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Eros, Philia, Agape
by Mer
"Dr. Wilson!"
The sound of Allison Cameron's voice cut down the hospital corridor, sharp and insistent, and Wilson couldn't help flinching mid-step. He slowed and then stopped, listening to her heels tap-tap urgently on the linoleum, like House on a mission, but with two canes. He wondered what House had done now to send her scurrying after him. He didn't turn to greet her. Maybe one day she'd realise that he didn't actually enjoy playing bad cop all the time - at least not on her terms.
"Wilson," she called out again, as she approached. Her voice was calmer now; whatever House had done, it must not have been life threatening.
He waited until she reached his side before he looked at her, his face carefully arranged in the pleasant mask he wore for everyone except House. He thought, sometimes, that he hated Cameron because she'd seen behind the mask and she would never let him forget it. He thought, sometimes, that he liked her because he didn't have to pretend. Even though he always did. "Cameron?"
"I saw you walk past and I wondered..." She hesitated, and Wilson felt the first stirrings of alarm. And something else. Uncertainty in a strong woman had always been a turn-on. "Do you have time for a coffee?"
He didn't, not really, but he was curious now. "I always have time for caffeine," he replied. It wasn't really a lie. He had a board meeting later and several hours' worth of paperwork piled on his desk, and caffeine was the only artificial stimulant he thought he could handle. He tried out a smile - his calming, "I know you're dying, but everything will be all right" smile - to test her reaction.
Cameron smiled back, which meant it probably wasn't about House. She never acknowledged his smile when she was angry at House - she wouldn't let him mollify her before she'd made her complaint. "Is the cafeteria all right? I don't have time to go anywhere else."
"That's fine," he said, and they detoured to the elevators. They didn't speak on the ride down, but Wilson took the time to study Cameron. She was wearing a light blouse under her lab coat - no concealing vests today - with a flattering neckline. Wilson wasn't a breast man, not exclusively. He liked everything about women, and he could certainly appreciate Cameron's assets. When she wasn't scowling at him or attacking his personal ethics and professional competence, she was a beautiful woman.
He knew she'd been sleeping with Chase - half the hospital knew by now - and he found it amusing that Cameron, of all people, would go the friends with benefits route. He hadn't thought she was capable of separating sex from love. He wondered if she'd asked him for coffee because she was bored with Chase and was scouting for a replacement. He wondered what he'd do if she were.
They found a table in the corner of the cafeteria, isolated enough to give them some privacy without appearing to want privacy. "What can I do for you?" he asked, as she stirred artificial sweetener into her cup.
"Chase thinks he's falling in love with me."
She sounded almost resentful, and Wilson was intrigued. This was a new Cameron. He wasn't sure it was an improvement. "He thinks he is, or he is?"
"Does it make any difference?"
"I imagine it does to him," Wilson replied. It was hard to feel too much sympathy for Chase, though. Wilson would happily accept sex without strings from Cameron. It was the only way he could imagine surviving the experience. "Why are you telling me this?" he wondered.
She looked away. "I don't know. I thought..." She ran a finger around the rim of her coffee cup. "I don't want Chase to fall in love with me, but I don't want him to hate me either. I thought you could tell me how you keep the women you sleep with from hating you."
"What makes you think I do?" Wilson replied evenly, trying not to let her see how much her words stung. It was barely a tickle compared to her next statement.
"You've done half the hospital, according to House. Yet I've never heard anyone say a bad word about you."
Wilson wasn't sure what hurt more: her surprise or her assumptions. "You shouldn't listen to everything House says. As I recall, Foreman was dating the last person House accused me of sleeping with."
"But you've had affairs," Cameron pressed. "You told me."
At the time he had been trying to help her see things a different way, before she did something that would compromise her professional ethics and ruin her patient's life. Now, he wished he had kept his mouth shut. It was just one more failing that she had judged him on. "I don't think I can help you," he said. "The affairs were never just about sex. If they were, I wouldn't have told my wives."
"Because you don't think sex without love is cheating?" Cameron didn't even try to disguise her contempt.
"No," Wilson replied. "But I think love without sex can be. And so do you." She flinched, and he knew he was right. "You didn't sleep with your husband's best friend, but you still feel as though you cheated, because you loved another man. You gave him something you thought you should only give your husband." He looked at her, waiting until she glanced up and caught his gaze. "Do you think it's a crime to love more than one person at a time?"
"It is when one of those people gets hurt."
Wilson couldn't remember a time when love didn't hurt. And yet sex without love was nothing more than physical release, satisfying for the moment, leaving nothing behind. Wilson had never known how to settle for nothing, and so he'd saved his one-night stands for drunken encounters and conference quickies, counting on distance and anonymity to shield him from deeper involvement.
Sex with Cameron would be a disaster, but he couldn't help being envious of Chase. It had been a long time since he'd even enjoyed the physical release. Sex with Grace had been about giving comfort; sex with Julie had ended well before the marriage. Sometimes he longed just to touch and be touched.
He took a sip of coffee and saw Cameron lick her lips unconsciously. Wilson reacted instinctively. He held her gaze until her breath hitched slightly, and then he reached out and covered her hand with his, circling her narrow wrist with his thumb and middle finger. Her pulse jumped beneath his touch, and he gave her a slow, knowing smile.
It would be so easy to find an empty exam room or abandoned supply closet. He imagined unbuttoning her blouse and slipping the fabric off her shoulders, stroking his hands down her bare arms, raising and then smoothing out goose bumps. He would blow lightly on the soft, sensitive flesh behind her ear and trail kisses along the curve of her neck until she arched into his touch. It would take only a practiced flick of the fingers to unfasten her bra.
He didn't need to see her naked to know the curve of her waist and the taut resilience of her stomach. And he knew that when he slipped his hand in her underwear, she would be hot and wet and would push into his fingers, seeking the pressure and release. It pleased him to think that he could make her moan and come without even loosening his tie.
He let her see the want in his eyes. Her pupils were dilated now, and she was breathing audibly. Wilson wondered what she was imagining. Then he wondered who she was imagining. He let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair. It was too dangerous to do anything else.
He wasn't sure whether the expression on her face was disappointment or relief, and he found he didn't want to know. He did feel slightly guilty about the flush of embarrassment - or arousal - staining her cheeks. "The problem isn't Chase falling in love with you. The problem is why you won't let yourself fall in love with him. Who do you think you'd be cheating on?"
"I should get back," she murmured. "The lab results should be ready. House will be wondering where I am."
And Wilson wondered if she realized that she had just answered his question.
Later that evening, Wilson sat in the board meeting, pretending to listen carefully to every word. House called them "bored" meetings, and most of the time Wilson had to agree with him. He genuinely liked his fellow board members - for the most part they managed to at least marry the good of the hospital with their own agendas - but most of them were in love with the sound of their own voices. Truscott, for example, had been making the same point for five minutes and was about to launch into a recap of the issue, even though they'd just spent the last hour dissecting it in excruciating, and mostly irrelevant, detail. Wilson let his mind wander; he'd figured out the salient points and the likely outcome fifteen minutes into the discussion, and he'd already made his views known.
He glanced across the table at Cuddy. She was twirling her pen through her fingers, feigning interest in the discussion, but only barely. She caught him looking at her and rolled her eyes. He smiled and looked away quickly. If it were House, he would have made an exaggerated face back, or smothered a laugh, or passed him a caricature of Truscott across the table. But Cuddy wasn't House.
A few minutes later he glanced back at Cuddy and noticed that she was no longer trying to conceal her impatience. She could, in her own way, be as blunt as House, and he knew she was about to tell Truscott to make his point or shut up. Protecting his friends from the more dangerous excesses of their personalities was almost second nature. He cleared his throat gently and raised his hand to politely interrupt Truscott's unending flow of words.
"I think we're all in agreement that this project will enhance both the hospital's status and our patient care," he said, smiling to show how impressed he was by their collective wisdom. Even Janacek, who hated him, smiled back, as well she should, since the project would benefit her department the most. "I'd like to make a motion that we approve the report in principle and authorize up to $100,000 in discretionary expenditures for the initial phase, with anything over that amount or extraneous to the submitted budget subject to board approval."
Cuddy quickly seconded the motion, and the question was called without further discussion. Even Truscott looked relieved that the issue had been moved forward so abruptly. They sailed through the rest of the agenda in less than half an hour, as if they had all been waiting for an excuse to wrap things up.
It was barely 7:30 when they adjourned, and Wilson wondered if he should tackle the backlog of paperwork on his desk or just go home. But an empty hotel room wasn't really a home. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt at home. Not with Julie, not with Grace. Not even with House. At least he could accomplish something if he went back to his office.
He was waiting at the elevator when Cuddy caught up to him. "I thought Truscott would never stop talking," she complained. "Nice work on calling the question. I owe you one."
Wilson grinned at her. "Motivated self-interest. And it definitely wouldn't be in my best interest to keep score."
"Let me buy you a drink and we'll call it a clean slate." She noticed his hesitation. "Come on. I've got a bottle of Lagavulin hidden in my office where not even House can find it. I think we both deserve a drink."
She turned to face him and when he lowered his eyes, he could just barely see down the gap of her blouse. The Promised Land, House's voice whispered in his head, and he forced himself to look away. "One drink and then paperwork," he agreed.
He tried not to stand too close to her in the elevator. It was too easy to get lost in the smell of her perfume or the warmth of her arm brushing against his side. He had made a lot of mistakes in his life - House would say he was pathologically stupid about women - but he had no intention of letting himself screw up his relationship - professional or personal - with Cuddy. He liked sex. And after listening to House rave about the blind date he had broken up, he knew Cuddy liked sex as well. Wilson was just afraid that he would like more than sex with Cuddy.
When they got to her office, she indicated he should sit on the couch in the corner and close his eyes. "It's not that I don't trust you," she said, smiling. "It's that I don't trust you and House together."
He laughed and made a show of covering his face and then pretending to peek through his fingers.
"Don't look," she chastised.
He leaned deeper into the couch and tipped his head back. He listened to her move around the office. He missed the sounds of another person in his space. With his eyes closed, he could almost imagine that they were home, together, unwinding after a long day. He would putter in the kitchen fixing dinner while she sorted through the mail. After dinner, they would sit curled against each other, watching television or listening to music. And she would understand if House called half a dozen times to bother him, or pulled him away for a real or manufactured emergency.
He shook himself free of the fantasy. It was no wonder his marriages were doomed to failure before the honeymoon was over. Even he knew that the gap between his dreams and reality was an unbridgeable chasm. But he couldn't stop longing and hoping.
He started when she sat down next to him, close enough to brush shoulders. "Bottom's up," she said, handing him a cut crystal tumbler.
"Slainte," he replied, tipping the glass at her and taking a small sip. "Nice," he said appreciatively once the scotch had blazed a satisfying trail down his throat. "What's the occasion?" She didn't answer immediately, and he felt a tiny frisson of fear. This wasn't a celebration. "Cuddy?"
"I'm worried about you, James," she said finally.
He sipped the scotch to cover an instinctive flash of panic. The last time she had called him James, she had been about to tell him that House had just been shot. "I'm fine," he said and told himself that his voice was just raw from the alcohol.
"You're working too hard. You take on too much. With your job. With House. I'm afraid you're going to burn out."
The panic took firmer hold. "Are you concerned about my performance?" he asked, hating the note of uncertainty that crept into his voice.
"Of course not," she reassured him. "I just don't want you to have to go without any support again." She stared down at the carpet, and then lifted her chin to gaze at him almost defiantly. "The whole ordeal with Tritter. It rattled me. I wasn't a very good boss or a very good friend to you. I'm sorry."
Wilson shrugged. He didn't like to be reminded of that time before Christmas. He had come so close to losing everything that mattered to him. "It's all right," he said diffidently, unconsciously shifting away from her.
"It's not," Cuddy insisted. "You're as valuable to this hospital as he is. Maybe even more so." She smiled at his look of disbelief. "Can you imagine him in that meeting? We'd still be arguing about the first item on the agenda."
"A talent for manipulation hardly compares to a talent for saving lives." Even Wilson was surprised by how bitter he sounded.
Cuddy turned to face him and put a hand on his knee. It was just a friendly gesture, but it still took all his willpower not to react. "Your talent for manipulation, if that's what you want to call it, lets him save lives. You smooth the way for him with patients, other doctors, his own staff. You make it possible for him to pull miracles out of his ass."
"Not any more," Wilson whispered, remembering broken deals and empty pill bottles.
"That's not true. Cameron told me that you stopped him from potentially paralyzing his CIPA patient."
Wilson rolled his eyes. "Cameron is the Alaska Pipeline of information. I'm glad she's screwing Chase. Maybe it will give her less time to poke her nose into other people's business."
Cuddy tried to look disapproving, but barely managed to disguise a grin. "I can't believe House has let it go on this long. He tracks me down in the middle of a date; I've seen him appear out of nowhere if you even smile at a woman. I can't believe he's letting two of his employees sleep with each other without interfering."
"He doesn't need to. As long as those two are wrapped up in each other, he can keep them in his orbit. It's only when an outside force enters the system that he goes into protect mode. Unfortunately, he seems to think that everybody is an outside force where I'm concerned." He smiled ruefully. "And I'm afraid he probably feels the same way about you."
Cuddy gave him a curious, appraising look that warmed him in places the scotch couldn't touch. "Well, then, maybe we should join forces."
That was both the best and the worst idea Wilson had ever heard. "You've got a short memory," he said wryly. "The last time we had dinner, he was digging through your garbage to prove it wasn't a date."
"Then we tell him it's not a date. He can hardly object to two friends having dinner together." She sighed. "Of course he can. I forgot that rational and House don't co-exist in the same reality." She finished her drink and put the tumbler on the side table. "Let him object," she said with scotch-fuelled bravado. "We could both use a friend, I think."
A friend would be nice, Wilson thought wistfully. He took a sip of scotch and felt almost giddy. He told himself it was just the alcohol on an empty stomach. But when Cuddy settled back next to him, shoulder to shoulder, he let himself imagine that they really could be friends, if only for a little while.
When Wilson got back to his office, there was a terse message from House on his voice mail, ordering him to come over. With House, that could mean he was hungry, bored or in pain. It was always best to be forewarned, so he called House at home. House picked up on the second ring. Wilson wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad sign.
"The meeting ended an hour ago," House said without preamble.
Sometimes Wilson regretted the invention of caller ID. It took away any advantage, however fleeting, he might have over House at the beginning of a conversation. "And you know that how?" Wilson asked. "Have you bugged the boardroom?"
"I have my sources," House replied with his usual combination of arrogance and evasion. "What have you been up to between the boardroom and your office?"
"What makes you think I've been anywhere else?" Wilson countered. "I know you haven't planted a tracking device on me. I check my clothes twice daily." That actually might be necessary, he realized, now that he had suggested the idea to House. "Maybe I decided to do some work before I called back and you shot the rest of my evening to hell."
"Nice try. But the only work you have left today is paperwork, which even you try to avoid like the plague, so I know you called as soon as you picked up the message. Did you get lost on your way back to the boardroom? I know hospital corridors can be confusing, but they do have those helpful signs on the walls."
Confession was the better part of valour at this point. At least half a dozen people had seen him go into Cuddy's office, and word would get back to House sooner rather than later. "I dropped by Cuddy's office for a drink," he admitted. "She has way better scotch hidden away than you do."
There was silence at the other end of the line and Wilson knew House was working out the best angle to torment him. Or rather, which one he would use first. "First coffee with Cameron, then a drink with Cuddy," House mused. "Are you planning on having sex with the next nurse that you see to complete the pattern? I mean, usually you work that routine on one person, over more than one day, but I admire your efficiency. It has been a long time since you've been married. Best get at it."
"Fuck off," Wilson replied, but without any real anger. It practically qualified as an endearment between them. "Is this a preview of the evening's program if I come over? Because I'd rather stick needles in my eyes."
House snorted. Wilson could almost see the disdainful expression on his face. "I'm not Shirley MacLaine and you're not nearly cool enough to be Jack Nicholson. Now put away your files and get over here. And pick up dinner on your way."
Hunger then. Wilson could relate to that. He hadn't eaten since noon and he was starving. The scotch had woken, not dampened, his appetite. "What's in it for me?" he asked. "The pleasure of your charming personality? Thanks, but I think I'll pass."
"Heads, heads, heads," House replied.
Wilson closed the file he had been skimming. "You got R & G? Why didn't you say that before?" He glanced at his watch and hesitated. "It's nearly nine. Maybe we should wait until Friday."
"Don't be such a wimp," House retorted. "If Cuddy is pleased enough with you to bring out the Lagavulin, she's not going to bust your balls if you oversleep tomorrow. I know you don't have any appointments until the afternoon."
It didn't surprise Wilson that House knew his schedule. It didn't even surprise him that he had discovered Cuddy's supposedly hidden stash of scotch. It did surprise him that House had gone to the trouble of either renting or recording the movie. "I'll pick up pizza," he said. It was fast and on the way.
An hour later he was on House's couch watching Tom Stoppard's existential take on Hamlet, a slice of pizza in one hand and a beer in the other. He was more comfortable and relaxed than he had been in days. He wondered how long he could make it last.
When the movie ended, Wilson stretched and started to stand. He was surprised when House tugged on his shirt and pulled him back down. "It's late and you don't really want to drive back to the hotel tonight."
"Have you added mind-reading to your list of skills?" Wilson asked mildly. He didn't make a second effort to stand up, however. He didn't want to go back to the hotel.
"Yours is pretty simple. See James marry. See James divorce. See James flirt in the cafeteria."
Wilson sighed. "I wasn't flirting." It was mostly true. Flirting implied a casual playfulness that Wilson hadn't intended at all. "I had coffee with Cameron, at her request."
"She looked pretty shaken after your little chat, and I'm guessing it wasn't just the caffeine," House observed.
Wilson shrugged. "She wanted my advice. I don't think she liked what I had to say."
"Colour me shocked," House drawled. "What did you tell her, how to keep her schedule organized when she decided to do Foreman too? Time-tested tips on how to love 'em and leave 'em, over and over again."
It shouldn't smart that much. House had been taking pot shots at his life for more than a decade now. He should have thicker calluses. "Has it ever occurred to you that your little fantasies about my sex life might actually be hurtful? That I don't actually want my colleagues - or your fellows - to think that I'll screw anything in sight?"
House nodded seriously. "Of course. Wouldn't want them to get their guard up."
Once he might have laughed and made a joke about stealth sex. But too much had happened in the past year, and too little of it was funny. He stood up. The hotel room was starting to look good. "It's been a pleasure, as always, House. Your hospitality is second to none."
This time, House managed to pull him off-balance, and he whacked his shin against the coffee table falling back onto the couch. "Damnit, House," he yelped. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"I got a movie I knew you'd like, I let you have half my couch, and I even let you drink my beer. Now it's time for you to pay up."
"I bought the pizza," Wilson protested. It was an empty protest, since pizza wasn't payment, just a regular tithe.
"You haven't told me what you did to Cameron yet," House complained.
"I didn't do anything to her," Wilson snapped. He rubbed his leg, trying to ease the sharp pain. "And it's none of your business."
"Which means you did do something to her." House stood up and limped over to the kitchen, returning with an ice pack. "Don't be such a baby," he chastised, dropping it on Wilson's knee.
It was as close to nurturing as he was going to get, so Wilson let himself be appeased. "Maybe I reminded her that you can't control your feelings," he admitted. A memory of Cameron's pulse racing beneath his fingertips made him shiver, and he pretended it was just the ice pack on his leg. "She needs to figure out what she wants before she really hurts Chase."
House was uncharacteristically silent in response, and Wilson hoped they could close the subject. He had crossed a line with Cameron in the cafeteria. He didn't regret it, but he didn't want to spend the rest of the evening defending himself to House.
"So what did Cuddy want?" House asked finally, and Wilson realized there was something worse than talking about Cameron. "Was she plying you with alcohol to have her wicked way with you?"
Wilson decided prevarication would just make things worse. "She wanted to make sure I wasn't cracking up," he said flatly.
House stared at him suspiciously, as if he were searching for something that Cuddy had seen that he hadn't. "Why would she think that?"
"Possibly because she thinks being your friend and being sane aren't simultaneously possible." He smiled to show that it was just a joke.
But House looked away and picked up the remote control, flipping through the channels. "Maybe she's right," he muttered. "Being my friend hasn't exactly been good for you recently."
It was true, and yet it wasn't. The only thing harder than being House's friend was not being his friend. "It would be easier if you didn't antagonize random patients and law enforcement officials," he admitted. "But it would probably be a lot less interesting."
House shook his head. "I'm never going to change," he warned.
"You've already changed," Wilson said. "Sometimes I don't know who you are any more." He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to remain calm. Thinking about how much House had changed really did make him crazy. "I don't want you to be somebody you're not. I want you to be who you were." But he was afraid that man was gone forever, drowned in a sea of pain and misery. "But if you can't be that, I just want you to live." He could handle the addiction, the insults, the random threats to his career, as long as he could sit next to House at the end of a long day.
House never gave concessions. He did, on occasion, give hope. "I'm not going anywhere," he muttered. "The second I was gone, Cuddy would catch you in a weak moment and trap you in her web."
"Cuddy is nice," Wilson protested.
"I think that's the first time I've heard those words strung together. You really are insane. Cuddy is Bathsheba bathing naked on the rooftop, and you're about to bring down a curse on your house."
Wilson shrugged. "Well, since you're the only house I have," he grinned, "I'm not too concerned." He dropped the ice pack on the table and leaned back into the couch. His arm brushed against House, but instead of shifting away, he leaned in a little closer. House didn't flinch, so he relaxed and turned his attention to the TV.
He tried to stay awake, but his internal clock automatically switched to sleep mode after eleven, and he drifted off as The Colbert Report came on. He woke to an absence of sound.
The television was off, but House was still sitting next to him, flipping through a journal. Wilson's face flushed when he realised he had fallen asleep with his head on House's shoulder. "Sorry," he muttered and sat up.
"Why? Were you drooling on me?" House pretended to examine his shirt. "Go back to sleep," he said quietly.
Wilson leaned back and closed his eyes. A moment later his head slipped sideways, back onto House's shoulder. He heard House chuckle, and then he drifted off to sleep to the steady sound of House's breathing.
The next time he woke up, sun was shining through the blinds. There was a pillow under his head and a blanket spread over his body. The only comfort missing was House.
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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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