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Year of the Pig
by Mer
James Wilson woke to the sound of someone pounding on his door. He groaned and turned his head just enough to see the clock radio. 9:47. It was later than he normally slept, but one of his patients was brought into the ER just before midnight and Wilson hadn't made it back to the hotel until after three. He'd woken just before seven, peed, made sure the curtains were drawn tight, and crawled back into bed. It was Sunday. He had nothing important to do except sleep.
The pounding stopped and a moment later his cell phone rang. Wilson reached blindly for it on the bedside table and glanced at the caller ID. He flipped the phone open. "Go away," he said.
"Open the door," House ordered.
"No." But Wilson knew House would only talk the manager into giving him a passkey if he didn't get up. He sighed and pushed down the covers, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The pounding started again and Wilson hurried to the door before somebody complained. "Somebody better be dying or it's going to be you," he said, glaring at his unrepentant and eerily cheerful best friend.
"Gung hay fat choy!" House proclaimed, looking far too awake for a Sunday morning.
Wilson blinked and the words clicked into place. "You woke me up to tell me Happy New Year?" He rubbed sleep from the corner of his eye and wondered why anything House did surprised him.
"It's nearly 10," House protested. "Day's a-wasting."
"You sound like my mother," Wilson said and shivered. "That's beyond creepy." He shivered again and realized he was standing in an open doorway wearing only a t-shirt and boxers. "Are you coming in or is this Chinese Hallowe'en as well?"
House brushed past him. "It's all about the holidays for you today, isn't it?" he commented, looking pointedly below Wilson's waist. "St. Paddy's Day isn't for another month."
Wilson looked down and slammed the door shut. He'd forgotten he was wearing the boxers printed with large green shamrocks. "I haven't had time to do laundry for a couple of weeks," he muttered.
"Doesn't the hotel have a laundry service?"
"Do you know how much they charge to wash a pair of underpants? It's obscene." Not nearly as obscene as what they charged for a room, even on a monthly rate, but Wilson tried not to think about that too often. "What are you doing here anyway?" he asked, changing the subject.
"We're going for dim sum."
"Dim sum?" Wilson watched as House prowled around the hotel room, opening drawers and snooping through his possessions, if actions that blatant could truly be called snooping.
House paused in the process of flipping through the papers Wilson had piled on the desk. "Chinese brunch. A series of small dishes shared with family and friends."
Wilson rolled his eyes. "Thank you, dictionary.com. I know what dim sum is. I don't live in a cave."
"No, you live in a way station between relationships." House surveyed the room some more, his upper lip curling slightly. "Though I think this is exactly what Plato had in mind. Stop staring at the shadows and let's get out of here."
"I just got out of bed," Wilson protested. "I haven't even showered."
"Shower then, but make it snappy. We've got a half-hour drive and I don't want to spend all day waiting for a table." House climbed onto the bed, making himself comfortable. "You can primp, but no preening," he called out.
Wilson raised his middle finger over his shoulder as he walked into the bathroom, but after a few minutes under a hot shower his mood warmed. Brunch with House was the perfect way to recover from a long, hard week. But when he walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped securely around his waist, he found House standing beside the clothes he had laid out for the day, staring down with undisguised horror.
"What the hell is this?" House demanded, holding something up between his finger and thumb.
"I believe they call it underwear in this country," Wilson replied evenly. He towelled his hair dry, hoping House wouldn't see the embarrassment flushing his face.
"Decorated with hearts and roses," House said, as if each word pained him. "Do you have any Gravol? I think I'm going to throw up."
"It's my last pair of clean underwear," Wilson protested. "I told you I haven't had time to do laundry."
"I never thought I'd say this, but put the shamrocks back on." He balled the underwear up and threw them in the wastepaper basket. "We'll find a Laundromat in East Brunswick. Hell, there's probably one attached to the restaurant."
Wilson frowned to show House he disapproved of both his words and actions, but retreated to the bathroom and picked the shamrock underwear out of the hamper. He didn't feel quite secure enough to go commando in House's company, much less a restaurant full of strangers. Fully aware of how ridiculous he appeared, he stalked across the room and snatched the rest of his clothing out of House's reach.
"I thought I went through your wardrobe last year and threw out everything Julie bought you," House continued, perching on the edge of the clothes-vacated chair, and Wilson knew he'd be hearing about this for weeks. "How - and why - did you hide that from me?"
Surely it didn't take a genius, even one lacking social skills, to figure out the why of it. "Julie didn't buy those for me," Wilson replied and wondered if he'd ever learn to keep his mouth shut.
"Please tell me you didn't buy those yourself."
Wilson almost lied and told House he had, just to see if he could induce a stroke. But he was looking forward to dim sum now, and House knew where the restaurant was. "Joni gave them to me. For our first Valentine's together." That didn't cause a stroke, though House's mouth opened and closed several times. He looked like a fish, which was almost worth the days of humiliation to come.
"You've held on to those for fifteen years, through two subsequent wives and god knows how many girlfriends," House mused, once he'd regained the ability to speak. "Do they even fit any more?"
"Can we not talk about my underwear?" Wilson pleaded, dressing as quickly as he could under House's scrutiny.
"We're not talking about your underwear," House retorted. "We're talking about why would you keep something this ridiculous all these years. Your wives' taste in clothing is almost as appalling as your taste in wives."
This time anger flushed his cheeks, and Wilson took a deep breath before he spoke. "You can make fun of me all you want," he said, as if House had ever needed or wanted his permission, "but leave her out of this. I kept them because I wanted to." He didn't know if it were the tone of his voice or something in his posture, but House nodded.
"Don't get your knickers in a knot," he said, grinning, then plucked the underwear out of the garbage. "You can keep them," he said magnanimously. "As long as you promise never to wear them in my presence." He even folded them before he put them away in the top drawer of the dresser. "And don't think I won't know. I can smell sentiment from fifty paces."
Sometimes House stepped willingly back from the line. It made it easier for Wilson to stand firm all the other times. "God forbid I offend your sense of smell."
"Oh believe me, that only scratches the surface of what's offensive about those underwear." House grabbed Wilson's wallet and keys off the dresser. "We're taking your car. It's cold and I want heated seats."
Wilson shrugged his winter coat on and draped a scarf around his neck. "I knew you only liked me for my accessories." He didn't need to look at House to know he was leering. "Why are we driving to East Brunswick?"
"Because the restaurant is in East Brunswick," House replied.
"Why are we going to a restaurant in East Brunswick?" Wilson clarified.
"Because it's closer than the one in Green Brook."
Wilson knew that was as much of an explanation as House would give, so he gathered his laundry together. At least he would get clean clothing out of the expedition.
Much to House's disappointment, which Wilson knew was mostly feigned, there wasn't a Laundromat attached to the restaurant, but there was one a couple of miles up the street. The restaurant hadn't been as busy as Wilson thought a Chinese restaurant would be on New Year's Day, but even at just past eleven there was a line-up for tables. House grumbled about Wilson's excessive grooming habits and slow driving, and Wilson was happy to leave him chatting in Cantonese about the Santa Anita race card with an elderly gentleman.
The line had moved fast, though, because House was already at a table sipping tea when Wilson returned, two loads of laundry tumbling dry. "I ordered," he said, when Wilson sat down opposite him.
Wilson looked around the dining room. "Don't they bring the dishes around on a trolley? That's my favourite part."
"Don't panic. You can still flirt with the pretty girls. I just ordered us some soup to hold us over. It takes forever for them to move around the room and you get cranky when you're hungry."
"What kind of soup?" Wilson asked, mollified.
"Shark's fin. Just kidding," House said, smirking when Wilson gaped at him. "Do you really think I'd waste delicacies on your gweilo palate? Hot and sour."
It was hard to be too insulted by the truth. Wilson loved hot and sour soup. "Right. Because your palate has been so refined by peanut butter and canned soup."
"My palate has been places you can only dream about," House retorted. He picked up a piece of paper. "You were born in '69, right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "You're an Earth Cock."
It took a moment for Wilson to translate. House must have found a Chinese astrology chart. "Rooster," he corrected.
"One man's rooster, is another man's cock," House replied gleefully.
Wilson had learned the hard way that there was no point in trying to derail House once his train of thought was steaming down the tracks. The only thing to do was jump on for the ride. "Whose cock are we talking about?" he demanded, dropping his voice when a woman at the next table turned and frowned at him.
"Your cock," House said, grinning as heat crept up Wilson's face. "The Earth Cock. You dirty, dirty boy."
Wilson grabbed the paper from House and scanned the chart. "You're an Earth Pig," he exclaimed, snorting a few times in illustration. "Who's dirty now?"
"Pigs are clean animals," House retorted haughtily. "And you should be respectful. This is the Year of the Pig. My lucky year."
"I hope so," Wilson murmured. He didn't think he could take another year like the last. Between the shooting and Tritter's vendetta and the near-OD.... Wilson shied away from the memory of House lying beside a pool of vomit. He looked up and saw House watching him, the sharp gaze always reading too much. "Luck and you don't exactly go hand in hand," he said.
"It worked out all right for me last time," House said, and for once he was the first to look away.
Wilson glanced at the chart again. "1995. That was the year you met Stacy," he said softly. He picked up his chopsticks and practised manoeuvring them. It gave him someplace to look other than House's face.
"The year ended February 18, 1996," House said, stressing the month.
One of the chopsticks slipped from his grasp and fell onto his plate. "You gave a lecture in Boston in February 1996," Wilson said. "Atypical presentation of infection in immunocompromised patients."
"I was brilliant," House commented modestly. "It was a perfect lecture, except for some smart-ass kid in the audience who challenged one of my points."
"You were wrong," Wilson reminded him.
"That's a matter of interpretation." But House was smiling. He poured out more tea for both of them and warmed his hands around the cup.
"You pissed off my supervisor by skipping the reception and dragging me out for a walk in the Common, just so you could explain in excruciating detail how you couldn't have been wrong." Wilson remembered that night, trudging along snow-packed paths, listening to House expound on anything that came to mind. "We were lucky we weren't mugged."
"You were lucky you didn't freeze to death," House countered. "You weren't even wearing a winter coat."
"You wouldn't let me go to my locker to get my jacket." He had come to the lecture straight from his shift and was fortunately still wearing his lab coat. It hadn't done much to cut the cold, but it had kept him warm enough. House's lecture had kept him warmer, lighting a fire in him that hadn't burned down in 11 years. "I remember Chinatown was crazy that night. We stopped for soup on the way back and could hardly find a table."
"Hot and sour," House said with a hint of a smile. "It was February 17. New Year's Eve. Last day of the Year of the Pig."
The soup arrived and Wilson sat back as the waiter dished two bowls out for them. He watched House slurp his soup enthusiastically. "I thought you didn't remember me." When Wilson arrived in Princeton, months later, just another fellow eager to make his professional mark, House had acted as if they'd never met. Wilson had been disappointed, but not surprised.
House set down his spoon. "You were the first person to tell me I was wrong and be right."
"Ha! You admit I was right!" It was a better New Year's gift than any red envelope filled with money.
"I admitted you were right when I published the article with the change." House flagged down a trolley and pointed imperiously at a dish. "Which I know you saw," he continued through a mouthful of dumpling, "because you left a copy of the journal on my desk with that section of the article circled."
Wilson had his own copy of that article, kept in a hiding place that even House hadn't found. He remembered, then, that not all the secrets he kept from House were benign. "I'm sorry I told you that you were wrong when you were right," he murmured, paying more attention than necessary to picking up a dumpling with his chopsticks.
House glared at him and waved a server over. "No mai gai," he barked and she scurried over to another trolley.
"Sticky rice!" Wilson exclaimed when he saw the lotus leaf wrapping. He relaxed. Apology accepted.
"You're pathetically easy to please," House grumbled, but he pushed the dish towards Wilson. "I bet you even liked those underwear."
Anything Wilson said would just give House more ammunition. But he had liked the underwear. He still liked the underwear, despite - or because of - the hearts and roses. Joni had hated Princeton. She had hated him by the end, and for better reasons. The underwear was all he had left to remind him that she had once loved him as well. That night in Boston had been a beginning and an end in so many ways.
He raised his teacup. "To the Year of the Pig."
"Cock," House said, but raised his own cup.
Luck was a matter of interpretation.
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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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