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Five Dreams James Hilson May Or May Not Have Had About Gregory House
by nigeltde
1. A Dream Wedding
"Wow," said House, draining his glass of champagne. "This is way better than I thought you could afford."
"It's all for Angie." Wilson was trying to be modest even though really, he agreed completely. He thought the choir was an especially nice touch, although he suspected that House preferred the free alcohol. "She wanted it to be perfect."
"Ah, which makes you the perfect husband," smirked House, but the joke was on him: Angie knew Wilson wasn't perfect and she loved him anyway. The thought made him giddy and he took a sip of his own champagne, grinned at House and reached over to tug the hem of his faded black t-shirt.
"Hardly, when my best man refuses to co-ordinate with the bridesmaids."
"Ugh," House grimaced. "Best men don't wear plaid."
Wilson had to laugh at that. It was true that the bridesmaids looked hideous, but Angie was proud of her Scottish heritage; he supposed that it could be taken as a measure of her friends' devotion.
"It's her favourite," he said, and thought how radiant she looked, beaming down on everyone from the bridal party table, even with his new in-laws talking at her, pointing at the food they had left on their plates, at the children's area (where, admittedly, the ponies had gotten a bit out of control), at himself and House, gossiping on the sidelines.
"I'm not here for her," said House.
Wilson took another sip of his champagne. Two seats up from Angie sat his parents and Toby and Christine and an empty place that none of them looked at. The choir started up again and Wilson's mother, who always danced at weddings, rose and dragged his father onto the floor.
"I love it when old people dance," said Wilson as his parents began to sway together to an a capella rendition of Carol of the Bells. He meant that it was just nice to know that people could grow old together and still want to hold each other, love each other, but House only laughed at him again.
"You're pathetic," he snorted. "There are hotties here to dance with."
He led Wilson's sister-in-law out onto the floor first, her red dress fluttering brightly against the dark tuxedo that he was suddenly wearing and Wilson watched him, envious. He couldn't even get his hair to do what he wanted but every one of House's movements was smooth and sure, and he was an excellent dancer. A man that tall must have been awkward in his adolescence but he was all grace now, twirling Christine until she squealed, dancing in a circle around Wilson's parents, his mother so charmed she was blushing.
Someone tapped House on the shoulder; he changed partners without breaking stride and Wilson realised with an abrupt shock that it was Lindsay, as striking as ever in the white silk suit she'd married him in. She and House danced, pressed close together, and every time she faced him she darted a triumphant glance his way. House, for his part, kept mouthing I'm so in! at him, and Wilson didn't know whether to be amused or horrified.
He settled for averting his gaze, turning, surveying the crowd. It was beginning to thin as people finished their desserts and left in ones and twos, making the ballroom seem even more cavernous. The chandelier hung twenty feet above people's heads and the marked-out dance floor was a vast stretch separating the bridal party from the guests, but Wilson was glad to see that the cream and gold walls still gave off a warm, intimate light.
Two tables away he noticed his old Professor Freeman rising, gathering up her coat and bag. She smiled warmly at him, and he thought how stupid it was to worry about ex-wives on the happiest day of his life.
"Congratulations, James," she said. "I've never been to such a lovely reception."
"It's not over yet," Wilson replied, helping her with her coat, but she reminded him that she had a flight to catch. He saw her to the door and thanked her for coming all the way. Other guests jostled him on their way out, which was frustrating, but everyone was laughing like they'd had a good time so he wasn't too concerned. He waved to the Professor and went up to the head table, passing House and Lindsay on the way. They were still clinging to each other, revolving slowly like sweethearts at a prom.
"It's just friends and family now," he told Angie as he sat down next to her. "Is that okay?"
"It's better than okay, it's wonderful," she said, grasping his hand, shining at him, so beautiful. "I love you so much. It's perfect. It's my dream wedding."
Wilson reached back to the table behind them and grabbed a brick from their wedding cake, a castle now reduced to rubble. He divided it in half, putting one piece on her plate and the other on his own, setting the third piece to the side.
"I love you too," he said, and kissed her on her icing-smeared lips, grinned at her. "We're going to be so happy."
----
2. A Nightmare
They were in the elevator, he and House, the one in the Fosse wing even though that was at the Royal Vic and not Princeton-Plainsboro. It was night outside; he could tell, the dark was filtering through the fluorescent lights and the presence of dead things was pervading, a heartache.
House was sucking on something, or juggling something, or twisting his cane like a baton twirler, the movements slipping into each other, blurry and painful to his eyes.
"If I'm annoying you, just say so and I'll stop," said House, but Wilson knew better. He was thankful when the elevator stopped at his floor and the doors opened.
He started to step out, but House grabbed his coat, and the doors shut on his right leg, clamping above the knee. He watched them try to grind their way towards each other as a cacophony built up behind him, the elevator ping, ping, PINGING, House shouting, the muzak turning into laughter, some weird jazz track maybe, his own shushes just adding to the noise. His leg, though, his leg was what really worried him; he could feel the pressure transforming into something monstrous, excruciating, and he tried to get his hands on the doors to force them apart but they were implacable and anyway House kept jerking him off balance, every movement twisting him backward, giving the doors another inch. When the pain reached his heart he knew it would explode, it was already starting to happen, and so when his femur gave up, he did too, allowing House wrench him back.
His skin held on the longest, stretching with a cartoonish rubber sound, and for a moment he thought he would lose it all but then the doors slammed together, cutting it neatly. It was a relief to fall back against the walls, the pain finally bearable, even when the blood started leaking from his stump, creeping across the floor to lap at House's trainers and he leant forward to pinch the artery, stem the flow a bit, felt the ragged edge of the bone, the twitching muscle, but his hands weren't strong enough. He needed House, but when he looked up, House gasped and clapped his hands together in delight.
"Best friends forever!" he cried.
----
3. A Sex Dream
He must have eaten something weird because this dream is like none he's ever had before, bright and thick and slow. He's in Atlantic City, driving down Pacific Avenue in some convertible, top down, the neon lights streaming by leaving incandescent trails on his retinas. A soft wind carries the sea on it and belies the speed at which he's driving.
Everything feels sexy, the breeze like fingers combing through his hair, like a kiss on his collarbone, the thrum of the engine a gorgeous vibration that goes straight to his cock and makes him ache in that sweet, expectant way. He drops one hand from the steering wheel to his thigh and starts to drag his fingers up along the inner seam of his trousers, bites his lip and settles a bit deeper into the seat, already half hard.
Someone else's hand covers his and draws it straight up to his crotch, long fingers guiding his own, cupping, massaging him through the material, sending sparks through his veins. He looks to his right and there is House in the passenger seat. His arm is extended across the gap between them and the dark of his eyes makes Wilson's heart thud, crash in his chest and he pulls his hand away, lets his head fall back and House take over completely. He closes his eyes and the lightshow continues to glow under his eyelids; breathes deeply, the air crisp and quickening but doing nothing to cool the flush on his face, the heat radiating from House, the burn building as he works his hand through Wilson's fly and grips him, skin to skin, thumbing the head of his cock, slow sure strokes.
Then he gives a sudden hard twist and Wilson's eyes fly open to the blare of horns. He's released the steering wheel completely. And House has shifted closer.
"Keep your hands on the wheel, you moron," House growls in his ear, and it's the hottest thing Wilson has ever heard. He turns down the next street, quiet and residential, tall houses and perfect lawns and no streetlights to bother his eyes.
There, in the dark, under a sycamore tree that releases amber leaves as if it isn't quite sure of the season, House leans over the front seat and blows him and Wilson braces one hand on the rim of the windshield and tangles the other in House's hair and doesn't even try to stop his hips bucking up. Wilson has never in his life had sex like this, not with any of his wives or girlfriends or mistresses or random pick-ups. House sucks him deeper and brittle leaves slowly pile into drifts and he's brought to the brink again and again until nothing exists but the two of them, inviolate, perfect mirrors of each other's need.
This sex makes him feel like he can fly.
----
4. A Dream About Running Away
He was rifling hurriedly through his desk drawers when the door creaked open and a dreaded voice said,
"I'm going to kill you."
"I'll find them!" he said, in the most in-control voice he could muster. He left his study and went down the hall to the guest bedroom, a sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn't really think they were in there, but it held an antique wardrobe where they kept all the spare clothes, and it never hurt to check.
"I'm going to crucify you," House said in the same deadly voice, following him into the room, jabbing his cane viciously at Wilson. "And when you're up there, I'm going to beat you to death with your own stethoscope."
"We've got ages." Wilson tipped out the contents of all the sock drawers onto the bed. "We'll find them, don't worry." He was doing enough of that for the both of them but House looked like he had been worrying, like he'd been up all night worrying, all grey skin and black-circled eyes. He looked half-dead. Seeing him like that made Wilson doubt just about everything, so he bent over the pile of socks and started sifting through them.
"They're not here, are they?" House asked, when it became apparent that the only surprise awaiting them was a sock that actually had a partner. Wilson sighed and had to admit defeat.
"Does it really matter? It's just a concert," he said, and knew it was a mistake when he saw the level of indignation that spread itself across House's face.
"Doesn't matter?"
"Maybe they're at the hospital," he said, grabbing his keys.
"Doesn't matter?" House was aghast, twisting to stare at him and almost falling down the stairs. "My god, you really are a philistine."
"We're not exactly off to see La traviata, here."
"You do realise we have on stage tickets, don't you? Or at least we did. Do you know what I had to go through to get them?"
Wilson knew. He had heard the story many, many times. He chose to ignore the question.
"Come on, we shouldn't even be here. This is Julie's house now."
"Potayto, potahto," said House, holding up his cane to block Wilson's progress as they reached the front door, peering through the spy hole then cracking open the door to inspect the sunshine beyond. He gave the all clear after a moment and they hopped in Wilson's car and roared out of the driveway.
"This is going to be better than monster trucks," House said as they cruised, tapping out "My Generation" on the dash with one hand and thumbing off the top if his Vicodin bottle with the other. "For me at least; they'll probably just give you a tambourine. What are you going to do if Pete wants me to play with the band full time?"
"It's a moot point," said Wilson, shading his eyes from the bright sunlight. It was piercing and made him feel heavy and stupid and nauseous. "You know, it's gonna take ages to get to New York in this weather. We'll never get there in time."
"Who are you, Rabbi Killjoy?" House asked. "Quit cockblocking my rock 'n' roll fantasies. Screw the tickets, let's just go, we can show our ID or something."
"They're not just going to let us in."
"Of course they are," said House. "I've been practising, look: Out of my way! I'm a doctor!"
"I wish you'd died in childbirth," Wilson muttered. Still, House had needed to show his ID to get the tickets, so it was worth a shot. He turned left onto Route One and they made good time for about ten minutes--House spent most of it singing, don't get fooled again and Wilson would chime in for the no, no!--until Wilson realised that they were almost out of gas.
"Ah, snacks, good thinking," House said when they pulled into the next Shell, and Wilson thought it was an excellent idea too until he rolled to a stop and looked around. The place seemed pretty much okay if you discounted the strange abandoned look it had, the broken windows, the odd deep blackness of the interior and the complete lack of pimpled and uniformed teenagers. But it felt like somewhere you really didn't want to be.
"I think I'm going to stay in the car," he said.
"Way to make the cripple do all the work." House leaned forward and grabbed Wilson's wallet from the glovebox. "I'm taking some money then, these places are expensive."
"There's no-one in there. It's probably all locked up."
House just rolled his eyes and put his hand on the doorhandle. Wilson's brain started to stutter with anxiety, and the only reason his hands weren't trembling was that they were clenched, white-knuckled, on the steering wheel.
"No wait," he said, desperately, "I left the tickets at your place," and House's moment of frozen outrage was enough for him to throw the car into gear and peel out of the station, heart pounding with the adrenaline of a near miss.
"Goddammit!" House yelled, glaring at Wilson murderously. "What the fuck is your problem?!"
Wilson didn't, couldn't answer, and eventually House sighed and said, "Okay, whatever, it doesn't matter. We've gone too far now. There's nothing more we can do." He started fiddling with the side mirror, slouching to get a good view of the tree and tarmac and sky vanishing point behind them. Then he twisted around to examine something and Wilson caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror of a dark figure, dreadful and familiar, standing by the gas pumps, staring after them.
"Who's that?" he asked House, who scratched at his neck and grimaced.
"Just another stupid patient," he said. "The hospital would be so much better without them."
"Yeah, because a hospital without patients would definitely keep you in hookers and happy pills." Wilson frowned, foreboding still wrapped around his heart, curling in his stomach. New York could not arrive fast enough.
"That's what you're for," said House, and then, "God, I hate these things," and Wilson turned to see that House had taken off his wig and was scratching at his scalp, digging his fingernails in with an enthusiasm that made Wilson wince.
"You're bleeding," he said, the nausea returning like a punch. House paused his scratching long enough to examine his clean fingertips, look at Wilson like he'd gone crazy, but Wilson knew, he knew, nothing House said could change the fact, and the next time he looked in the rearview mirror it was empty, reflecting nothing at all.
----
5. The Cancer Dream Again.
He was in the MRI lab, on the table. Someone was strapping his hands and feet down. Cuddy, immaculate as usual, stood at his waist, unbuttoning his shirt.
"We're just going to check," she said, smiling kindly. He smiled back. She was a good friend to be so concerned.
"It's okay," he told her. "I know. I do this all the time, it's my job." He looked around, but although there were plenty of nurses and surgeons and doctors, a drug rep or two, even though Cameron, Chase and Foreman were there, House was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Greg?" he asked, but Cuddy was busy with alcohol swabs and no-one else seemed to hear. He asked again, louder, but this time it was masked by the snap of latex gloves, and he could feel things starting to go wrong. Why wasn't he in the OR? How did so many people get permission to be in here? Where was House?
Cuddy dug her fingers into his belly, separating the skin, then moved up, a reverse autopsy incision. Even though she tried to be gentle it was still uncomfortable, and he wished that he were doing it. He'd had more practice.
"Darn it," she muttered, as blood splashed onto her clean white coat, but she was up to her elbows in his body cavity and it had to be expected. He wished House were there; with this kind of test, a quantity of eyes didn't make up for quality, and House's eyes were as good as they got.
"Did you check under the ribs?" Foreman asked, miles away above him, and Cuddy poked experimentally at a lung. Brown appeared, lifting his eyelids and flashing a light into his eyes. Did they really have to get the only oncologist there to check his pupils?
Then Cuddy turned over his liver and he felt a sharp pain within it, became aware of the straps that were too tight around his wrists and ankles, the amount of blood he was losing that no-one was paying attention to, and, finally, glorious and deadly: the cancer. She was missing it all; everything she touched was riddled but she just couldn't see it. He could feel everything precisely, every mass, every cell division, every mutating gene, but when he opened his mouth to tell them all where to look someone shoved a depressor into it and aaaaahed at him. He writhed, needed his hands free, needed to point and shout to them, there it is! There it is!
"Hey! Ouch!" cried Brown, and Wilson looked across to see him swept aside by the thwack of a cane. House appeared in his field of vision and loomed over him, glaring.
"What the hell are you doing?" he snapped. "Get up. You're perfectly fine."
"I have cancer," Wilson told him, feeling almost delirious. "I knew it would happen. I just knew it."
House didn't reply, just stared at him--examined him, eyes searching his face, and Wilson's heart hammered from the intensity of it, more intimate than when Cuddy had had her hands inside his chest. Then House bent down and kissed him, just barely, a whisper of a touch no matter how much Wilson strained, stretched up for those lips, those eyes, and it became unbearable to be tied down, his wrists rubbing raw from trying to reach House. He pulled back to tell someone to loosen his ties but the words died in his throat when he looked up at House, grave now but still so close, his breath puffing hot on Wilson's cheek.
"Everybody dies," he said, like it was some kind of personal mantra, but that was the first thing you learned as a doctor and Wilson kind of had to laugh at how simplistic it was. House gave him the bug eyes but grabbed some bandaids from underneath the table anyway, pulled the edges of the wound in Wilson's torso together.
"Wait, wait, we're not done here yet," protested Cuddy, glaring at House, trying to get between them as Wilson worked his hands through the wrist restraints and undid the loops around his ankles. When he swung his legs over the side of the table she put her hands on his shoulders and ducked her head to look him in the eye, deadly serious.
"Wilson, this is important."
"I'll be back in a moment, I promise," he said, feeling impatient with her. It never ended this well. Why didn't she let him enjoy it? He looked over to House, who was herding everyone out of the room, making large gestures with his arms, whistling like a farmer.
"Come on, muchacho!" he yelled to Wilson. "I'm hungry! It's burrito time!"
"Look, you've got plenty here to test," Wilson said to Cuddy, gesturing to the blood pooling on the table and floor, and she sighed at him but eventually nodded and stepped over to Brown to talk specimen gathering. Wilson shrugged on his shirt and thought about what it was going to be like coming in to work tomorrow, when he would finally be able to say I know how you feel to his patients when he offered his advice for coping, finally be able to legitimately look them in the eye.
"I think it's going to be okay," he said, when House perched next to him on the table.
"Do you want me to agree with you? I'm not your mouthpiece," said House. He pulled a burrito out of a cactus-themed paper bag and took a disgustingly large bite. "I am going to miss you when you're dead, though."
"They have treatments now. I've got an excellent doctor," said Wilson, just managing to avoid most of the bits of food that came flying out of House's mouth.
"Impossible. All oncologists are moronic, pathetic, pathological over-empathisers."
"That hurt even more than my cancer. I can't tell you the pain I'm in right now." Wilson's stomach growled as he watched House poke at his food, pull something cheese-like out and pop it in his mouth, licking his lips with relish. "Hey, can I have some?"
"No way, this one's mine." House took another huge bite and munched obnoxiously, but soon relented, rolling his eyes. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I got you one too," he said, and held out the paper bag. Wilson reached in and pulled out his own burrito, his favourite kind, soggy and smelly and delicious.
"I'm going to do the surgery myself," he told House after a moment, taking his turn to spray House with half-chewed food. "It's all going to turn out fine."
"Shut up," said House. "You're going senile," but there was a smile in his eyes, so Wilson tapped his burrito on House's, made a clink sound.
"Good health," he said, and House smiled at him for real this time, and they sat there, together, finishing their food and swinging their legs under the table like boys.
The end.
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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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