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The Gay Test
by gena
As with most unsettling things in his life, this was House's fault. James E. Wilson had been going blithely along, unaware of any looming danger and suddenly everything he had every known or thought about himself was turned upsidedown and insideout. It had been a typical morning from waking up on House's couch to meeting for lunch in the cafeteria. In between there had been the usual craziness of putting up with House when he was in a mood and taking it out on innocent bystanders. Wilson had consoled, counseled, coerced and coddled Cameron, Chase, Foreman and House in that order and things had settled back into the precarious balance he liked to think of as House World.
And then Cameron had made the mistake of seeking them out at lunch. She had approached the sanctum sanctorum, third table on the right behind the potted fern and nearest the warming table, and sent the world as Wilson knew it spinning out of control. All because she was feeling uncertain. Thinking back on it Wilson realized his consoling had probably been the catalyst. He just couldn't stand to see a woman, any woman, with that shattered look on their face, the one House could leave in his wake without breaking a sweat. There'd been the usual scene in the conference room, he'd witnessed from the corner of the balcony where he'd discovered he could see without being seen. He couldn't tell what the actual words had been but the expressions had ranged from angry to hurt to downright crushed on Cameron's part while House's display vacillated between mock sympathy and scathing disdain before tipping over into gloating and staying there.
House had always warned him about his White Knight Complex but Wilson couldn't counteract an inbred vulnerability gauge and even though he had no desire to get into Cameron's pants he had swooped into the office the moment House disappeared. He didn't even have to think about what to say, it all just poured out like honey and before he knew it Cameron was squaring her shoulders and giving him a grateful smile and he was already tidying the narrative in his head and adding witticism for House's amusement. Normally that would be the end of it, he would either work out some frustrations that night or he'd end up sleeping on House's couch and have to deal with a disappointed nurse, secretary, accountant, or assistant in the morning. But he hadn't counted on Cameron's resolve, her deep commitment to fixing House's emotional damage.
If he'd been wise, Wilson knew he would have explained that House's emotional damage was his natural defense. It was like those big moths with markings that made them look like owl's eyes or one of those teethy fish that looked like a harmless rock. If you took away his sarcasm, his anger, and his disarming ability to annoy you were left with - okay, House would still be offensive to the rest of the population without all that, but it was the principle of the thing. So when she showed up at their table with that saintly gleam in her eye Wilson could practically hear the scratch of a match as House prepared to burn her at the stake. What he hadn't counted on was being part of the fuel.
He'd pretty much tuned them out; House liked to start slow and build to a rousing finish and Wilson knew if he played it right he could eat some of the food he'd paid for before the big finale. Halfway through his turkey on rye something caught his attention. "......because you don't understand real love, House," Cameron was saying. Wilson felt a lump form in his throat, damn turkey. He washed it down with House's soda while his attention was on Cameron and wiped his mouth. "It's not something you can measure, or calculate. You can't buy it or ration it or force it when it's not there."
"Really?" House asked. The dramatic arch or his brows should have been a warning but Cameron just shook her head sadly. "Then I've gone with the wrong escort service because I'm getting gypped. I specifically asked for five hours of real love, bought it, paid for it and had it delivered in a spandex bow."
"You'll never find what you need," Cameron, dewy eyed and lip trembling, managed a brave smile. "The right woman could walk in right now and you'd miss her because you can't let go of the past."
House shot him a look, and Wilson went cold inside. It was a look he knew well. It was a look that had preceded a terrifying bar fight, two restraining orders and one horrible morning when he'd woken on House's couch wearing nothing but a pair of pink panties like a vest and clutching a blender. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, to shoo Cameron away before House could do something that caused puppies the world over to cry but House made a preemptive strike in the form of his cane shaft slamming into the Wilson reproduction system. Distracted by searing pain he was still able to hear House's words over the white noise in his head. "Let her walk in," House sneered. "It's not the past I'm clinging to. I'm clinging to Wilson. Why the hell do you think he's living with me? Even with alimony payments he could afford a room at Motel 6. Don't be dense, Cameron, he's not sleeping on my couch." And if that weren't enough he rose to his feet and shouted, "I'm gay and my heart belongs to the cutest Jew in the hospital. Wilson, will you marry me and have my baby?" As much as any declaration of love would have normally warmed the cockles of his heart there were other cockles on his mind Wilson settled for slowly keeling over and sliding under the table with a gurgling sound. Silence, broken only by another soft gurgle, descended.
He might have blacked out and part of his life flashed before his eyes, eerily reminding him of an episode of Dawson's Creek only with better hair, but eventually Wilson pried an eye open. From his vantage point near House's left shoe he could just see the stricken look on Cameron's face before she whirled and bolted from the room. "Get up, lover," House cooed, kicking him lovingly in the ribs. Wilson managed to get his feet under him, hindered by the fact he had one hand clamped around his family jewels and the other over his mouth, but by that time House had already meandered off to terrorize other unsuspecting co-workers. It was only later, lying on the couch in his office with a cold compress between his legs, a death wish in his heart and the latest issue of Male Matters over his face that Wilson had an epiphany.
GAY - THE NEW THIN? How to tell if you have the talent to play for the other team. TEST YOUR GAY!! It was the exclamation points that caught his attention, plastered as they were against his nose they kind of looked like a caterpillar poised to crawl up a nostril but once he retrieved the magazine from where it had landed on his credenza and read a few of the questions his world began to crumple. Innocently flipping the pages, and reading the article James Wilson finally understood what it was all about.
TEST YOUR GAY-
1) Do you find your most satisfying relationships with other males? Satisfying? Well, he had to admit there was some measure of gratification knowing he had a friend like House. It was so much safer to have him as a friend than an enemy.
2) Have you ever had thoughts of a romantic nature about a close male friend? Okay, he had to admit there was one time he'd imagined eating dinner with House at a real table instead of crouched over the coffee table but that fantasy had died when he discovered House didn't even own a dining room table.
3) Do you blow dry your hair? What the fuck? Stupid question.
4) When dealt an emotional blow who do you turn to? Oh, House, of course. Yes, there was something very attractive about being reticulated, mocked and forced to admit to being the world's biggest sap.
5) Can you dance? Hey, his parents forced him to take lessons. He couldn't help winning the Swing contest - and seven years in a roll is not a record.
6) If stranded on a deserted island who would you miss the most? Angelina Jolie! Well, except he didn't know her and she had Brad Pitt and that baby now and would probably spend all her time saving starving refugee seagulls or something. So, by default he'd have to say he'd miss House the most. It wasn't because House was his only friend or anything, just because he'd grown use to being abused and would miss that a lot.
7) Have you ever placed the needs of a close male friend above those of your girlfriend/wife? House was needier than all three of his wives put together. And being married and divorced three times didn't mean anything.
8) Have you ever kissed another man? Well, that was ambiguous. They needed to clarify what constituted a kiss. Did they mean an open mouthed kiss or just a regular waking up with some guys' tongue in your mouth kiss? There was a difference. And it had only been the one time.
9) Do you know the words to more than one Broadway song? That was a cheap shot. Everyone knew the words to Funny Girl, Okalahoma, and Music of the Night.
10) What is the one thing you can't live without? Oh, sure, he was suppose to just automatically say House. He could live without House. Probably. It might be boring and without meaning and he would never have someone who understood him so completely but he could live without House. But without House life wouldn't be living.
God, he was gay. Not just slightly gay, but gayer than Mr. Sulu, Richard Simmons and George Clooney all rolled into one, gay! And he loved House. Shit. House would bust a gut if he found out. He had to keep that from happening. He had a passport and he'd always wanted to see Siberia. Wilson, still walking with a slight hunch, made his way towards his desk and the small amount of currency he kept for emergencies like bribing outraged colleagues and bailing House out of jail. He'd slid the money into his pocket when the door opened and House limped in like a sex on a stick - damn, he might as well hang up his lab coat and get a job on HGTV.
"Did you see Cameron's face?" House asked, grinning ear to ear. Wilson suppressed an urge to wipe that grin off his face using his own mouth. "She totally bought it."
"Yeah,' Wilson agreed. "Ha, how gullible can a person be?" He asked with a weak laugh. "Us, gay, that's so unbelievable."
House moved closer, leaning against the desk beside him. A lingering aroma of cigars and garlic mixed with House's own unique scent to create a heady smell that wrapped itself around Wilson and didn't let go. He found himself leaning closer to House, inhaling with his eyes closed. He opened his eyes to the sight of House scowling at him. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Uh, nothing." Wilson willed his legs to move but they had already become the first round draft pick and suited up for the other team. He stayed put.
"You have ink on your nose," House pointed out. He leaned in, keen blue eyes scanning Wilson like a laser. "And there's something on your forehead." He got closer. Wilson could breathe the breath House breathed out and did until breathing took his breath away and spots danced before his eyes. "It's a - word," House declared.
"Word?"
"Yag."
"Wha-"
"It says Yag across your forehead." House gripped him by the shoulders and turned him so that Wilson could look at his reflection in the mirror over his credenza. There, in faint Ariel print, like some Mark of Liberace was the word GAY.
"Uh-oh." His eyes moved from the declaration of his innermost desires to the eyes of his best friend, eyes which could appear as desolate and forbidding as Siberia without a butt-load of American currency but which at that moment looked as warm as a blacktop highway in the middle of July.
"I ranked between Rupert Everett and Richard Chamberlain when I tested my Gay," House said. And that was how Wilson discovered everything he thought he knew about himself was wrong. He WAS the kind of guy to have wild sex on his desk in the middle of the afternoon with his best friend who happened to also be male. But most importantly he discovered he loved House and House felt the same way.
It was also how Cuddy learned to knock before barging into someone's office and Cameron learned that House never lied.
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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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