step back. Wilson looked awful, his eyes red and raw, cheeks flushed with heat and weeping, bottom lip swollen from biting it in an attempt to stem the tide, the gleam of tear tracks cutting a swath down his face. Any number of catastrophes raced through House's mind before he stepped forward again, hand half-outstretched, trying to gauge actions and reactions. "Wilson, talk to me. Tell me what happened."
Wilson shook his head, the line of his shoulders shuddering, his hand dipping into his trouser pocket. "You'll never know," he breathed, pulling a prescription vial from his pocket and tossing it to House, who caught it with the same outstretched hand, hearing the reassuring rattle of Vicodin. "You'll never know." And with that, Wilson pushed. And fell.
"No!" House dropped the pills and lunged forward, fingers grasping, only to trip over the footrest of his office armchair and hop-step frantically, one hand catching himself on the bookshelf, the other clutching at his leg. After a few shaky breaths and a hasty round of self-recrimination, House righted himself, popped a Vicodin and took stock. His team hadn't noticed his nightmare-induced stumble; he'd taken the precaution of drawing the blinds before settling in for a nap in the chair, and Wilson was...
Disdaining the cane, House quickly limped over to the door to the balcony, the knot of tension in his gut unwinding slightly. He could see Wilson in his office, deep in discussion with a patient, and the set of his shoulders suggested less than a year's life expectancy. Feeling magnanimous with relief, House left him alone, instead retrieving his cane from its perch beside the chair and setting out to find himself some amusement.
Cuddy found him first, and before he could say, "I'll get you, my pretty," he found himself in the Clinic, the flying monkey behind the desk at the nurses' station handing him a file. Breathing fire in the form of a choice witticism, he grabbed the file and made his way to the exam room, figuring that treating a plethora of runny noses would be preferable to reliving that horrible dream in his head, wondering what it was that he would never know...
"So!" he began with false cheer, pushing the door open as he studied the file in hand. "What seems to be the problem, Mr....?" Glancing up, it was only with the greatest self-restraint that he was able to keep from laughing. The man's tongue was the size of a tennis ball.
"Aaah heeenk ef humm I ay," said the patient.
Oh, yes, House decided with black glee. This looked promising.
**
Wilson was uncomfortably asleep, or at least he looked uncomfortable to House. However, House really couldn't be a reliable judge of anything at the moment, doped to the gills on what was probably the finest cocktail of painkillers such a prestigious establishment could provide. He felt vaguely guilty because, from the way Wilson's head was pillowed on his arms, his front half on a sliver of mattress and his back end wedged into a hospital chair, he imagined that Wilson would need a painkiller very soon.
Somewhere in the haze of chemicals, House wondered if this new manifestation of his friend was just another dream, or worse, another hallucination. To test his theory, he carefully lifted a hand and threaded the fingers gently through Wilson's hair, eliciting a hum of contentment from the sleeper. The strands felt coarse and stiff with vigil, not soft and freshly washed; empirical observations pointing to consciousness, then. Content with his findings, House gave a final stroke to Wilson's hair before poking him in the eye.
With a startled grunt, Wilson flew semi-upright, one hand clapped to his eye before he focused on the cause of his awakening. "House? House, you're awake? Oh, thank God, you're awake." A penlight was suddenly shone into his eyes without the slightest regard for courtesy, but House was feeling comparatively good at the moment, so he let it slide. "Do you remember what happened, House?" Wilson asked.
I don't care about that, I just want a straight answer out of you for once, formed in House's mind, but all that made it past his lips was, "Don't care."
"You don't care?"
"Never know what?" House grunted impatiently. It seemed that chemical cocktails made one braver than their alcoholic cousins.
"What?"
If House had possessed the energy to roll his eyes, he would have done so. "You said, that I'd never know. What'll I never know?"
Some dimly rational part of House insisted that, since Wilson was not privy to dreams not his own, he would have no idea what House meant. Because of that, it was at once eeire and reassuring when a degree of silent understanding dawned on Wilson's face. House could see a million answers in Wilson's eyes before he sighed and intertwined his fingers with House's. "House, I don't..." Wilson's voice was weighted with finally sharing a heavy burden, after (days? months? years?) so very long. "I don't think you'll ever know how much I... how much I-"
Oh. House interrupted with a dismissive noise, little more than a puff of air, but with hurricanes of scorn invested in it. "Liar," he said quietly, his eyes slipping closed again. "Already knew that."
Satisfied, House wrapped his fingers more firmly around Wilson's, and fell right back to sleep.
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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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