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The Game of Wilson
by Topaz Eyes
(thanks to jazzypom for the beta!)
Gregory House, MD, reclined on his living room sofa in the falling dark of evening. It had been another long and vexing clinic day at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, so he made up for it by indulging in one of his favorite pastimes. The room was lit only by the flickering glow of the television as he punched the buttons on his Sony Playstation Two console.
He was so consumed by the flashing colors of the game he didn't even wince at the tell-tale scrape of a key in the lock of his front door.
"Door's open!" he yelled out, not even bothering to glance up from Devil's Mayhem Seven.
He heard the thud of the heavy steel-reinforced oak door as it closed and the click of the dead bolt as it turned, but he did not look up until he saw the shadow of his best friend blocking out his view of the TV and looming over his controls.
"You make a better door than a window, Wilson, I can't see my console," House snapped, shooting him a withering look. "Move your ass."
"House," James Wilson replied and nodded in greeting, stepping to one side. House rolled his eyes, shook his head and continued playing, smirking with satisfaction as the halo head count spiked.
He heard a heavy sigh and looked up then. Wilson always carried a quiet, gentle, almost graceful demeanor about him, like a perpetual smile. It was a quality that put him in good stead with his patients, and was one of the things that House secretly admired about him. Now though, Wilson just looked--tired. No, exhausted. No--his mind rapidly ran through several synonyms, trying to find the best fit. Finally he decided--Wilson looked heartsore. At something.
House frowned at the dark circles under Wilson's warm brown eyes and the fine lines around his downturned mouth. Signs of sleeping on the couch in his office again. Wilson was still wearing his grey tweed overcoat and shoes in the living room. Not that House cared. But it was uncharacteristic of his friend, who was usually fastidious about matters like that.
"Hard day at the office?" House quipped. A quick glance at his wristwatch told him it was eight o'clock in the evening. He had blown the joint at six.
"One could say so, yes." One side of Wilson's mouth quirked up in a wry semblance of a grin.
House regarded him for an instant, then grudgingly paused the game, set down his console on the coffee table (he had been on a roll, he had almost finished the Sixth Circle of Hell) and patted the sofa cushion beside him. "Want to tell the good Doctor?" he deadpanned in his best professional voice.
Wilson shot House a canny look, then shrugged off his coat, letting it drop unceremoniously to the floor.
"Shouldn't you hang that thing up?"
"Yes, mother." Wilson dutifully bent to pick it up and stood quickly, but House did not fail to notice his hand was trembling slightly. He walked out into the hall to hang it up, but stayed a good deal longer than was needed just to put the coat on a hanger. House waited, curiosity piquing, until Wilson finally came back with a bottle of Scotch, a shot glass and a brandy snifter. He set those down on the table, sunk down onto the sofa at the other end from House and immediately poured a generous measure into the snifter.
House watched with interest. Analyzing Wilson was a favorite hobby. Actually it was more like a sport. House prided himself on his professional level of ability at the game of Wilson. The skill was all in the approach: the stickhandling, the feinting, the attack, and the goal. He'd played it for years and always found it enjoyable. It never failed to amuse him. It was superior even to Devil's Mayhem Seven, and he was quite attached to that.
Wilson tossed back the drink at one go and immediately poured another.
"Wife problems?" House offered. He knew that was a given, even lame, but it served as a sufficient opening volley.
Wilson snorted. "No, really, it was a tough day at work today."
"Indeed." House nodded, reaching out to pour himself a shot. "How so?"
"Where do you want to start?" Wilson polished the second drink with equal finesse then stared at the empty crystal. "My thirty-year-old single mother of three that I diagnosed with glioblastoma, my fifty-two year old grandfather who presented with end-stage pancreatic cancer, or my six-year-old Down's syndrome patient with the failed bone-marrow transplant for chemo-refractory ALL?"
"Ouch," House murmured in a rare show of sympathy. Death sentences all. "Tough day." He sipped his shot, staring down at his hands.
"Thank you for your support," Wilson countered dryly. He reached out for the whiskey bottle again, then seemed to think better of it. He rubbed his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees.
"Of course it doesn't help when--" House started. He was going to comment that Wilson was looking more tired lately--sleeping in one's office was not conducive to a restful night.
"Don't go there," Wilson snapped back. House flinched at the gravel in his normally fluid voice, then gazed intently sideways at Wilson's profile. Wilson's jaw was clenched and he was blinking rapidly at the flickering light from the television screen.
"Touchy," he said.
Wilson sighed again. "The hardest part was when my little Down's patient--she--hugged me in the isolation unit and said 'Thank you for being my Doctor James.' " Indeed, House knew that Wilson often went by 'Doctor James' with his pediatric patients; so he nodded in sad acknowledgment. Wilson smiled wearily. "Six years old and Down's syndrome and she still knew she was going to die, and she thanked me. Christ." He shook his head sadly, staring into his lap.
"I guess I owe you another ten dollars," House murmured. "Twenty even. That's your youngest yet."
"I hate my job sometimes," Wilson said, looking up to stare at the shadows playing on the far wall. "Remind me again why I became an oncologist in the first place?"
"Because all doctors have a superhero complex, but oncologists have the added bonus and prestige of snatching their patients away out of the jaws of certain death. You guys live for that challenge," House intoned.
"Yeah, but we fail at that quite a bit too," Wilson spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Too often we keep bashing our heads against the brick turrets instead of slaying the dragon. Stubborn patients who refuse to understand how their habits might have contributed, the trickiness of the disease, its insidious hooks and ways to hide--"
"But when you do save a patient and give them five or ten or forty extra years they never would have had without you, that must mean something," House replied with a thoughtful look on his face. He never, ever, begrudged Wilson's talent for that.
Wilson looked right at House then, meeting his clear blue eyes, and his face slowly broke wide open with a warm smile. "Yeah, it does," he said, visibly relaxing. "Thanks."
House nodded again with satisfaction. One point for House. That was easy. Keeping Wilson on a straight emotional keel regarding his profession was really quite brainless--no hard feat at all. You just had to know what to say to buck up his spirits again. Thankfully Wilson didn't need that often, but he appreciated the occasional reminder on days like this. House had had long practice in that.
It was the rest of Wilson's problems that continually kept House playing the game. To identify and solve--it was an extension of himself, really, and he liked that.
Unfortunately, it was because of the rest of Wilson's problems that the relief didn't last; Wilson's features soon darkened again and he rubbed his face absently. House kept watching and waiting. It was just another play in the game; if House waited long enough, Wilson was guaranteed to spill all.
Wilson though, did not want to seem to make this play yet. "I'm just tired," he said finally, refusing to cave under House's scrutiny.
"Your office can't be that comfortable," House agreed.
Wilson yawned and his mouth twisted wryly as he toed off his expensive brown leather shoes. "After a while the patients start noticing the body-shaped groove and the drool on the pillows." He then pulled his legs up onto the sofa and stretched himself out full-length on his back, landing his feet right in House's lap.
House stared down at the offending appendages and pulled a face. "Why don't you just make yourself at home?"
"Don't mind if I do," Wilson countered, closing his eyes and resting his hands on his stomach.
House harrumphed, then slowly peeled off Wilson's socks. House generally hated feet. They were smelly, and hairy, and ugly, and too often calloused and clawed or hopelessly gnarled. He'd seen enough sick feet in his practice to know how one could read a person just from how well they took care of their feet. Luckily Wilson's feet were just smelly. Not a bad smelly though--a whole day in leather at least let his feet breathe, and Wilson was always aware of how important a good shoe was. Plus Wilson took care of his feet. The feet were clean and had no icky toejam, the nails were cut short and straight across, the heels were smooth, the arches were supple. He wiggled the hammer-shaped baby toes.
"What are you doing?" Wilson mumbled with a sleepy grin, eyes still closed.
"Playing This Little Piggy," House said. He lightly rubbed the bare feet in his lap, and Wilson let out a small sound of pleasure. Well, a good foot massage was always relaxing after a taxing day. Besides, what else could House do, trapped under the burden of those appendages? Though he had to admit, the weight was oddly comforting and the warmth was soothing on his bad leg, after the evening dose of Vicodin numbed the pain.
He gently rubbed the soles and tops of Wilson's feet until he thought Wilson was asleep, judging by the soft steady breathing. He looked relaxed now, the rise and fall of his chest in slow rhythm, his face now almost achingly youthful again under the falling darkness of the room. Wilson shouldn't care so bloody much about everything. Maybe that was why House felt so fiercely protective of him. Wilson set himself up for heartache. So sometimes part of the game was picking up the pieces--that was the worst part about the game of Wilson, but he played it because he'd signed up for all of it as Wilson's friend.
Right now though, maybe if Wilson got one decent night's sleep someplace other than where he worked...
House's own thoughts started to drift, lulled somewhat by the flickering of warm red, yellow and orange light from the television. When he'd paused the game he'd left it at The Sweeping Inferno; the effect was akin to a fire crackling cheerfully in the grate, though without the accompanying sound. The room seemed more closed in somehow. Anything could happen--
"Shoulda married you instead of Julie," Wilson murmured in a sleepy slur.
Whoa. House stilled his hands, though still cupping Wilson's feet. Anything, but that? Where did that revelation come from?
"If you haven't noticed, we're not exactly compatible sexually if you know what I mean," House replied slowly, twitching his shoulders and angling his head towards him.
"Could find a way to work it out somehow," Wilson said in a dreamy tone, his eyes still closed. House blinked in stunned shock. "You and me should move in together. I spend more time with you than with her anyway. She threw me out. You know that's why I'm sleeping at the office--"
"Well, it's incredibly flattering to think I'm worthy marriage material but--" House tried vainly to recover some equilibrium. This little bit of exhaustion-induced honesty on Wilson's part shouldn't be shattering him the way it was doing right now--dammit it threw the unofficial rule book out the window...
"Why not? A bachelor marriage. Nothing would have to change. We could still have our floozies and hookers on the side. Could even make it official if we went to Massachusetts. You'd look good holding pink and red roses."
"There's no way in hell I'm carrying any kind of bouquet," House snapped. Wilson opened one eye and smirked, and House realized he was having him on with the flowers. If House were honest, Wilson made a more than worthy opponent in the game. "You however, pink is definitely your color. Stunning. Complements you perfectly. We could buy you a pink taffeta lounge suit."
Wilson chuckled outright, warm and low, that resonated somewhere deep within House's soul. "I'd marry you just for your foot rubs," he droned, starting to drift again. "Or maybe I should just have another Scotch--"
"Shut up and go to sleep. I think you've had enough," House countered.
"Spoilsport," Wilson whispered, but fell silent again, falling off to what thankfully looked like to be a restful sleep this time.
House sat a long time in the quiet dark with Wilson's feet in his lap, contemplating. The game of Wilson had changed completely now with this fresh sleepy-drunk revelation. It reached a whole new level--one he wasn't quite sure yet, how to navigate. But learn he would--he was a most devoted fan of the game after all. House pulled an afghan over Wilson's sleeping form; then he considered his game strategy as Wilson slept on, while the remaining shadows fell and evening slid into welcoming night.
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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 Fox Television, 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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