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Begin Again
by leiascully
James Wilson had always been intrigued by the idea that every seven years, each cell in your body was new. Every seven years a rebirth, a new start, a chance to mend old mistakes and to make new ones. He had missed a lot of chances, screwed up a lot of others.
For his forty-ninth birthday, he knew what he wanted. He wasn't much for superstition, but it was hard to deny the cultural power of numbers. Seven sins. Seventh sons. Here he was, on the brink of his seventh self, and he was sure of himself. This time, it would be right. This time he had the solution to the longest problem of his life. Easy. Simple.
He sent out only two invitations.
"Of course I'll be there," said Cuddy, gracing him with one of her smiles. "Should I bring anything? I don't want to put you to any trouble. It's your birthday. We should be cooking for you."
"It's fine," he said. "I'm too old to want to go to a restaurant. At home everything's just the way I like it."
"You're not so old," she said, and the smile brought out the fine fans of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes that Wilson loved.
"Eight o' clock," he reminded her, and was there a butterfly in his stomach? He was, at least, too old for that, but she still had a magic about her.
House was more gruff. "It's not going to be all cognac and snails, is it?"
"You like escargot," Wilson reminded him. "And cognac, as far as I remember. But no, neither of those are on the menu. I thought salmon."
"Whatever you want," House said dismissively. "It's your party and you can eat snails if you want to. As long as I don't have to wear a tie."
Wilson grinned. "You don't have to wear anything."
House looked up suspiciously. Wilson schooled his features into innocence. "Casual's fine. It's not a big thing. Forty-nine isn't much to celebrate."
"And Cuddy's coming? I guess we'll have to save the strippers for next year. Though she's in administration; she's probably pretty adventurous." House got that musing look on his face as he rolled the big tennis ball between his palms. "I'll be there. With beer."
"You know," said Wilson, "I have beer at my place already."
"Yes, but you haven't got any taste."
And that was that. Wilson moved a couple of appointments up and left early to go to the gourmet grocery for a few last-minute items. He hummed something tuneless as he sliced, minced, and fileted. The apartment was clean. The bed had fresh sheets and the duvet had come back from the laundry. He weighed his beautiful knives in his hands, souvenirs from three marriages to women who thought that microwaving meant they'd cooked dinner. This was what he loved. The doctor work was wonderful and rewarding, but the kitchen was where he lived, given the absence of a lover or a self-destructive hobby like gambling. Cooking relaxed him. Cooking for people fulfilled something in him; he'd been lonely for a while, and now there were risottos to offer instead of kisses, although. Although. He stopped his train of thought there and concentrated on broth and cream and fish instead, adding spices, tasting from the edge of a wooden spoon.
House and Cuddy showed up on time together; Wilson heard Cuddy's car and then it was House's heavy lean on the buzzer. Wilson ignored it, and a moment later the door opened.
"You didn't let us in!" complained House, pocketing his set of Wilson's keys as Cuddy balanced a nice bottle of wine and a little case of Guinness.
"You've got keys," Wilson pointed out. "And this needed stirring." He moved to let Cuddy past him as she put the beer in the fridge and the wine on the kitchen island. She kissed him on the cheek.
"Happy birthday, Wilson. Can we do anything to help?"
"No, everything's ready," he said, the print of her lips cooling on his cheek. House pushed his way close and kissed him over the invisible mark of Cuddy's kiss.
"Happy birthday, Wilson," he said in a simpering falsetto. "Oooh, that looks delightful." He snagged the spoon and stole a quick bite, immediately pursing his lips and blowing over a scalded tongue. "Hot," he said.
"Logic would dictate that you don't eat something right of the boil," said Wilson. "I have no sympathy for you."
"What does a guy have to do to get a little attention," House asked Cuddy, "come down with the cancer?" She shook her head at him, but he hobbled toward her and she didn't move away. Wilson watched them, fascinated, Cuddy with her arms crossed over her chest and House leering down at her and the air crackling between them. Cuddy felt him watching, apparently, because she turned her blue eyes on him and just like that, he was plugged into their circuit, the heat building in him. He turned back to the stove, pretending the flush on his face was from the gas flame under the skillet.
"How old are you this year?" asked House, sitting down at the table and polishing his silverware just to be obnoxious. "Fifty three?"
"Forty nine," said Cuddy, with just enough snap in her voice to be sexy, but not enough to overwhelm the affectionate warmth that she rolled into the R of "forty".
"Forty nine," Wilson agreed.
"Seven seven year olds," said House. "Nice. Are we going to have pony rides after dinner?"
"Only if you're a very good boy," said Wilson.
Dinner went surprisingly well. Wilson got the risotto off the stove in time despite the distraction of House running his cane up and down the backs of Cuddy's calves and her subsequent flustering. The salmon didn't burn. The wine coordinated perfectly. After all these years, they still had something to say to each other, amazingly enough, and after dinner and coffee and chocolate cake and the end of Casablanca, Wilson leaned over and kissed Cuddy and she didn't move away. She kissed him back, in fact, and slipped her fingers into the waist of House's jeans.
"This," murmured House with his hand on Cuddy's knee, "could be the start of a beautiful something. Wilson, you dog."
"You were already together, weren't you?" Wilson asked somewhere in a tangle of pale limbs and white sheets.
"On and off," said Cuddy, her back arching, and if her skin wasn't as firm as it had once been, she was still unearthly beautiful in the low light of Wilson's bedroom, and House looked like some Greek statue, marble worn away but the old grace showing through.
"On and on and on," said House, and slid his hand down the back of Wilson's thigh. "Are you ticklish?"
"Depends," said Wilson, Cuddy's hair in his mouth. He had a hand on her right breast and House's long fingers caged the left. House raked his nails lightly down Wilson's leg as he traced circles on the underside of Cuddy's breast and they both squirmed against him.
There were hands on Wilson's cock and he was too dazed to be sure whose, though Cuddy's fingers tapered and House's were callused. Cuddy was moaning and Wilson wasn't sure if it was because of his caresses or House's. There was fine skin under his own palms and he stroked it as best he could. There were the sharp corners of condom wrappers in the bed; one kept poking into his hip, but he was soaring, rising as the hands touched him. And that hand was House's, the grip, the callus, but Cuddy was pulling him against her, urging him in as House gripped his ass. Wilson kissed Cuddy's collarbones and thought House was nipping at the back of her neck, and god, everything felt so good, the clean sheets and the hot skin against his. It had stopped mattering what was whose; he just felt and enjoyed and loved and was loved. He was panting, hardly able to breathe, the pressure building and his balls tightening and Cuddy urging him on with her foot pressed to the back of his calf, and House's hands holding the three of them close together, six legs in the bed and six arms and six eyes that saw everything, and Wilson's joy and love spilled over into the hot rush of pleasure and he lay cradled in four arms, almost sobbing.
He assumed House and Cuddy satisified themselves and each other as he dozed. He could only approach so close; their dynamic of two was nearly unbreachable despite the love he knew they had for him. Wilson woke when House pressed two damp wads of tissues into his palm.
"Trash," he said, "and shower, then sleep." Wilson fumbled for the trashcan. He had been out - the crumpled mess in his hand was two condoms, and he hadn't even felt their hands. He stumbled into the shower, where the water was hot and the steam smelled of his eucalyptus body wash. Three was a tight fit, but they braced each other up, yawning under the spray and rubbing toothpaste along each other's molars with puckering fingertips, and then toweled off with inadequate handtowels and fell into the rumpled sheets, arms and legs across each other.
"Happy birthday, Wilson," was the last thing House said, leaning across Cuddy to press a kiss to Wilson's mouth, and the stubble around his mouth was rough, but House's lips were soft and Wilson thought, ah, now there is something genuine, and fell asleep holding them both, two hands pressed to his heart.
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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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