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Looking Right Past
by Topaz Eyes
A/N: From the housefic_pens linked drabble challenge. Headings taken from lyrics of "Spring Song" by Bruce Cockburn, copyright 1970 (True North Music), used without permission. Title nicked from "Bone In My Ear," copyright 1994. Set just before "Meaning."
~~~~~
Though we may be hard to find
It could be the definition of romantic, if he believed in such a thing: two bodies lying entwined on a rumpled bed, illuminated by the moonlight and a guttering street lamp casting tree-shaped shadows over the room.
House wakes and raises himself on one arm to watch his partner, who's sound asleep and breathing lightly with peaceful features limned in midnight gray. Though it's still warm outside, the light breeze carries its promise of autumn as it wafts through the window screen.
Reality, he knows, is almost always wrong. Yet once, just this once, he hopes that it isn't.
~~~~~
Where we stand in time
Two weeks recovering in hospital after being shot, gave House more than enough time to think about his relationships, or rather lack thereof.
Stacy did not come to visit at all. Chase and Foreman wisely stayed at work, visiting only to consult on cases.
Cameron was at his bedside every day, until House shooed her away--because truth be told, she wasn't the one he wanted.
Cuddy popped in occasionally, to ask how he was doing; anything else stayed purely professional now--leaving only one person who'd always been there, scaring House to his core.
Really, who else was left?
~~~~~
The mirrors of the past shine
A month after being discharged from the hospital, he hired a hooker when he wanted something more than his right hand to bring him off.
Instead he yelled at her when his body refused to cooperate, no matter what she tried. Throwing the money at her in disgust, he ordered her to leave.
Alone and seething, it was not until after two in the morning before he realized no amount of whiskey, or number of sad melodies on the piano, would soothe the emptiness this time.
This misery was no longer an option.
Finally, desperate, he picked up the phone.
~~~~~
With the light of unborn days
Wilson showed up on his doorstep not fifteen minutes later, clothes disheveled and hair tousled, and still adjusting to the state of abrupt wakefulness House's phone call thrust him into.
"House, what's going on?" he asked through a wide yawn, standing and blinking at the threshold.
House looked away from Wilson, suddenly ashamed, and settled back down on the sofa.
Wilson followed, still waiting for an answer.
"House?" Wilson asked again.
After a long silence in the unkind darkness, illuminated only by the table lamp, House finally spoke, his voice surprisingly rough.
"I had a hooker here earlier this evening."
~~~~~
We wander in the flames
"You woke me up and demanded I come here just to tell me you scored with a hooker?" Wilson jumped to his feet and glared down at him, hands on hips. "Why?"
"I didn't score," House replied, almost too softly for Wilson to hear, stubbornly refusing to meet his eyes. "I couldn't."
"You didn't score?" Wilson gaped at him, not understanding. "How could you not--?"
"It wasn't someone I could trust," he said finally. "Not someone I could--feel anything for."
Meeting Wilson's gaze then, he leapt into the proverbial unknown; leaving the words "not you" unspoken, hanging in silence.
~~~~~
With nothing but our names
Wilson blinked in utter astonishment. "I don't understand," he whispered slowly, looking away himself. "I thought--you said it didn't matter--"
House had only one chance, this chance, and damned if he would blow it.
"It matters now."
House knew Wilson needed to be needed above anything, everything else; in the moment, of the moment, all consequences be damned. Wilson would give anything, everything, just for that.
House appreciated that about Wilson; he could live with that too. Because House couldn't afford to otherwise anymore.
So when their gazes met and held again, House knew what Wilson's answer would be.
~~~~~
And no-one for the blame
It was awkward, so very different from the skilled fingers of the call girls House usually employed; but in the end they somehow managed.
Maybe there was a false start or two, their shaking hands fumbling with stubborn zippers; but Wilson learned quickly, finding just that rhythm with his fist until House shuddered. And House, who with the hookers had only received and never gave, found a different sort of release in returning the favor. Stroking Wilson was not that much different from stroking himself after all; and House lost himself in the look on Wilson's face as he came.
~~~~~
We love so well to focus on
Afterwards, they rested spent and sated on the sofa. Wilson's solid warmth against House's body was unmistakable; the weight of his head on House's shoulder slightly different, yet comforting all the same.
For if this (whatever it was) were indeed just a matter of personal convenience; or simply a natural extension of a friendship borne of years of silent mutual need; he'd take it. He'd take it, for as long as he could have it, if it meant those empty shadows stayed just that little bit further away.
Given time House would learn how Wilson's body fit against his own.
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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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