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The Cure
by Eye of the Needle
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, all characters are property of their creators.
A/N: The bits in italics are from a song by The Cure called "Friday, I'm in Love." I thought it fit quite well with what was going on in the story.
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I don't care if Monday's blue...
House sat in his office with his legs on his desk, trying to distract himself from the sheer dullness of the hospital by reading an article on the latest Oncology conference in a newspaper. It wasn't that he was interested in oncology, but it was written in Spanish and this was an interesting challenge, reading about the wonders of St Jimmy's lectures in a foreign language held a certain charm that he was not quite able to resist.
He was distracted from his reverie by his door swinging open and an angry Cameron striding in, brandishing a file at him as though it were sharp, House looked at her and almost gave in to the thought that she might actually be able to hurt him with it, but quickly stopped since he was bigger than she was.
"Have you even looked at the patient? Are you such an arrogant son of a bitch that you can't even take one second to look at someone, not even as a favour?" She dropped the file on his desk and stood there, hands on hips, eyes flaming, she almost looked attractive to him, almost.
"What's there to look at? It's thyroid cancer, probably metastasised by now, dump him on Wilson..."
"No!" Cameron interrupted, trying desperately to keep her voice calm. "I mean, couldn't it be... anything?" She finished quieter than she had started, tears visible in her eyes. Her posture weakened and House was sure he saw her physically crumble. He considered relenting, letting her run test after test on the guy until she ran out of things to test, but then, he remembered that woman with lung cancer.
"People die, Cameron, good, bad, it happens to all of us. Now go tell the guy and give that file to Wilson."
Cameron didn't move, she opened and shut her mouth as though trying to find the right words; she gave in, sighing a little. Reluctantly, she picked up the file and left his office, more than a little down-trodden. House watched her go and waited until he could no longer hear her heels clicking down the corridor, before returning to his newspaper. He stared at the words and found he couldn't concentrate, every time he saw Wilson's name printed in Spanish or otherwise he felt an odd sensation. He felt almost, bad, for loading yet another patient onto him, the guy was swamped at the moment, both in work and out of it. And he felt it was only decent that he felt at least a little bit guilty for forcing Cameron to relive what was probably one of the worst times of her life. To his vague disgust, he actually felt a little disheartened himself, so much so that he declined watching his planned reruns of General Hospital in favour of brooding over cafeteria coffee, alone in the corner.
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too...
House stalked through the clinic glaring at any sick person that might have the stupidity to ask him to look at their sniffles. He was angry, and he wanted to make sure everyone knew it so for added effect, he told Cuddy exactly what he thought she should do with her paperwork that she needed him to do, before attacking the door close button viciously as he stepped into the elevator.
Upon his arrival to his floor, he found Cameron waiting on the other side of the elevator door, brandishing a file that looked suspiciously different to the one she had been wafting under his nose for the past week or so.
"New patient," she declared proudly as though expecting some sort of praise from House, who was not in the most praise giving mood today. He snatched the file from her and read it as he limped across the corridor to his office. After four or five steps he'd figured out what was wrong with the patient and promptly dropped the file on the floor and snarled at it as though it was some sort of animal. Cameron pursued him, retrieved the file and gave him a look which he couldn't be bothered to return.
"Go away, if you can't figure it out for yourself then it's your fault if they die." House growled at her, grabbing at a coffee that had been thoughtfully left on his desk by some kind hearted soul. Cameron looked perturbed but did not disturb him further and swiftly exited his office to explain the case to Chase and Foreman who were in the conference room watching their boss with interest.
They had just got interested in the case as some particularly confusing test results had jumped out at them, when they heard a smash followed by a liquid sound. All three fellows looked up to see the window streaked with dark brown liquid and a coffee cup forlornly in bits at the base of the glass pane, which was now adorned with several cracks. The thrower was glaring at it as though it was somehow responsible for everything that was wrong with his life.
"Should we do something?" Chase asked, a little worried that House was about to come in and treat them in a reasonably similar fashion. Foreman, ever the realist simply shrugged as though to say "what can we do?" Cameron ever the kind hearted soul, the same one in fact that had left the apparently offending coffee on House's desk looked concerned.
"Maybe we should get Wilson," she thoughtfully offered, Foreman and Chase looked up encouragingly, Wilson was always the best course of action when it came to House, why hadn't they thought of that earlier?
Cameron, needing no further encouragement, rose from the table and quickly exited the room before House could catch her glancing at him, still staring at the bits of red mug on the floor.
When she got to Wilsons office, she was informed by a nurse that he wasn't there and wouldn't be there for a couple of days, he had taken some personal time away from work. Cameron suddenly realised this could be why House had been acting so angrily, maybe "away from work" was a euphemism for "away from House." She said as much to Foreman and Chase who nodded in agreement and looked puzzled respectively. Just as they were about to begin speculation, House slammed the door open and stalked in, demanding to know why they still hadn't figured out what he had done over an hour ago. Any discussion of the issue at hand would have to wait until House had been distracted by something more important to him than shouting at them. Such a distraction soon arrived in the form of Cuddy who had finally found some free time in which to come and find out why House had made such a fuss in the clinic earlier.
"House I..." she began, only to be cut off by a wail which sounded somewhere in between wounded animal, and exasperated human. House threw the file he was holding down on the table and limped, more painfully than usual, out of diagnostics and out of the hospital. Cuddy sighed and sat down with House's team to examine the patient's charts.
The next day, House showed up looked tired, haggard and even angrier than yesterday, few would have believed it possible but yet it was. He announced his arrival at the hospital by yelling at a new nurse and swearing loudly when he tripped over a child's toy car that had been left on the floor of the clinic. Cuddy promptly turned up and told him to go home, she and his team had finally figured out what was wrong with the patient and had turned their attentions to House, she had agreed with Cameron that it was probably Wilson's sudden leave of absence that was causing House to act up and that his reappearance tomorrow would snap him out of his mood.
Thursday, I don't care about you...
True to form, Wilson returned at 9am sharp the next morning, looking refreshed and happy, Cuddy thought, about time to, he had to deal with so much with his job and with House piled on top of that. It couldn't be good for him.
Speaking of House he hadn't yet shown up, which wasn't unusual, but Cuddy had felt sure Wilson's return might prompt him to arrive at least a little earlier than his usual time of around eleven. By twelve he still hadn't shown up and Cuddy was thankful that there were no unsolvable cases floating around, she sent his team to help out in various sections of the hospital and then went to see Wilson.
"Have you seen House?" She asked, once inside his office.
"Hasn't he shown up yet?" Wilson replied, looking just a little bit worried despite his bright eyed demeanour. Cuddy sighed, Wilson's entire break was about to be made pointless.
"No, I was wondering if you could call him and see where he is. I don't think he'll talk to me." She said, pre-empting his inevitable question of why couldn't she do it.
Wilson sighed and picked up his phone, dialling Houses number from memory, he listened to the rings. House picked up on the fourth ring and before Wilson had even said hello, House had barked something at him and hung up. Cuddy could hear the dial tone.
"What happened?" She asked, hands on hips, doing an excellent wonder woman.
Wilson bit his lower lip in frustration. "He told me to fuck off." He sounded hurt and just a little confused. Cuddy sighed, just a little confused herself. Her eyes wandered around Wilson's office and came to rest on a pile of broken red ceramic sat on a small table in the corner of the room. Wilson noticed her looking and sighed.
"I went to his office this morning and found it there, what happened?"
Cuddy relayed the previous couple of days events to him and was startled to notice that Wilson looked just about ready to cry.
"I didn't tell him I was going, I should have done, I know it was only two days but that's a lifetime to House when he doesn't know what's going on. He must have been so scared..."
Cuddy was so busy finding the idea that House would have found Wilson's absence scary a little absurd, that she almost missed the next thing he said.
"...I mean he would have woken up to find the bed and the flat empty, with note no message nothing. God what must he have thought?" Wilson had his head in his hands when it dawned on him what he had actually just said.
"Oh God, we weren't telling anyone, I..."
"Are you telling me that you two are shacking up?"
Wilson winced, "Don't say it like that, I love him and...he loves me."
Wilson studied the emotions that raced across Cuddy's face in the seconds following his revelation. She quickly composed herself, "I'm happy for you both," she said, seeing the look on his face she added, "really I am, if it makes you both happy then I'm happy I suppose." She smiled to emphasise the point, but something still didn't make sense. "Why didn't you tell him you were going?"
Wilson looked stricken. "I don't know, I just woke up and wanted to get out for a couple of hours before he woke up. That couple of hours turned into a good few hours then I called you and asked for a couple of days off. God I took the car and packed some stuff as well, he must have thought..." Wilson swallowed "he must have thought I was leaving him."
Cuddy said nothing as Wilson wrestled with his conscience and merely nodded when he asked if he could go see if House was alright. When he had left, she addressed the empty room and informed it that this was far too complicated and that she needed a coffee.
When Wilson pulled up outside House's apartment, it looked dark but he could see a flickering in the window indicating that House was watching TV. He took a deep breath before getting out the car and going in the building, another deep breath got him up the stairs and several deep breaths made him open the door to the flat. He wasn't really sure what he was expecting, a warm welcome certainly wasn't one of them but he really wasn't expecting what House actually did.
"Get the fuck out of here Wilson, I hate you!" House muttered loudly enough for Wilson to hear, but Wilson didn't go, he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
"Didn't you hear?" House asked, louder this time. "I said get the fuck out, you obviously don't want me anymore, since you probably went and found someone else."
Wilson noted the use of the word `probably,' it meant House wasn't entirely convinced that he had cheated on him which was a good start.
"Greg I'm sorry." Wilson stated, hoping that House would calm down just a little. He didn't, he levered himself of the sofa so that he was stood in front of Wilson.
"Don't Greg me, you don't get to call me that when you want to fucking leave me!" He snarled angrily, though Wilson could detect the massive hurt that was hiding behind the anger.
"What was this, just something to pass the time until you found Mrs Wilson number 4?" House sneered, he met Wilson's eyes and when he looked into those big brown pools, he suddenly lost a little confidence, suddenly afraid of his life without Wilson. "Don't you love me Wilson?" He asked, sounding a more than a little scared and worried and a million other things that Wilson couldn't bear.
"James, Greg, it's James to you, or Jimmy as I know you prefer." He looked back into House's beautiful eyes and the raw emotion took his breath away but still he persevered. "I love you, don't ever think I don't, I'm so so sorry for leaving, I just had to get away from the job, not from you.
House looked up desperate to say something, but he kept quiet, Wilson studied him, he looked tired, he probably hadn't slept at all whilst Wilson had been gone and suddenly he felt the need to throw his arms around House and never let go.
"I love you too James, please don't do that again, I got so..." House waved his arm as though searching for a way to say afraid that wouldn't make him look like a wuss. Wilson smiled and stepped closer, closing the gap and sliding his arms around House, holding him and letting him silently know that he promised not to do it again.
It's Friday, I'm in love...
Wilson always woke up earlier than House, he loved to watch as House slept, he looked so cute, though Wilson would never have admitted that to him, it would result in merciless teasing for a long, long time. He stayed there in bed with House's arm draped across his chest pulling him as close as possible, for as long as he could without being late for work.
He slowly slid out from under House's arm and made his way to the bathroom, whilst shaving he observed himself in the mirror and noticed that he wasn't looking any younger. It occurred to him that less and less people were going to be finding him attractive as the years went by, but then it also occurred to him as he glanced through to the bedroom, that it didn't matter because House would always love him.
Feeling suitably warm and fuzzy inside he made his way back to the bedroom to get dressed, when he was done and ready to leave, he found himself really not wanting to. He crept over to the bed and leant down to place a soft kiss on House's cheek. House shifted a little and Wilson saw a happy little smile ghost across his features. Reluctantly, Wilson left the apartment quietly and made his way down to his car which was still parked where he had left it last night, sort of haphazardly placed rather than carefully parked. It was a wonder no-one had scraped it considering how far out into the road it actually was. Wilson sighed and got in, before heading to the hospital.
Once there, he had expected to be greeted by Cuddy, but she had seen him arrive and had taken one look at the smile on his boyish face and assumed that all was well again in the strange, strange world of House and Wilson. She was going to have to deal with this new relationship revelation at some point, but for now she preferred to just let them get on with it.
Wilson took the elevator to his floor and took the time to walk past Diagnostics; he found Chase, Cameron and Foreman indulging in a joint effort on the crossword in today's paper. When they saw him, they all stood up to greet him and to enquire about House.
"Don't worry," Wilson smiled, "your boss will be in today." He left leaving them confused and a little worried in case their boss's mood had not dissipated much.
He didn't actually arrive at the hospital until around ten thirty, and alerted Wilson to his presence by paging him for a clinic consult. Wilson sighed but was secretly relieved to get out from under the mound of paperwork that three days absence had left him. To his surprise he also found House's team heading down to the clinic too, discussing the possibility of the page being to do with a new patient. Wilson was curious, why on earth had House paged them all.
House's team managed to squeeze themselves into the crowded elevator and Foreman held the door for Wilson, who decided he would rather take the stairs than cram himself into a small box with what seemed like the entire third floor. The stairs were also unusually busy and it dawned on him that everyone was rushing towards the clinic, what the hell was going on?
When he got to the clinic, a little after everyone else because he had taken time to help a little old lady who was about to be swamped by the mass of people going downwards, he was could hear several whispers;
"What the hell is going on?"
"Oh it's House playing some weird game."
"What's he playing at?"
"Just because he doesn't want to do work."
Then Wilson heard Cuddy address House.
"What are you wearing House? You can't wear that here!" Though there was no annoyance in her tone, in fact she sounded, amused. Wilson was most concerned, he pushed his way through the crowd of people and picked his way through the patients in front of the crowd until he could see House clearly. His heart skipped a beat when he saw what House was wearing.
There were the jeans and sneakers that he usually wore, the cane was also still present, but instead of a t-shirt like he usually wore, House was wearing a grey sweater that said McGill on it, Wilson's grey sweater that said McGill on it. He was also sporting a huge grin instead of the typical scowl. Enough people in the hospital knew that Wilson went to McGill and he was pretty sure most of them had put two and two together by now, judging by the whispers.
"Isn't that Wilson's sweater?"
"Wilson went to McGill didn't he?"
"Why is House wearing Wilson's sweater?"
"Oh God, you don't think?"
"Oh that's just nasty."
Wilson frowned and looked at House, who was looking right back at him, his huge grinned softened into a small sweet smile. Someone behind Wilson laughed cruelly and pushed him forwards so that it was him and House stood in the middle of a very crowded clinic, when it dawned on him exactly what was going on. House was about to inform everyone about them wasn't he?
House began advancing on Wilson, who wanted to get out of there but found he couldn't, he allowed House to pull him closer and wrap his arms around his waist and found his own arms snaking protectively around to House's back. House tilted Wilson's head up slightly before returning his arm to around Wilson's waist, and dropped his head a little so that their lips met.
The shouts and gasps from the onlookers melted away and there was only House and Wilson in their own little world. Wilson found he couldn't hear anything but the sound of House's heart as they held each other as close as possible. House found himself reasonably amazed, he wasn't sure if Wilson would have let him do this but yet here they were, in the middle of the clinic, arms around each other, kissing ever so sweetly. It felt so good, Wilson's mouth against his always felt amazing, but now, now it felt different because now everyone knew, this was alright. He tightened his hold on Wilson and kissed him until he really, really had to resurface for air.
When they pulled apart, they kept hold of each other and Wilson found himself staring into House's eyes, God he really was so beautiful. Wilson smiled to himself utterly overjoyed that this was real. Until the yelling started.
"That's disgusting!"
"How could you do that?"
"Wilson what the hell are you doing? House isn't capable of real feelings!"
That one hurt, Wilson could see it in House's eyes, they darkened and sadness filled them, making them look dull.
"He's a complete bastard, go back to chasing your nurses, he deserves to be alone!"
Something broke inside House right then, he frantically searched Wilson for any sign that Wilson might actually listen to what that one doctor was saying and to his complete horror, Wilson looked like he was considering it and was pulling away from House. House feeling completely torn apart, let him go, only to watch Wilson's fist fly into the face of the doctor that had been shouting. House stared, gobsmacked at the surgeon that was now lying on the floor with what was most definitely a broken nose. Wilson returned to him and put one arm around his waist as they watched the surgeon being patched up and lectured by Cuddy at the same time.
"Jimmy, that was, that was...wow!" House exclaimed, for once lost for words, Wilson grinned and looked up at his boyfriend. House looked back at him and smiled, genuinely happy.
"I love you Jimmy."
"I love you too Greg."
They came together in a tight embrace and Wilson was sure he heard some people in the crowd aweing and he was completely taken aback when some of them started applauding.
"Make sure you hold onto this one Wilson, you too House!"
"I hope you're both happy for the rest of your lives!"
"Make an honest man out of him House, you too Wilson!"
As the crowd dispersed, and the surgeon had been placated and patched up accordingly, Cuddy approached her two department heads who were still holding each other like love-struck teenagers.
"Was that really necessary House?" She asked, not really expecting an answer.
House turned to her, smiling the most genuine smile she had ever seen from him and found herself hoping that this relationship lasted forever. She was moved by the tenderness displayed in the brown and blue eyes that was directed towards the other man, and in some strange way, was a little turned on by the fact that two of the most attractive men she had ever met were now, well, getting it on.
"I'm in love." Was the only answer she got before they kissed again, and somehow that was enough.
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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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