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Root Beer and Moon Pies
by gena
Root Beer and Moon Pies
He'd actually fallen asleep despite the fact his leather couch squeaked every time he shifted. It wasn't a deep sleep, wasn't really more than a couple of naps strung together but James Wilson had always been thankful for small mercies. In his line of work you had to be. He rolled over, pulling the blanket he'd taken from Supply up to his shoulders and tried to ignore the self pity he could feel blowing through his soul like a cool breeze. Julie would calm down in a day or two and he could go home, until then he'd just suck it up and pretend everything was fine. Not like anyone ever noticed what he did, as long as he was there with a smile and a kind word he could live in his office for a month and no one would ask if he was alright.
Wilson flipped onto his back, ignoring the pain which streaked along his spine and told himself that was karmic punishment for the self pity again. Still, he'd brought it on himself, he should have known Julie wouldn't keep him from straying, none of the others had. Sleeping in his office for a while, enduring the fights with his wife, ignoring the real reason he couldn't stay married, he was good at all that and getting better with each marriage. But he was still lonely. He wanted that thing - the one his parents had; married forty years, barely apart for more than a week in all that time, so close they could practically finish each other's sentences. He didn't have that, not with Julie anyway.
A sound made him crane his neck towards the door. Maintenance had been in hours ago - that had been fun, trying to explain in terrible Spanish that it was his office and that the woman should not report him to Security. House would have split a gut, not just over his discomfort but his horrible handle on the language. Wilson almost regretted the foreign language tapes he'd supplied House with during his recovery, now the man was insufferable in Portuguese, Spanish, German and Hebrew. Still, no one else should be struggling with the door - or bumping into the chair he'd shoved aside to make more room for his stuff.
"Shit," House cursed. "Is this some weird sleep disorder I don't know about? Somnamdecor, maybe?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Wilson demanded as he reached over and flipped on a small light. House stood leaning awkwardly on his cane, his balance thrown off by the large shopping bag in his hand.
"Don't just stand there," House snapped, gesturing with the bag, "help a cripple out." Wilson rose from his couch and took the bag. It was heavy and he could hear bottles clinking together. Booze? House had done worse than bring alcohol into the hospital so Wilson supposed he should be grateful. He watched House limp to his office chair and drop heavily into it, a groan escaping before he could stifle it. "You going to sit down or is this the interpretive dance portion of the evening?"
"What're you doing here at," Wilson glanced at the clock through he knew what time it was, "12:32 AM?"
House shot him an annoyed glare, one that made Wilson feel a little less lonely. There was something about the way House treated him, even when he was being nasty, that wasn't like he treated anyone else, it was a much more intimate form of abuse. "I just got done doing Cuddy, thought I'd see if you needed a quickie. Sit down, Wilson," House ordered, "I'm getting a crick in my neck." Wilson obeyed out of habit, setting the bag between them. "So when were you going to tell me?"
Wilson made a show of innocence. "Tell you what?"
"Oh, that you'd joined the National Ballet Company and we're going on the road. Cut the crap, Jimmy," House shouted, "how long was I suppose to ignore the fact you were working late to avoid going home, that you finally stopped going home, that you're more miserable and pathetic than usual? Huh, Jimmy?"
Wilson sighed. "I didn't think you cared."
"I don't."
Wilson nodded. That's why he avoided self pity, he wasn't very good at it. Just when he'd convinced himself no one gave a damn, House would let him know he'd watched every move and had just been waiting for an opportune time to kick him in the ass. To give himself something to do, he reached down and began rummaging through the sack House had brought. After a couple of minutes he glanced up in surprise. "What is all this?"
House stopped twirling his cane, a grin breaking across his face, "Supplies! I figured if we were spending the night here we'd need stuff."
"You're staying?"
"It wouldn't be a sleepover without your best friend, would it?" House used the top of his cane to hook the bag's handle, dragging it closer. He lifted out a six pack of root beer.
"I didn't know they still had it in glass bottle," Wilson said.
"I know a guy," House muttered digging deeper into the sack. He withdrew a box of Moon Pies and tossed them into Wilson's lap. Next came a stack of comic books, and a flashlight. "That's everything," he announced.
Wilson fished out a pie, ripped it open and took a bite. "We going to sing songs around a campfire?"
"That's 'smores, Wilson, not moon pies." He grabbed a root beer, fit cap edge against chair arm and used the heel of his hand to pop it off. "This is under the covers with a flashlight stuff." House handed over the root beer and pushed himself to his feet. Wilson watched, frowning. He knew his friend didn't sleep much, and traipsing here in the middle of the night had probably ruined what rest he would have gotten. "Stop with the guilt and get over here," House said as he seated himself on the couch. Wilson dumped the pies, and the comics on the floor beside them and sat down. "Not what I had in mind." House shoved at him until Wilson was lying against the back of the couch with House in front of him. He dragged the blanket over them, pulling it up over their heads, then clicked on the flashlight and opened a comic book. "Daredevil saves the world. You read this one?"
"Can't say that I have," Wilson said. He lay back, listening as House read aloud, giving each character a different voice, stopping only to swig root beer and eat his moon pies. It was warm under the blanket, the scent of root beer and chocolate comforting and House's back against his chest seemed to fill that pit where loneliness had a habit of forming. Wilson couldn't stop the smile which spread slowly across his face, who needed self pity when you had House and Moon Pies?
"So next time you want to sleep on a couch you'll come over to my place," House said, "so I don't have to lug all this stuff through the halls."
"You've got a spare room," Wilson pointed out, "I'm not sleeping on your lumpy old couch." He could hear House's smirk. "Now hand over a Moon Pie."
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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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