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And Why
by Emily Rugburn
"Blood work?" Wilson asked him questioningly one morning as the elevator doors opened onto his friend's concerned face. House rolled his eyes.
"I told the lab girl to tell anyone who asked that it was for a patient."
"You don't have any." At any given time, Wilson was keeping vague track of who House was doctoring.
"Back alley deal," House nodded at him with raised eyebrows. "Apparently technician school didn't teach her how to act."
"No, and why would it? People who test blood for infections shouldn't ever have to lie," Wilson chastised. "Not on the job, anyway," he amended.
"Everybody lies, twentysomethings in lab coats not exempt."
"You're deflecting. What's going on?"
House paused, raised his eyebrows, ducked into an empty clinic room. Wilson followed, like House knew he would.
"House, you're making me nervous."
"STD workup."
"For-- for you?" Wilson stammered out, doubt etched on his features.
"Yes, for me," House answered, sarcasm not quite covering the honesty.
"But-- why?"
"Annual check-up. I was being extra careful."
"Right, checking for VD certainly comes off as precautious. Except for the whole 'pre' and 'cautious' parts."
"Hookers aren't known for their sanitation."
Wilson raised his eyebrows dubiously. "You don't actually hire women, do you?"
House cocked his head to the side and looked off into space questioningly. "Eh, so many ways to answer that question, so little inclination to do so."
"What? House, I thought you were kidding. Trying to scare away your underlings."
"Not really a safe bet. Ever."
"Okay..." Wilson trailed off, not knowing how to continue.
"Why else would I need to borrow money so often?"
"I thought maybe it was the drug addiction or the gambling. More recently I thought maybe bail. But no, you've managed to develop another vice."
"And you never wondered about why I was borrowing money-- for all that-- from you?"
Wilson hesitated before nodding. "Yeah. Kind of assumed you had no one else to take advantage of."
House scoffed. "You kidding? Between Cuddy's rabid lust and Cameron, I have plenty of ways to get money. Not to mention the three people in this hospital alone I could blackmail at a moment's notice."
"So why me? You figure I won't ask for it back?"
"Neither would the people being blackmailed."
"So I'm just more convenient? Sort of a constant ATM?"
"The persistent hovering is a plus."
"But that's not it."
"Maybe I want you to ask me why," House said, and limped quickly out the door.
Wilson caught up several paces down the hallway. "Uh...why?"
"Why...I borrow money from you, or why the hookers?"
"Um, either. Both."
They rounded a corner and House opened the door to his office, holding it for Wilson. That was new.
"I wanted you to know I followed your suggestion, that I'm 'getting some'."
Wilson sighed and plopped down into the chair usually reserved for him across from House's desk. "I was kidding when I said--"
"No, you weren't. And I answered both questions with one sentence. I think I deserve respite from the deluge of inquisition."
Wilson nodded in assent. "Fine by me."
**********************************************
"Picked up your results," Wilson told him later that day. He tossed the file atop House's television, which was currently playing "General Hospital". No surprises there.
"You can do that?" House asked innocently. "But you're not my doctor!"
Wilson rolled his eyes. "I know some people."
House didn't move.
"No cursory glance, or just not until I leave you alone?"
"Hmm," House pretended to consider. "I was thinking maybe it was none of your business."
Wilson snorted. "Yeah, right. It might surprise you, but I tend to care about your health. Open it."
House languorously rolled his desk chair over and plucked up the folder. One sheet was attached to the inside right pocket.
"It's clean. Did you bring champagne, or do we have to celebrate another way?" House cocked an eyebrow in pseudo-seductive mode.
Wilson nodded. "I looked. Test results were negative for HIV and HPV."
House looked at him speculatively. "Kinda biggies, those."
"They're also hard to get from women."
"Big difference between 'hard' and 'impossible'. Didn't want to take my chances."
"Or," Wilson stood up, getting into his diagnostic position, "and this is just me groping blindly in the dark here, but HPV and HIV are the tests us doctors usually perform first on male patients who've recently had sex with other men."
House cocked his head and tried to keep a smirk off of his face. "Your point?"
"Either...those aren't your test results, or we need to talk."
"I pick option C. You buy me lunch and we never mention it again."
Wilson sighed and ran a hand across his eyes. House recognized the gesture as a mixture of impatience and surrender. "You're gay."
"And you didn't notice." He didn't miss a beat.
"It's one of those things that's a little hard to see if the love of your life was a woman. I guess I should've squinted more."
"My one-time romance with Cuddy should've tipped you off."
"How?" Wilson asked in frustration.
"Her masculinity. It was a real aphrodisiac."
Wilson barked out a laugh and leaned against the glass wall that partitioned the diagnostics room from House's office. House smiled widely.
"Okay, so...you know."
"It doesn't really make sense."
"Sure it does. No girlfriend, always with you, obsession with shoes...ringing any bells?"
"You don't have a girlfriend because you don't have, or supposedly want, any relationships. You're always with me because my marriage is so crappy I try to spend all of my time with you. And I don't see how sneakers have anything to do with who you sleep with."
"Ah, well, there we'll just have to agree to disagree." He winked jokingly.
The door opened and Cameron strode in. "Dr. Wilson," she acknowledged briefly. "House, new case. Unexplained bleeding, lesions, temperature not responding to antibiotics. The patient-- Marie-- is forty years old."
House looked between Cameron and Wilson before the latter ducked his head as if to say, "I understand. Work comes first." That was enough for House, who got up and started barking out orders.
"Put the patient on broad-spectrum and take another family history."
"She's been on antibiotics--"
"Antibiotics perscribed by another hospital," House said. Wilson could hear their voices all the way down the hall.
**************************************************
Wilson didn't mention it again until after his divorce from Julie, around the time he moved in with House.
"This might be a dumb question," he said one night, after the courage of a few beers had saturated his brain. They were sitting on the couch, watching a movie Wilson had brought over. House hated Hitchcock, but didn't say so. "But should I be expecting anyone?"
"If I hire a hooker, I'll be sure to put a tie on the door," House said in what would have been a reassurring tone, had it not been delivered with typical "You're an idiot" emphasis.
"Will this be...a male, uh, person?"
House looked at him with an expression akin to slight shock. This was pushing it, even for Wilson. "How much did you drink?" He wondered aloud.
Wilson fondled his half-empty bottle and set it between his legs. "You never really told me one way or the other."
There was a pause, and then House snorted derisively. "I sleep with men. I've slept-- past tense-- with women. It happens."
"Not often enough."
"Yeah, I'm sure by your standards I'm practically a eunuch."
"Seriously," Wilson turned to him, elbow accidentally muting "Vertigo". "How long?"
House paused, debating whether to diffuse the situation with an expected acerbic answer or telling his only friend the truth. Wilson was probably one of very few people in his life who really did care, and he was certainly the first one in a long time to ask.
"Eh," he squinted his left eye in mock concentration, feigning ignorance. "A few months, maybe...seven?" It was the sorry truth, but admitted casually. Maybe Wilson would drop it.
"That's not...terrible," Wilson breathed out slowly. House was still hoping that he'd let it go.
"You'll be a fair judge when you've taken a monastic vow. Right now, sorry, but you're not in a position to guage the tragedy of my sex life."
"Fair enough," Wilson answered quickly. "Sorry."
They turned back to the movie, which neither had noticed was missing sound.
**************************************************
After Wilson had filed his cane in half, after House deleted evidence that Wilson had been out searching for apartments, after seventeen meals Wilson cooked from scratch and sixteen days of House not doing any dishes, Wilson moved out. It was abrupt, unexpected, and inexplicable.
Except for the fifteenth night. In that context, it made sense. On that Wednesday evening, Wilson made lasagna. House brought home wine, which was unusual because he rarely went grocery shopping. There was nothing on television and so they ate in the kitchen, standing up, true bachelor style. Wilson commented wistfully on that aspect of their behavior for the first time without mentioning Julie. House briefly considered that a good sign. Maybe Wilson was moving on. He had always been better at that than House ever was.
"I'm...gonna go to bed early," Wilson announced after they'd jointly washed and dried their plates and forks. Wilson had been pleasantly surprised by House's help in cleaning up.
"Any particular reason?" House asked, settling down at the kitchen table. "Or are you just avoiding me?"
Wilson scoffed. "Yes, well, I can see how my living with you could be construed as avoidance." House examined his left hand as he spoke, nearly giving off an air of nonchalance. Too bad Wilson had known him for almost a decade. "Look, if there's something you want to talk about..." he began, sitting down next to his friend.
"No," House said curtly, turning to meet Wilson's concerned gaze. "There's something I want to do." Before Wilson could begin to decipher his meaning, House had pushed into him, grabbing his right arm and pulling him closer. They were kissing, Wilson noted with a vague sense of shock. They weren't drunk, they hadn't been discussing anything of importance, and yet House was kissing him. He tasted like tomato sauce and barbituates, but it wasn't strong, and the kiss wasn't deep. Wilson didn't open his mouth and House's tongue didn't ask him to. They were just kissing, chastely, only the insistence and heat of House's lips and the pressure bruising Wilson's mouth was anything but innocent. This wasn't an accident. Impulsive, Wilson mentally noted, but not spur-of-the-moment.
When he thought about it later, James Wilson figured that House had probably considered kissing him for a long time beforehand. Although he was prone to dramatics and following whims, House rarely ran headlong into relationships...He was never brash about physical intimacy.
Wilson took a few moments to analyse House's motives, and then to analyse his response. He'd yet to pull away; it was really enjoyable. He'd discovered why Stacy cheated on her husband, maybe, because House was quite a lot better at this than he'd have guessed. Had he ever thought of it, which he told himself he hadn't.
Just as Wilson finally closed his eyes and leant further into the embrace, House pulled back. Wilson noticed that both of them were out of breath, and rested his forehead heavily on House's as they caught their breath.
"Why--?" Wilson started.
"You had to see that one coming," House answered.
"Er...no. Not really," responded Wilson, voice hoarse.
House chuckled and stood up, dragging his hairline across Wilson's as he did so. Wilson felt a vague pulse of heat alight in his stomach.
"I'm going to bed," he announced. "You don't have to sleep on the couch, if you don't want to."
"That would've been a nice offer two weeks ago, you know. My back's permanently damaged from that couch."
"You never said anything before."
"No. Well, that would have been rude."
"And now it's...?"
"Still rude, but I'm taking you up on the offer."
House quirked his mouth in a twisted kind of smile and sucked on his bottom lip experimentally. "Didn't figure you to be so violent, Jimmy."
Wilson's mouth dropped open a little in surprise. "I was the violent one?"
"Yes," House said stubbornly, as they walked out of the kitchen and into the den. Wilson followed him into the bedroom, which he'd rarely ever seen. It was more neat than he would have expected-- the bed was made and there were few clothes on the floor. He scanned the room in vain for food scraps, and when he found none he began to worry that maybe House really did survive only on Jim Beam and Vicodin when Wilson wasn't there to cook.
"I eat," House said, reading his mind. Wilson looked up to find House watching him from the doorway. "Just not in my bedroom. Steve McQueen doesn't need any new friends."
Wilson nodded, his eyebrows knit in askance. "Right. Rats in your building are far less sanitary than the one you found in Stacy's place."
House ignored him and began taking off his clothes. He hooked his cane around the bedstead and limped toward the mattress. Jacket, tee-shirt, and belt tumbled to the floor. Wordlessly, Wilson undid his tie, pulled his own collared shirt over his head, and watched House unzip his jeans and kick them off.
"What are we doing?" Wilson got up the nerve to ask, even as he stepped out of his own khakis. He peeled off argyle socks and his undershirt until he stood two feet from the bed in a gray pair of boxers.
"I thought that would be obvious by now," House told him in that tone of voice he usually reserved for Chase or Cameron's particularly stupid questions.
"Okay," Wilson sighed in what might have been defeat, but what House hoped was anticipation. He sat down on the bed and dug a hand into House's boxers. "Let's do it."
House looked into his eyes searchingly, wanting to see desire there and finding curiosity. That would do. He pushed Wilson gently so that they were both lying down, House's shoulders perched between Wilson's slightly outspread legs, a composite figure of one atop the other, horizontal.
Wilson relaxed into the thin pillow at the head of the bed. House's hands were cold as he rubbed them up and down over Wilson's thighs, pumped both of their bodies full of hot, new blood. Wilson was dimly astonished when House rubbed at his crotch, when the boxers finally came off, when he felt himself hardening in spite of the uncertainty. The lights were off, and the night outside of House's lonely window was deep, dark, the few stars that were visible a blur in the yellow shine cast from the street lamps. Wilson couldn't make out House's face when he felt his lips on his abdomen, nor when he took Wilson into his mouth hungrily, as though this was a long time coming.
House worked his mouth and jaw until all the muscles in his face were sore and tired, and still he kept on. Wilson had a hard time, mostly because he was scared and would rather have talked everything out beforehand in more detail than House would have allowed. House pulled off and crept up to lie beside Wilson.
"This isn't working." He noted, and it was probably Wilson's imagination that heard a semblance of disappointment.
"I'm sorry," Wilson stammered, "But I'm a little apprehensive here. This is the first time-- and it's you, and I never really expected this to happen."
House sniffed and stroked his pianist fingers up and down Wilson's exposed chest. His nipples were taut and puckered, and House leant down to take one into his mouth, that which had so recently tried to give Wilson pleasure elsewhere. This time, however, his tongue elicited a moan, and House looked up in triumph.
"You like that," he commented, kissing Wilson languidly along his jawline. Wilson was speechless, but he grasped a fistful of House's hair and pulled him into a deeper kiss.
"And that," Wilson added when he regained control of his voice. "I think we both like that." His foot nudged House's front, where boxers still encased the proof of how much House liked kissing him.
"We do," House agreed. He let his hands wander back down, grasping Wilson again firmly. "I'm going to make you come," he whispered, so softly Wilson couldn't be sure he'd said it out loud at all. But it was inherent in his strokes, in the insistent pulls in time with House's thrusts against his left side.
Wilson still isn't sure what came over him then, but it was primal, and urgent, and it was most definitely set off by the sound of House's rough voice in his ear, and by the scratch of stubble against the side of his face. He turned to the side and hoisted himself above House, arms on either side of his head, ducking down to capture his mouth again and rubbing his tongue harshly against his chin and cheek. Wilson lifted House's undamaged leg up and to the side, clutched at his boxers so that they bunched around his knees, and shoved into him hard, from the side, as though he knew what he were doing. It was automatic and unthinking, like so few of Wilson's actions.
There was a muffled sound from House, then, though Wilson never knew if it was words or just a short, stifled cry. Wilson was slow but insistent, driving into House again and again even though he could hear inexplicable noises that he wasn't sure were pain or pleasure. He couldn't see House's face from the angle he'd placed them at, and his mind filled with images of everyday House-- refusing to wear a labcoat, yelling at Cuddy, smiling at him briefly before saying something cruel or demeaning. Wilson grabbed at House's front and felt liquid heat pulsing into the chilly air, and that was enough. He collapsed against House and buried his nose into the other man's neck, inhaling deeply and rubbing his soiled hand against House's stomach. They fell asleep quickly, though Wilson waited until House's breathing slowed to relax completely.
******************************************
In the morning, Wilson left for work with minimal preening. He didn't blow dry his hair, for fear of waking House up before he'd gone. They didn't speak all day; each knew the other's schedule well enough so that total avoidance worked quite perfectly. House was kept late at the hospital by a particularly nasty case, and Wilson drove a patient named Grace home from radiation.
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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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