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Is This The Real Life?
by Teyla
Beta: Housepiglet
Notes: This was originally written for the 100 members prompt at the Sick!Wilson Anonymous LJ community. The first line was given for inspiration.
I hope you'll enjoy this! If you do - I love feedback!! :) If you don't - I love concrit just as much ;).
"Wilson!" For once, House's voice lacked any mockery or sarcasm. He sounded genuinely shocked. "What in God's name happened to your face?"
Wilson, who was sitting in the chair behind his desk, slowly turned his head around and gave House a full view of his face. It was covered in blood that was oozing from a cut just underneath the hairline and had left large bright red splotches on the collar of his doctor's coat and the front of his shirt. When Wilson met House's eyes, House was amazed and more than a little creeped to see a wide, lazy smile spread on his face.
"I ran into the balcony door," Wilson said cheerfully.
House stared at his friend - and, as of recently, lover - for a short moment before he stepped fully over the threshold of the office and closed the door behind himself. "Right," he said and limped over to where Wilson was sitting. "And since it was only this tiny cut that almost didn't bleed at all, you decided to stay here and continue your paperwork instead of getting it looked at." House propped his cane against the desk and took Wilson by the chin to turn his head around, using his other hand to carefully brush the hair aside. Wilson went with the motion willingly, the smile never leaving his face. House frowned.
"What the hell are you smiling at?" he asked.
Wilson stopped smiling. "You have very large ears," he said solemnly.
House stopped his examination of the cut, which had almost stopped bleeding and didn't seem to be as bad as it had looked on first glance, and sought out Wilson's eyes. "Wilson?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
"Told you, I ran into the balcony door," Wilson said, and the smile was back. "They jiggle when you talk."
House felt the worry that had settled in his stomach begin to creep up his throat, and licked his lips. He took the small examination penlight that Wilson always carried in the breast pocket of his doctor's coat and switched it on, shining the light into Wilson's eyes. Wilson squinted and raised a hand to bat the light away.
"Hold still," House said, and noticed that his own voice sounded a lot more tense than usual. "Wilson, can you tell me exactly how you ran into the door?"
"Well, it happened the way things like that happen, you know," Wilson said, still scrunching his eyes shut and trying to evade the light. "I didn't look where I was going. Stop that, House."
House again took Wilson's chin in his hand to stop him from squirming. "Hold still, I said. Open your eyes."
Wilson did as told, albeit hesitantly. When he'd finally stopped blinking, House squinted and quickly shone the light first at one eye, then at the other. He felt a certain relief when Wilson's pupils contracted the way they were supposed to.
"Follow my finger," he instructed, slowly moving his outstretched index finger back and forth in front of Wilson's face. Wilson did as he was told, but as House watched, he realized that Wilson's pupils were dilated, making the already dark eyes look almost black. He cursed silently. "You moron," he said. "You probably gave your stupid self a concussion. They invented phones for another reason besides looking stylish on your desk, you know."
"Saving phone numbers?" Wilson asked, and grinned. House rolled his eyes and grabbed Wilson's phone, hitting the quick dial for the Diagnostics office. After a couple of rings, he heard Chase's voice answer.
"Hello, this is Dr. Chase from Princeton-Plainsb-"
"Shut up and come on over to Wilson's office," House said, with his free hand pulling a kleenex from the box on Wilson's desk and dabbing at the already drying blood on Wilson's face. Wilson winced and tried to pull back, and House let out a sigh of exasperation. "Boy wonder needs an escort to the clinic." He hung up on Chase's shocked "What happened?" and returned to cleaning the worst of the blood off Wilson's face. He frowned and shook his head. "For God's sake, Wilson, stop smiling."
-###-
Ten minutes and a - on Wilson's part - rather giggly elevator ride later, House, Chase and Wilson arrived in exam room one in the clinic, and Chase maneuvered Wilson onto the exam bed. Wilson, who had for some reason decided Chase's tie to be the funniest thing he'd seen in weeks, went into another giggling fit, and House felt the worry being gradually replaced by exasperation.
"Chase, get that damn tie out of his sight," he said. "I'm gonna puke if he makes another crack about cock extensions."
Chase, looking a lot less concerned and a lot more embarrassed than when he'd first laid eyes on Wilson a few minutes ago, quickly undid his tie knot and stuffed the tie into his pocket. Wilson chuckled. "No reason to hide it," he told Chase. "You've got nothing to be ashamed of."
Chase's facial color turned an even deeper shade of red, and he turned to look at House. "This is no concussion," he said in an obvious attempt to cover up his embarrassment with professionalism. "He's way too lucid."
"You call that lucid?" House asked, gesturing at Wilson who was still shaking with silent laughter. He knew what Chase was talking about, though, and he had to agree. This wasn't Wilson's normal behavior, but it wasn't the confusion and disorientation of a grade one or two concussion, either. It seemed almost as if...
"It's like he's... high on something," Chase said, voicing House's thoughts. House glared at the younger man.
"The day Wilson gets high will be the day you decide to take up wrestling. The man doesn't even smoke his patients' pot." He limped over to the supply cupboard and rummaged around in it for dressings and antiseptic ointment. "Go find Cuddy, tell her Wilson's out of commission for today. So am I, by the way. You'll do my clinic hours."
"You didn't bash your head," Chase stated by way of a feeble protest, and House saw him suppress a flinch as he glared at him once more.
"Sure, I could let him drive home in his state. Might as well just shoot him, though. That way I can keep the Volvo. Now go and find Cuddy."
Chase pulled his face into a petulant pout but obediently turned around and left the exam room. House grabbed the supplies he'd fished out of the cupboard and pulled up a chair so he could sit down beside Wilson, who was watching him with an attentive expression.
"You're not getting the Volvo," Wilson said. "You don't appreciate it. Besides, you wouldn't leave me the 'vette if you snuffed it."
Despite the way the statement intensified the worried feeling in his stomach, House had to smile at that. "Can't let you have the 'vette," he said. "You'd panic over the transmission and put it in the ditch on your first spin around the block." He began to clean away the rest of the blood, and Wilson winced.
"Would not," he said.
"Would, too."
"Not."
"Too."
"Not to infinity."
"Too to a larger infinity."
"No such thing."
"Yes, there is." House smirked. "Obviously, you didn't pay much attention in Calculus." He briefly flicked his eyes to Wilson's face and saw that Wilson was biting his lower lip. Obviously, the cut did hurt, after all. House picked up the tube with the ointment and squeezed some onto a cotton swab. "Wilson, did you take something?" he asked.
At that, Wilson grinned and turned his eyes to look at him. "Not so sure about that as you made Chase believe you are, eh?" he asked, and House thought, No, definitely not a concussion. Wilson chuckled. "But no, I didn't take anything. No drugs, anyway. Just a couple of acetaminophen."
House frowned. "You sat behind your desk and did nothing about the bleeding, but you did take pain killers?"
"No," Wilson said. "I took them before I ran into the door. I had a headache."
House frowned and examined the now clean cut. It really wasn't all that bad. It had bled a lot, as head wounds tended to do, but he'd seen a lot worse in patients with a grade two concussion. He carefully prodded the area around the cut for any hidden swelling that would indicate the cut was only the tip of the iceberg. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes, I'm sure," Wilson said, flinching. "Ow, House, stop that. That kinda hurts."
House did stop, but only because he couldn't feel anything out of the ordinary, and he lowered his hands, looking at Wilson who returned his gaze with a rather dopey smile on his face.
House frowned, trying to assess the situation - which he found surprisingly hard, on account of the uneasy and worried feeling that was sitting just below his chest and was trying to unleash the beast of panic and mental images of rather terrifying worst-case-scenarios. This morning when he and Wilson had come into work together, Wilson had been his normal self. He had complained about a slight headache, though. They hadn't seen each other all day, until House had come into Wilson's office to find him bleeding and in this giddy, strange mood. Which was not a typical symptom of concussion. Nor, however, was it a symptom of an overdose of acetaminophen; not that Wilson would ever think about taking more than the recommended dosage. On the other hand, giddiness and euphoria were indeed symptoms of...
"Oh, hell," House muttered. "Wilson." He waited until Wilson's drowsy gaze had latched onto his own. "Do you keep the acetaminophen in your bottom desk drawer?"
"Sure." Wilson blinked. "Where else would I keep it?"
House looked at him for a moment, then let out an explosive sigh. "Well, at least I know what's wrong with you now," he said, then shook his head and added, "Didn't your mother ever teach you to read the label before you pop the pills?"
"What are you talking about, House?" Wilson asked, and House snorted, freeing a band aid from its packing and placing it over the cut on Wilson's forehead.
"That wasn't acetaminophen that you took," he said. "Although I bet your headache's gone." When Wilson continued to look confused, House rolled his eyes. "I keep a bottle of my pills in your drawer. I put them there after, well, after the last time I found myself in your office wishing I had my pills on me." Which hadn't been all that long ago. Only a few days, actually. He'd been sitting in Wilson's office chair, most of his body reveling in a post-coital haze, except for his leg, which was a total killjoy as far as sex was concerned and always insisted on spoiling half the fun by hurting like a bitch afterwards. Wilson had been called away to some kind of oncology emergency - House had to admit that no matter how dorky Wilson could be sometimes, that man could tie ties at the speed of light - and House had found that he'd left his jacket, and thus his pills, in his own office. After about five minutes, his leg had let him get up and limp across the balconies to get them, and the first thing he'd done when the hydrocodone had mellowed the pain in his leg had been to go back to Wilson's office and stash a few Vicks in the bottom desk drawer.
House now thought that maybe he should have told Wilson about this.
"I took your Vicodin?" For a moment, Wilson lost his expression of happy contentment. "I took two of those pills!" He stared at House, who shifted a little on his chair.
"It's not gonna kill you," he said and shrugged.
"Two pills! That's... " Wilson let out a laugh, and House almost winced. "That's twenty megs of hydrocodone!" He began to giggle, and House found himself in the unfamiliar position of feeling rather guilty. Even though he did have to admit there was a funny side to this. Not funny enough to justify the laughing fit Wilson was having at the moment, though. He sighed.
"Yeah, well, it'll wear off in about three hours. Till then, try to avoid any more doors, okay?"
Wilson gasped and swallowed before he caught himself enough to say something. "What about- what about houses?" he breathed, and House narrowed his eyes.
"What?"
Wilson sat up, still hitching and giggling, and House almost jumped when Wilson reached out and grabbed the collar of his jacket. "Well, if I'm high on narcotics, I intent to get the most out of it," Wilson said, and almost pulled House off balance as he brought them closer together for an off-kilter kiss. House grabbed the edge of the exam bed to keep himself from falling off the chair, and stumbled to a standing position.
"Wilson!" he hissed, trying to squirm out of the other man's surprisingly strong grip. "Stop it!"
Wilson, however, wasn't deterred in the slightest. House felt him let go of the jacket only to place two large hands on the sides of House's head. Soft lips closed over his own, and before he could stop himself, he'd granted Wilson's demanding tongue entrance to his mouth. The kiss was rougher, greedier and more enthusiastic than any kiss they had exchanged over the last few weeks, and when they parted, House was breathing heavily and not at all convinced anymore that this was a bad idea. Still, the rapidly diminishing rational part of his brain made him utter some more words of protest.
"Wilson, we can't do this here, the door isn't even locked-"
"Shut up, House." Wilson's tone was commanding, and he swung his legs over the edge of the exam bed so he was sitting directly in front of House. "I've always wondered what sex on drugs might be like."
"Oh," House said, feeling rationality dwindle away as Wilson began to nuzzle the exact spot on the side of his neck that made most of his blood rush from his brain to his groin. "Really?"
"Oh yes," Wilson muttered, sliding even closer and pressing his upper body against House's as he administered more kisses to House's jaw line. "I always imagined it to be incredibly intense."
House slowly began to recover from Wilson's surprise attack and began sliding his hands down the front of Wilson's shirt, fumbling at the buttons. "Yeah," he mumbled and turned his head to seek out Wilson's mouth for another kiss. "Intense is the exact right word."
Their lips met, and this time House was the one in the lead, pushing a demanding tongue in Wilson's mouth, tasting him and enjoying the way Wilson's hands pushed up his jacket and shirt and slid underneath, the way Wilson's surprisingly soft hands felt on the skin of his back, the way-
"Oh my God."
The utterance made House freeze and caused all his blood to rush from his groin back to his head. He didn't move, his hands still in the act of unbuttoning Wilson's shirt and his lips still firmly pressed to Wilson's. The hands on his back had grown still as well, and House thought that Wilson had stopped breathing.
After a split-second in which time seemed to have stopped altogether, House regained control of his body and jumped back quickly enough to almost lose his balance. He steadied himself on the wall and turned around to see Chase standing in the doorway, Cuddy right behind him, both of them staring at House and Wilson with huge eyes and in complete silence.
"Hi," House said. "I don't think I called for a consult."
The dead silence that followed was interrupted after a few moments by breathless, silent giggling. House, Chase and Cuddy, all of them eternally grateful for a distraction, whipped their heads around to look at Wilson, who was sitting on the edge of the exam bed with disheveled hair and half of the buttons on his shirt unbuttoned and shaking with silent laughter.
"I'm- I'm sorry," he gasped. "This is just so -" Another bout of giggling followed, and House found that this was turning out to be one of the few moments in his life in which he really, really didn't know what to do or say. He looked back at Cuddy, who was staring at him, her expression demanding an explanation.
"Wilson accidentally took a couple of Vicodin," he said.
"What?" Cuddy asked, and the shrill undertone in her voice almost made House wince. "He did what? House, what's going on?"
"Wilson-took-a-couple-of-Vicodin," House said again, slowly as if he were speaking to a particularly dumb three year old. "Want me to write it down for you?"
Cuddy drew in a sharp breath that made her nostrils flare. "House-"
"I don't think he'll be fit for work for the rest of the day," House overrode her. "I'm going to take him home. He'll be okay by tomorrow." He grabbed his cane and took Wilson by the arm. "Come on, big fella," he said.
Wilson obediently slid off the exam bed, still giggling and snickering, and let House steer him past Cuddy and Chase into the clinic's main area. House deliberately ignored the way Chase's mouth opened and closed a couple of times as they passed him by, and also tried not to pay attention to the way Cuddy looked a lot paler than usual. He maneuvered Wilson towards the exit doors, dismissing the idea of getting their stuff from their offices. He had Wilson's car keys, and that was all they needed to get out of here for now.
As he unlocked the car, House couldn't help noticing that Chase and Cuddy had followed them out into the parking lot and were standing by the entrance and gaping. He stowed Wilson away on the passenger seat and got in himself, then started up the car. He picked a CD from the collection in Wilson's glove compartment and rolled the windows down. As he pulled out of the lot, he made sure to drive by the hospital close enough so Cuddy and Chase would hear the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody blasting from the car's speakers.
-###-
"Uh, morning, House."
House, who was sprawling on his couch and watching awful late morning television, smirked a little at the drowsy voice that came from the direction of the bedroom. "Morning, sunshine," he said. "Welcome back to the land of the living."
Wilson didn't answer, but House heard the padding of socked feet on wooden floorboards, and a moment later, one quite disheveled and sleepy-looking head of oncology entered his field of vision. House shuffled over to make some space, and Wilson dropped onto the couch next to him. He stared blearily at the TV for a moment.
"Cookery show?" he asked then.
House shrugged. "It's live. They work with huge knives. I still harbor hope."
Wilson was silent for a few more moments, obviously processing this piece of information. "Why aren't you at work?" he asked then.
"Took the day off."
"Oh." Wilson blinked a couple of times. "And me?"
"You did, too."
Wilson nodded slowly. Another stretch of silence followed, interrupted only by the TV cook announcing that he was now going to demonstrate how easy making fries yourself actually was. Then Wilson shifted a little on the couch. "House," he said.
House didn't look up. "Yeah?"
"Did..." Wilson swallowed. "Did I maybe... did Chase and Cuddy really catch us making out in the clinic?"
At the terrified note in Wilson's voice, House almost let out a snort. He smirked instead. "Weren't you the one who was all for not keeping this a secret forever?"
From the corner of his eyes, House could see Wilson slide down further in his seat. He heard a low groan. "House," Wilson said after a moment.
"What?"
"If I kill you now, will you really not give me the 'vette?"
House snorted. "Never in a hundred years. I might leave you my stash, though." He looked up to grin at Wilson. "You're a lot of fun all hepped up on hydrocodone."
The next moment, he gave a very undignified squeal as Wilson pounced on him, trying to smother him with one of his own couch pillows. That was when House decided that sharing his drugs with Wilson was not a good idea, despite all the hot clinic sex he might miss out on this way.
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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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