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  One Step Closer Away Part II 
 by G-Lady  

 ******************************** ******************************** One
Step closer Away. Part II

888888888888

"What did the parents say?" House entered his glass walled conference room
adjacent to his office. Cameron watched him pour a cup of coffee. She was
ready for his questions. "Good morning to you too." She remarked when he,
instead of saying good morning, just raised his eyebrows at her. 

"Kristy," Cameron began, "was a normal kid. Normal childhood diseases,
normal vaccinations. Nothing out of the ordinary according to the
parents."

"Unless they're lying."

"Right, they WANT her to die."

"Oo, testy this morning." House wandered around the room, by-passing the
white board. The symptoms written there remained unaltered. A scribble of
black marks testifying to nothing. "Has her condition worsened?"

"Other than the pain of second degree burns over most of her body, no."

House's mind seemed elsewhere. 

"Are you all right?"

"Fine."

Cameron let it lay. 

House chewed his thumb nail and paced. "It's not a burn. Nobody gets a
sunburn through their clothes. It has to be auto-immune."

"Kristy has no allergies. No arthritis, no HIV, no drugs in her system."

"No known allergies, no known auto-immune problems. This could be Erythema
Multiforme with toxic Necrolysis."

"But that's caused by steroid drugs used to treat arthritis. The skin
scrapings, blood, urine, were all clean. We've ruled that ou-."

House spun to face her. "I know! We've ruled it out. Do me a favor and
suppose for a second it is Multiforme Necrolysis. What drugs other than
steroids might cause her skin to blister?"

Cameron thought about it. "Dozens. But she isn't on any of them. She's
taken nothing stronger than an aspirin for months."

"Did she present with a fever? I mean prior to being brought in, was she
feverish?"

"I could ask her friends." 

"Never mind, she was playing volleyball and dunking herself in hot mud. If
she had one, she wouldn't have known it anyway, and her drunk friends
certainly wouldn't."

Cameron's beeper squealed for attention. She checked it, looked up at
House. "Kristy's peeing blood."

House sighed and bit his lip. "She still on broad spectrum antibiotics?"

Cameron nodded.

"Double the dose. I'm going to talk to the parents."

888888888888888888888

"Would your daughter have taken any kind of medication these last few
weeks that she might not have told you about?"

Kristy's American average mom and dad both shook their heads. "Nothing we
know about." The mom said. 

"We know she sometimes smokes pot and drinks with her friends," the dad
piped up, "but her grades are top and she's careful about drugs, and she's
extremely health conscious. Plus she's won a law scholarship to Yale. She
would never do anything to screw that up."

"What about relatives? Did she ever stay with any relations who might have
given her something, even as a child?"

The mom looked at dad and back to the stern doctor. "Well, she did stay
with my sister when she was fourteen for about three months."

""Three months"? Most parents wouldn't let their fourteen year old hang
with the Girl Guides for three months, why so long?"

"I was in the hospital." The mom answered.

"What was wrong with you?" House asked. At her hesitation, "Your
daughter's liver is shutting down. I don't care what happened to you or
how you feel about the question, but if you want me to figure out what's
wrong with her, I need to know."

"I was depressed and needed some time away from work and...family."

House nodded to the dad. "Where were you?"

"I had to work, I couldn't take care of Kristy and be with my wife too. We
thought it was best for her."

House started walking back to his office, the parents followed. "I need to
talk to your sister." He told the mom.

"You can't."

He stopped. "Why not?"

"Well, she died two years ago."

House turned without saying another word, and left them standing in the
hallway. At his patient's room, Cameron was inside dressed in a clean
suit, hanging new bags of intravenous antibiotics. House tapped on the
glass wall and pointed to the phone. Cameron picked up the inside phone
and House picked up the outside receiver hanging on the door frame.

"Biopsy her liver." He said.

"The antibiotics haven't had enough time to-"

"We either biopsy her liver now, or during her autopsy. Personally, I'm
fine with that. Her parents on the other hand, might have something to say
about it!" He replaced the receiver, not waiting for Cameron's reply.

888888888888888

House slumped in his desk chair, and with two fingers played with his
bottom lip. 

His office door opened and Wilson entered. House could see who it was out
of the corner of his eye and did not swing his chair around. 

Wilson asked, "Tough case?"

"More so for my dying patient."

"I just wanted to let you know...no sign of cancer."

"I figured."

Wilson struggled to find something to say, some excuse, to extend the
conversation. House let him off the hook. "Any chance this...problem of
yours might go away?"

Wilson blinked a few times, pursed his lips. Put his hands in his doctor's
coat pockets because they were hanging uselessly. "I don't have an
affliction, House. This isn't a pustule."

House swung his chair around. "But it is a state of mind." He argued.
"Minds can be changed." He looked over at his big baseball before saying
the next part. "Feelings...can be altered."

Wilson nodded but not because he was agreeing. "Right. You're just the
advocate for self-mastery and mind-over-matter. The poster-boy for
emotional restraint."

House sat back in his chair. "When's your flight?"

"Thursday." It was Tuesday.

"Cancel it. Or postpone it. Give me another week."

Wilson looked askance at him. "To do what?"

"To figure this out."

"What? Your case-"

House gestured with a finger back and forth between himself and Wilson.
"No, to figure "this" out."

"House, this is not a disease for you to diagnose. There is no treatment.
I'm in love with you, it can't be cured with Vancomycin."

House squinted his eyes as though in pain, "Can you please stop saying the
"L" word when we're discussing this?"

"No, because talking about this IS the "L" word-"

-Cameron entered and handled some papers to House. "Parent's signed the
consent form." She looked at House and Wilson disapprovingly. "You're
discussing "The L Word"? You're talking about lesbians while a woman is
dying?"

"At home, at work, in the shower." House answered. "Any time is the
perfect time to talk about lesbians."

"House, a girl is strapped to a table, covered in gauze with tubes coming
out of every orifice-"

"-Stop it, you're getting me hot." House said. 

Cameron muttered, "Unbelievable".

After she was gone, "Keep your voice down." House scolded. He stood,
papers in one hand, cane the another. "The "L" word is just a problem.
Problems can be solved."

"A problem, ah." Wilson moved his hands around in front of him, "So,
should we circle the desks and draw a pie chart?"

"We're doctors-"

-"We're people first. Since you're so fond of metaphors, let me paint you
one you can understand: I'm an addict. Your Vicodin. I have to get away
from the Vicodin. I need to detox. That's why on Thursday I'm moving five
thousand miles away."

House stepped nearer to Wilson, right in his face.. "But you've never
"done" the "Vicodin". " He leaned in, "How do you know you'd like it?"

"I haven't "done" the "Vicodin" because this "Vicodin" is a heterosexual
lunatic "Vicodin" with a brain and two little legs running the other
direction." Wilson quickly looked House up and down once. "And trust me,
this "Vicodin" would "fix" me in a cold minute. And can we drop the secret
code talk? I left my shoe-phone in the car."

"Will you give me another week?"

"I just told you-"

"-Indulge me. If you do "L" word me, give me the week."

Wilson scratched the back of his head, sighing. "Fine. I'll postpone. One
week. I have a patient." He left.

8888888888

"Under the scope her liver appears toxic. From what we won't know until
the tests are done." Cameron announced as she entered House's office.
"Where are you going?" She asked as House stood and grabbed his cane.

"To talk to my Bro', Foreman."

"About what? I just told you-"

"My ears work just fine you know. Toxic liver. It'll take another
forty-eight hours to get the lab results. By then, she'll be dead and it
won't matter. She needs treatment and for that I need Foreman."

House entered Foreman's office. "I need a favor."

Foreman was writing on a white-board with a black marker.

House stopped short. "Shouldn't that be a black board with a white
marker?"

"What is it, House?" Foreman asked. 

"I need you to check out my patient's house. Specifically, her bedroom."

Foreman turned back to his board. "I don't break into houses anymore. I
get written permission from my patients."

House walked up to him. "After all the good times we've had? There
was...well, can't really think of any actually. Come on! We're colleagues
now. Colleagues do favors for each other. Didn't I let you have Chase?"
House gestured to an irritated Chase sitting in a chair at Foreman's small
conference table. 

"You fired me!" Chase said, even more annoyed.

"And look at what a cute little Dingo he is - all bright-eyed and bushy of
tail. And paper-trained."

"You're an ass." Chase said to House.

"Yipe-Yipe-Yipe!" House whined like a wounded puppy.

Foreman turned to House. "House, you can do your own dirty work now."

House read over the symptoms Foreman had written on the board. ""Headache,
Nausea, Vomiting, Hearing Things"." House looked at Foreman, "Stumped?" 

Foreman rolled his eyes. "No, we're not stumped, we're differentiating."

"There's only two of you, that's not differentiating, that's contrasting."
With exaggerated stroking of his chin whiskers, House puzzled for a few
seconds over the list of symptoms. "Eureka!"

Chase chewed a pencil. "What?" He tried to sound bored.

Foreman said to Chase, "Don't indulge him."

House wandered around the room a bit, flipped through a medical journal.
"One break-in, one hint. That's fair, isn't it?" He looked at Foreman. 

Foreman crossed his arms. "Fine. What's the hint?" 

"Where's your little Bad Black Bro' Break-In kit?"

Foreman sighed wearily and retrieved it from his desk.

House frowned. "If you don't do dirty deeds in the dark anymore, why'd you
keep it?"

"To remind me that I don't work for you anymore."

"You've got your own practice and an Australian puppy, that should be
reminder enough. You kept that to remind you of ME, didn't you?"

"You wish. Hint."

"Your patient is an overweight female who's hearing music. She's
forty-five or so, wears glasses..." "-Yeah, you're brilliant. Get to the
point."

"Keep your pants on, I want to savor this." House said. "Her white cells
are normal." House looked at Foreman and Chase, waiting to see if they
disputed him. When no counter-claim was advanced, he continued. "You've
ruled out schizophrenia, because why would she be here if she nuts? And
tumors, because if she had cancer, I'd be dazzling Wilson right now."

"The hint!" Foreman said again, losing patience.

House paused and looked at them dramatically. "Ask your patient if the
music she is hearing has a great beat."

"A beat?" Chase repeated. "Are you nuts?" 

Foreman shook his head and shrugged. "Fine, we'll ask her about rhythm. So
where's the house, House?"

House pulled a paper from his pocket and handed it to Foreman. 

"What's this?"

"My patient's parents permission for you to search their daughter's
bedroom."

Foreman frowned at House as though at a crazy man. "Then why did you want
me to get my kit?"

"I didn't, I just wanted to see if you still valued your roots."

Foreman shook his head. "You're even more of an ass than before." He
started walking to the door.

"I know." House said and held out a house key to Foreman. "Oh, and you can
use this to get in if you want to. I mean, if it won't injure your pride."


Foreman grabbed the key from House's hand with a dirty look.

House looked at Chase. "Well, go one, boy! Walkies!"

Chase followed his boss to the office door. "Up yours."

 8888888888888888888888888

"Doctor House?" A teenage girl with fake blonde hair intercepted him on
his way back to his own office. Kristy's parents said where I'd find you."

"And you are...?"

"Kristy's my best friend. I just heard what happened."

"She's been here two days."

"We were in florida for an early Christmas. Is she really going to die?"
The girl's big blues were glistening.

House quickly changed the subject. "Does Kristy take any medications or
vitamins that you know of? Or drugs?"

The girl hesitated.

"If you tell me the truth, I won't squeal to her parents. There's also the
side benefit that Kristy might stay alive."

"Nothing hard. She's rally into the health thing. Especially now that she
has to go to into stupid pre-law.

"She doesn't want to?"

"No. She loves to write. Stories are her world. But her parents want her
to be able to make a good living, so law school it is." 

"You said she's into health. What about herbs, snake oils...?"

"She was taking this herb, yeah. She got it over the Internet. She's been
so stressed out about school. She said it took the edge off."

"Yeah, yeah, the name?"

"I think it was Java or Lava..or something."

"Kava?"

"Yeah."

House left the girl standing there and dialed Cameron on his cell phone.
"Have you started the biopsy yet? Don't. I already know what you'll find.
The girl's been dosing herself with Piper Methysticum - Kava. Her liver's
toxic with it. Start her on n-acetylcysteine, and up her fluids. What?
Then we watch while her parents wait."

888

"Will she die?" A teary-eyed Kristy's-Mom asked.

House side-stepped the question by explaining the illness. "Your daughter
has been taking large doses of an over-the-counter herb called Kava -
Piper Methysticum. It's related to the pepper shrub and consumed in some
parts of the world to ease anxiety or induce psychotropic effects like
euphoria. 

"Unfortunately, in high doses and particularly if combined with alcohol,
it can cause liver toxicity; the liver ceases to function normally, toxins
start building, liver stops functioning. That's why she was peeing blood.
The other side effect of Kava is skin lesions that can, in the worst
cases, react like an allergic reaction or burns."

Kristy-Mom turned to her husband, "Why would she need something like
that?" To House, "Kristy is a happy girl. I'm sure she must be a little
worried about college next year but-"

House looked off down the hall. "Sometime's happy people only appear happy
because they've hidden what makes them unhappy. Her friend seems to think
Kristy doesn't want to be a lawyer."

Kristy-Mom's became less anguished and more defensive. "Her friend is a
tramp. We know what's best for our daughter."

"Well. If she survives, she'll no doubt blossom into a pretty attorney you
can be proud of."

Kristy-Dad, "Will she live?"

House did a one-handed shrug. "We're treating her with n-acetylcysteine
and keeping her on fluids. Her lesions are the equivalent of second degree
burns but they will slough off and the underlying skin will eventually
heal. There may be some scarring. Otherwise all we can do is wait."

Mom and Dad hugged each other.

House gestured to Cameron who was standing nearby. "If you want to see
her, Doctor Cameron will take you."

Kristy-Mom "Thank you."

8888888

House had wolfed through the Cafeteria's Shepherd's Pie Lunch feature and
now sipped coffee, staring out a window at the smoking-court yard. It was
chilly and hospital workers in their thick jackets shuffled around with
tiny steps like penguins. 

"How's your Multiforme patient?" Wilson sat down opposite with a salad
plate and grapefruit juice.

House wondered how long Wilson had stared at him from the cashier counter
before approaching. And how long he had been drinking mauve fruit juice.

"Recovering, with luck. It was Piper methysticum/alcohol induced hepatic
toxicity."

"Kava? Internet?"

House nodded. "And parents worry about porn..."

"Chances?" 

Wilson was a one worded man today. House finished his coffee.
"Fifty-fifty. And if she lives - zero that she'll get to live the way she
wants to. Writer's a usually poor and mom and dad have invested a lot of
ambitions in their little lawyer-to-be."

Wilson just raised his eyebrows. His own story wasn't that dis-similar
though he said nothing about it to House. "They're worried she'll throw
her life away following a pipe dream. Most parents want to see their
children do better than them."

"Right. Parental love is unconditional."

Wilson did not feel like arguing the point which was a particularly
sensitive spot with House. "You know, some people are trustworthy."

"I know. There's good in everyone. Then just as you're about to sing a
rendition of "Sunshine and Lollipops", some prick somewhere is sitting in
his brand new car picking his teeth with your credit card."

"Your faith in people is inspiring."

"People, parents, pricks, should have to earn it." House seemed edgy.

"You're people."

House ignored that and asked "All packed?"

"No. But almost. I'm giving you a week, remember?"

"I remember." House stood up.

"Am I making you nervous?" 

"No. I'm running off to finish paperwork."

It was an obvious lie. "Right. House anxious over his billing. And you
can't run."

"Nice."

Wilson tried again. "What are you doing tonight?"

House stopped and looked at him. Wilson felt like a petri dish. "Are you
asking me for a date?"

Wilson was tired of House's static manner. "No-o, I'm asking after your
life. It's what friends do."

House seemed to change his mind about getting into a spitting contest.
"I'm going riding." 

"The roads are icy."

House was on edge. "I'll use chains." He looked down at Wilson from his
slightly hunched six-two. "Come on."

Wilson had just started his salad. "I'm still eating."

"Bring it with you."

Wilson hurried after House. It was amazing how fast the crippled doctor
could move when he wanted to. "Where are we going?"

"To my supply closet."

Wilson gulped down his juice on the way and tossed the plastic cup into a
wastebasket. "What the hell for?" His salad plate was still nearly full.

"It's where I keep my stash. Don't tell Cuddy."

It was useless to argue. Wilson followed House who entered his office,
passed the conference room table - where Wilson safely left his salad
plate and fork - and opened the supply closet door. House let Wilson in
first, who switched on the light. 

House closed the door after himself.

Irritated, Wilson turned to ask House what it was all about. Instead of
letting Wilson speak, House grabbed his head between his hands and planted
a big kiss on his mouth. Not a long one. Neither sterile. But a few good
seconds of firm, slightly open mouthed smooching.

Wilson was the one who broke it, stepping back as though he'd run into a
wall. "What the hell are you doing??"

"To prove it to you."

Wilson gaped at House, knowing instantly that House had not done it to
please him. It was not a gift. It was an experiment. 

Wilson was astonished, but regretted that he had broke the contact so
quickly. The sweet taste of House remained. "Prove what? That you need a
shave?" 

House threw his left hand around, as though the world should listen. "That
kiss I just planted on you. Lips on lips; a physical touch; a hug; a bang;
a blow job...none of them mean anything. You can go and do those things
with anyone. I'm your friend. I don't want to be your fantasy."

"You're not. I love-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. You're in love...."

Wilson listened as House then all but mocked his previous confession,
minimized his heartfelt feelings and dismissed his devotion as the
sentimentality of a school boy.

Wilson had heard just about all he could stand from House. "Was this your
solution?" He pointed at the closet floor. "This...THIS is why I postponed
my new job a week? I put two months deposit down on an apartment in San
Diego, House! I have a new job, a new life."

"You have an old life here! And you're giving it up just because I won't
bump uglies with you."

Wilson looked at him sadly. "Is that what you think? I'm just a fag who's
hot for you crotch? That's all you think this is? And your solution,
incredibly!, is to "prove" it's nothing?"

House looked at his shoes. At his cane. "It's all I could come up with."

Hands on hips, Wilson shook his head, "Look-," He explained as though to a
child, "Maybe kissing, sex, love, affection, devotion, are just abstract
concepts YOU can juggle or discard. Treat as irritants and therefore
meaningless." He added sarcastically, "I guess that's why after Stacey
left, you got drunk for six months and then pined for five years? 

"It must be that you, instead of accepting love and dealing with loss, set
feelings aside." Wilson stared at House, searching for a glimmer of
comprehension. "Now you're trying to convince me to bottle my feelings -
or better yet flush them - in other words, ignore reality. PRETEND I don't
love you. That's you're solution?" 

Wilson turned away from House to the door. "That's the saddest part about
this, House. Despite what I've said...tried to explain...you still think
it's not at all about loving you." Wilson put his hand on the door knob.
"Somehow, deep down, you believe you're not worth it." 

Wilson left the closet and ran into Cameron.

"Where's House?"

Wilson jerked a thumb behind him. "He's in the closet."

88888888

Turnbull's smokey interior was a crowd of young and old. Married, single
and looking, newly-single and horny, single and angry. Most drunk or well
on their way.

House, no room at the bar, sat at a table meant for four, half way down a
twenty-four ouncer of Southern Comfort. He still had on his clothes from
work. His cane hung from his left arm while he drained shot glass after
shot glass. 

He felt good.

Shitty but good. Alcohol's magic mix.

A cheaply pretty waitress came and replaced the butt-full ashtray with a
clean one. "Bad day?" She asked him, seeing he had ripped through nearly
half the bottle she had provided. 

"You want to make it better?" House asked.

She considered his extreme state of inebriation. "Funny. You know, it's a
slippery slope from just drunk to an Irish wreck." 

House raised his shot glass. "Here's to a rapid descent."

The waitress left him alone and two guys approached the table. "Hey,
buddy" Said a beefy bald-head with a spider tatoo across his neck, "Can we
share? The place is nuts."

House indicated a Here's-To-You "Yes" with his glass to the empty chairs.

The two sat and talked, their own variety of Friday night fluids hidden in
massive hands. Spider-tatoo's companion was the smaller of the men. Beefy
but not steroid fed beef. A cheaper cut, with a blond head-brush he
thought made him look like Grade A. 

House raised his glass again, opened his mouth and interrupted their civil
conversation with, "You guys got penises?"

The two men, not sure what they had heard, "What?"

House drank. Then, "Franks and beans?" He said.

His tongue was thick and his thoughts were skinny-dipping in a lake of
ooze. "'Cause if ya' got two cups and a fuzzy biscuit, ya' can't sit
here."

House squinted for his table mates through the smoke. "New House rule." He
nodded and knocked back.

"Maybe you better slow down, pal." Tatoo guy said.

"I'm celebrating." House answered.

"Yeah?" Grade A guy asked. "Celebrating what?"

House poured another. His bottle was almost empty. "My consummate
inability to attract a woman." 

House looked at the men in turn across the unwashed table top. "I'm a
Doctor." He announced. "A Board-Certified Physician with TWO, " He held up
three fingers, "specialties: Infectious disease and Nephrology - that's
"Function and Diseases of the Kidneys" to you high school heroes."

Tatoo guy's eyebrows came together and didn't part. "Right. I think you've
had plenty."

House jerked his head back. "You're wrong. I haven't had sex that I
haven't payed for in nearly two years. Two YEARS!"

"I mean you're pretty wasted, Doc'. And you're getting loud. You oughta'
go home."

"TWO!" House emphasized. "Most men get rectal exams more often." He
burped.

The two guys exchanged darkly annoyed looks. Grade A began a visual scout
for an empty table. 

Tatoo guy said to House, "Go home." It was not a suggestion.

House ignored him. "'Course, if I give Wilson what he wants, I could get a
rectal exam every night." House laughed at his own joke. Raising his shot
glass, he downed the amber liquid.

Tatoo guy looked around the bar and then stood. He said to his friend,
"Look's like the bouncer's busy tossing out a skank. Let's help "Doogie"
here outside."

Grade A, the obvious lesser man in the two-man tough-guy team, stood. They
each took an arm and half carried and unprotesting House and his cane to
the door. Once outside, they took him into a smelly alley and leaned him
against the brick wall of the bar. 

Grade A guy hooked House's cane around his neck and patted his slack jaw.
"Just let it wear off some, "Doog'", before you try to walk home."

"Yeah." House snorted. "Walk." He managed to stay upright as Spider-Tatoo
and Grade-A left.

"Hey, honey." The hooker who'd been tossed out on her ass approached,
having witnessed the whole scene. "Hey, sweetie," She said. "Want some
sweets?"

House heard her but wasn't getting the drift. "Mmm, doesn't really mix
with Southern."

Hooker came right up close to him. She smelled of body odor and stale
cigarette's. "You're kinda cute. I can give you an Suckie for twenty."

House, eyes rheumy with drink, sleepily watched her as she knelt down and
unzipped him. "I only have ten bucks left." He said.

She nodded and spit into her hand, giving him a quick hand-job right there
in the alley. People passing by on the street walked on, pretending there
was nothing to see.

House closed his eyes and groaned a little when he came. The hooker stood
and held out her hand. House looked at it stupidly. She took his wallet
from his pants pocket. There was no cash in it. "Hey, jerk! Where's my
money?"

"Whoops." He smiled devilishly. 

Hooker fished out his credit card and threw his wallet at him, hitting him
in the chest. "Never mind, I got this." She held the VISA in front of his
face like a trophy.

House shrugged. "It's racked up. I can't buy gum on it."

Hooker grabbed his cane and struck him across the face with the handle,
sending House to the ground. A small cut above his left eye leaked blood.
In her drug induced need for a fix, Hooker smashed the cane against the
brick wall a few times until it broke. "Asshole!" she yelled and stormed
away.

8888888

In white bathrobe, Wilson hurried to answer his apartment door after a
furious knocking threatened to jostle it from the hinges.

It was House. His head was bleeding and he was drunk, or had recently
been. He stunk of whisky.

"House, it's past midnight." 

House ignored Wilson's hint for him to shoo and dumped his coat on the
floor. 

"Okay." He said.

Wilson looked at the coat and at House. And his bleeding forehead. "Okay,
what okay?"

House spread his hands in capitulation. "You can...you can have me for a
night." He looked Wilson squarely in the eye so there would be no
mis-communication. "ONE night."

Wilson's mouth opened. He was agog. "Are you...are you prostituting
yourself to me??"

"Look, I'm offering-"

Wilson closed the door and circled the tiny tiled foyer with disbelieving
steps. "This is a bargaining tactic? My God."

House looked genuinely confused. "This is what you want-"

"No. No! I mean, yes, but,...Jesus, House, I don't know whether to be
offended at your ego, feel sorry for you or punch you in the head." 

"Well, go with what you know, Rocky." House remarked.

Wilson stared at House. "You really do think you're worthless."

Even leaning on his cane, House swayed slightly. "Stop trying to make this
about me."

"It IS about you. It's been about you since it started. You're more to me
than a one night stand-"

"-But it'll get me out of your system. You'll....do the deed and get it
that my plumbing's no different than anyone else's."

"-House! I want you for myself. Forever!" Wilson rubbed his eyes. "Try to
comprehend this: It's not just about sex."

House looked away. 

In Houses brain, Wilson could almost see the tiny cogs whirring. 

He looked back, and remarkably in that instant he'd somehow sobered up.
"Of course it is! You only think you love me. You've spent so much time
around me while..." He gestured to Wilson pelvic area, "...your pink lily
was blooming, that you think I'm the only one for you."

Wilson turned and raised his arms in defeat. "Holy Holstein." He let them
drop and walked to the kitchen. He set to putting a kettle on to boil.

House followed. "What'r you doing?"

"Now that I'm up, I may as well have coffee."

"Instant? Can't you make the real stuff?"

Wilson was endlessly amazed at House's ability to switch focus. "I don't
have any regular. I'm moving, remember? My cab is arriving at six in the
morning." Wilson said over the running tap.

House nodded. He remembered. Now.

The kettle whistled and Wilson poured out two cups. There was no table to
sit at so they leaned against the kitchen counter. Beside the kettle sat
Wilson's Leopard Sea Cucumber. 

"Leaving junior behind?"

Wilson glanced at it. "No, It's going in the last box. Awkward thing to
pack, it's weirdly shaped."

House sipped the coffee, made a face. "So, whadda ya' say?"

Wilson put his cup down on the counter wearily. "Didn't we just settle
this? Did you just somehow travel back in time?" He shook his head.

House tried again. "I think I'm making a sacrifice here."

Wilson ran fingers through his hair. "Oh, yeah, I forgot, you're going to
close your eyes, drop your pants and pretend you're somewhere else. I
didn't think I was THAT bad."

House sighed. "You're not, I didn't mean - look - I came here tonight to
offer myself. You think this is easy for me? My stomach's churning, I'm
ready to throw up and now you're saying no??"

"I see. At the prospect of making love to me, you're nauseous and on the
verge of vomiting. Careful, House, you're going to charm the pants off
me."

Suddenly House raised his cane and brought it smashing down on the sea
cucumber. "What the hell do you want?! You want me to fall in love? You
want me to say that I've yearned for you all these years? Confess that I'm
gay too, but, gee, I just plum forgot?!"

Some of the dust from the pulverized cucumber landed on the floor and in
Wilson's hair.

House looked abashed at his destruction of it but, "It was awkward anyway.
And ugly."

Wilson picked at his eye. Wiped cucumber dust from his face. "I don't
expect anything from you."

"You liar." House limped closer. "You expect everything." And closer
again, in the way that he had when he knew he was right. "Only you don't
know anything."

Wilson frowned. "What does that mean?"

"What do you know?" House asked, almost menacingly.

"About...?"

"About us,...what do you know?"

Wilson searched for the answer he thought House was looking for. "I know I
love you-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, before all the love-crap started up. About us, as
friends, what do you know?" 

Wilson straightened, putting his hands on the counter behind him for
physical support and some intestinal courage. He didn't know what House
wanted.

House shoved his face an inch from Wilsons. "What do you KNOW!?"

Wilson's tongue stumbled over his teeth and then he started firing words
out, just to get the man to back off. "I know we're friends, colleagues,
we hang out, we talk,..laugh... eat pizza.. share things..."

House backed off. "Yes. And was that enough? As friends, was it enough?"

Wilson still didn't know where this was going but it was true enough.
"Yes. Yes. As a friend, I cared about you. It was enough, yes."

"Then why now isn't that - PLUS my body - enough?"

It was a unique perception. And it was from House.

"I don't know. I love you even more. But only one night...wouldn't be
enough. I want a real relationship."

House wasn't done and he was still angry. "What does that mean anyway?
True love. Real relationship. You toss those words around like a nerf
ball, Mister three-times-divorced. YOU don't even know what they mean."

"Then what do they mean?" Wilson scored a small point.

"I don't know either. But you're the one who's neck deep in them.
Enlighten me."

Wilson was tired, the buzz from the coffee had worn off. He had to get up
in four hours and take a flight west out of House's life. "I don't know
and I'm too tired to guess."

House turned to him. "You don't know." He gestured with his cane from
Wilson to himself. "But you expect me to give you more than what you do
know."

It was an unfolding. House had taken an obscure affliction and made a
incision with which to peer inside. A start at a diagnosis. His specialty.
No cure yet. No treatment, but they knew better what the trouble was. 

However, it was still a deep wound. One neither knew yet how to fix.

"I don't deserve this." House told him and swung the apartment door open,
not bothering to shut it behind him. Wilson had seen the stony sadness on
Houses face and followed.

House had his cell phone out and was dialing numbers as he punched the
nearby elevator button over and over.

"Where are you going, House?" Wilson asked from the doorway.

An elderly woman was waiting for the same elevator.

"Who are you calling?" Wilson asked again, if for nothing than to get
House to come back and talk more.

House didn't look at him. "My pimp!" He glanced at the lady, jerking his
head once in Wilson's direction. "He won't pay up."

Wilson closed his eyes. "Hello Misses Aldenburg."

Misses Aldenburg only raised one profoundly disapproving eyebrow over her
doctor-neighbor's nighttime activities. 

The elevator doors opened and she and House disappeared.

888888

Wilson was dressed with suitcases ready, waiting on the curb by his
apartment block by five-forty-eight AM. The shower and shave had given him
a false feeling of fine which was quickly dissipating.

By six no cab had showed up. Wilson looked at his watch. His flight left
at eight. "Shit."

An engine started nearby. Motorcycle.

Wilson watched as House pulled up to the curb. His forehead sported a
bandage, and he had changed clothes. House tossed Wilson his black helmet.
"Climb on."

Wilson tossed the helmet back. "No."

House tossed it back again. "Stop being a girly-ass and get on. You can
even cuddle me if you want."

Wilson had a sudden sickening revelation. "You canceled my cab!" He stared
at House as to a crazy man. "Didn't you? You canceled my cab??" 

Wilson threw his coat to the ground and stormed around. "You make me
insane, House. You make everyone around you insane. You are insane. I'm
going to lose that job!"

House dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "You didn't want that job.
You'd hate California. Too many gays."

Wilson stopped and stared at the ground, like a man confronted by a smelly
corpse on his newly cut lawn. "My life is over."

"Come on, you can stay with me 'till Cuddy arranges for your old job
back."

"You're still drunk." Wilson put the helmet on his head and climbed onto
the back of House's motorcycle. He did not put his arms around House but
slid his hands through the leather strap across the back seat. 

"True." House dialed into his cell phone.

"Who are you calling now?"

"The cab company."

Wilson was dumbfounded. "Why are you calling me a cab now??"

"I'm not. I'm calling a cab for your luggage." 

"Have them drop it at Plainsborough."

"Why?"

"Can you just do me this one, small favor please without arguing? Just
once?"

House did so. He fired up the bike. They rode a few miles.

"Stop for a second." Wilson said over the noise of the engine.

"Why?"

"I need some overnight things and there's a all-night pharmacy right
there."

House pulled to the curb. Wilson hopped off and walked away in the
opposite direction of the store. 

House lifted his leg over the seat, but knew he could not catch up with
him. "Hey! Where are you going?"

"To a hotel."

"What about your luggage?"

"Keep it. You could use a new wardrobe."

"Come on-"

"Go home, House. Watch T.V. Rent a hooker. I don't care." 

"Wilson..."

"Leave me alone. I mean it." 

8888888

Cuddy saw House limp slowly by her office. He had a different cane today,
his plain dark-wood one. It was eleven-twenty in the morning.

Cuddy watched and waited. If she kept her eyes on him long enough he was
sure-

-He turned around, sensing her dagger eyes. With slumping shoulder's,
House entered through the double doors to Cuddy's Plainsborough command
center.

Cuddy waited until House settled himself in the leather chair opposite her
desk. He looked terrible.

But she was still his boss. "Do you mind telling me why you're coming into
work, looking like a drunken hobo at eleven-twenty AM?"

House tucked his top lip over his bottom, a thing he did when he wasn't
sure he ought to say what he'd decided to say. "I ran out of money?"

Cuddy noticed the bandage on his forehead. "And what happened to your
eye?" She came around to exam him.

"Disgruntled....date. I wasn't a gentleman."

She checked to make sure it didn't need stitching. It was crusted and
would heal with minimal scarring. 

Cuddy straightened. She was disapproving of, and exasperated with, and
feeling sorry for her thoroughly frustrating and rumpled employee. "Go
work." Was all she said.

When House was half way out her door. "Clinic duty." She reminded him. He
sighed heavily.

888888

"I waited forty minutes out there." House's middle aged female patient
irked. Her hair was dyed platinum, her face was tight and her lips pinched
with having better things to do.

"Then you must be ecstatic to meet me." House said. He'd downed an extra
large black coffee, half a dozen aspirin and two Vicodin. His stomach and
head were approaching normal.

She gave him the once over. "Are you a Doctor?"

"As far as you know." He checked the blue folder containing the clinic
nurse's scribbles of the physical complaints that had brought the woman to
the clinic . 

House tossed the folder on the counter. "You have...," He summed up the
two page file, "...a cut." 

"Isn't it obvious?" She held up a hand with a white home-made bandage on
it. A teeny amount of blood seeped through the gauze. "It's not very big
but it bled a lot and I think I might need stitches."

House snapped on latex gloves and unwrapped the gauze. Underneath was a
very small cut on her right index finger. "No stitches." He announced and
looked at her. "I recommend a hobby instead."

"A hobby?"

"Yes. Instead of wasting your middle class retirement years sadistically
bothering people a whole lot busier - and sicker - than you, like hung
over Doctors for example, take up a hobby. Knitting, growing petunias,
butterfly collecting - you get to stick needles in them - that's pretty
sadistic." 

He removed the gloves and tossed them in the trash. "But for now, go home,
wash the cut, put on a Band-Aid brand band-aid and take your fat, twelve
year poodle for a walk."

The woman flushed, her brows pinched together like the black wings of a
crow. "How do you know I'm retired or middle class?"

"Easy." House looked her over once, particularly at her face. "You've
recently had a face-lift, but not a particularly good one. Yours must have
run you about eight thousand dollars, so you've got some money but not a
lot because a really good plastic face is priced closer to thirty. 

"There's no ring on your finger so you're divorced or widowed, therefore
no second income which is why you've come to a free clinic. And it's
Saturday. If you were busy in the sultry dating scene or the bright lights
of the Bridge circuit, you wouldn't be wasting your time - and mine - in a
free clinic with a superficial finger cut."

"You're wrong."

"No I'm not." He answered, making a note in her file. 

"Yes," She said sharply, "you are!"

House was getting bored. "I give."

"It bled a lot. It needs stitches."

House looked at her, put the top back on his pen and stood. "Fine. I'll
get one of our students in here to put a stitch," He emphasized the
singular, "in your finger. At least someone's Saturday won't be a waste."

"You're also wrong about the face lift. It cost nineteen thousand
dollars."

House stuck out his lower lip at the figure. "Seriously? I hope it came
with a money-back guarantee." House left one exam room for another.

Not bothering to read the file at all, "What's wrong with you?" He asked
the worried patient whom he had not yet examined.

"I feel bad."

House looked sideways at the pot-bellied man sitting stiffly on the exam
table.

"Yea-ah. If you're talking to a doctor in the first place, that kinda'
goes without saying. Why do you feel bad and by bad I'm assuming you mean
sick." 

"Not sure. It sort of hurts all over."

"WHAT sort of hurts all over?"

"Everything." 

House stared blankly at him for a few seconds. His eyes widened, then
narrowed. The patient followed suit, looking more worried. 

House took the man's hands and held them up in front of him. He pinched
the man's palms hard. "Does that hurt?"

The guy pulled his hands back quickly. "Ouch! Yes!"

House next took his flashlight and looked up the guy's nose. "Have any
dripping? Sneezing? The need to blow?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact-"

"-Any sore muscles within the last year?"

"Yes but-"

House continued. "What about itching? Do you sometimes have the urge to
scratch yourself... a lot? Does it feel like your skin is crawling with
ants, making it itch - terribly - in the daylight? Especially when you're
indoors? Under flourescent lights?" 

The patient scratched one arm. "Sometimes..." Using his optical scope,
House looked into his left eye and whistled. "What about now? Is the
itching getting worse RIGHT NOW?"

"Yes, it's real bad now." The patient scratched at his arms and stomach.

House let out a held breath. "You...." 

"-What? I knew it? What do I have?!"

"...have..." House wiped his face and shook his head in mock sorrow. "...a
Somatoform disorder."

"Oh, God, I knew it!"

House slumped on his doctor stool, looking grave. "Relatively rare. It
plagues" He darkly underlined the word, "about only five percent of the
population."

"What is it? Tell me, I can take it. I'm dying, aren't I?"

"You have Anatomical Pavlovian Hypochondrasias. I'm sorry to inform you
that you only have about forty years to live."

"Oh, no!......Wait, but... forty years??"

House gathered up his scope and the file. "Pavlovian. It means you react
to whatever suggestions you're conditioned to. And by the speed of your
reaction, looks like you're terminal."

At the man's puzzled face, House said, "You're a hypochondriac, you
idiot!" He tossed him a half-eaten roll of Certs. "Here. These'll take the
edge off. Go home!"

888888

Cuddy intercepted House on his way to the Men's Room. "Done at the Clinic
already?" She asked.

"Yes, and I have the impacted bowel to prove it."

She fell into step beside him. "Wilson did not arrive at San Diego. The
Dean who was to have been his new boss called me, wondering why Wilson
didn't show. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

House looked down at her. "Maybe he decided San Francisco is more his
flavor." House pushed the Men's Room door open but Cuddy took his arm,
halting him in his tracks.

"House..."

House searched her eyes, looking for what she was not saying. He found it
in a second. Cuddy was not surprised. The bastard always could.

"He told you!"

She nodded helplessly. "Yes."

House leaned against the door. "God! Who else knows?"

"No one." She strongly assured him. "I don't think this problem is one
that can be solved by running away."

House frowned. "I'm not running away. I'm just not...running TO." He
sighed. 

Cuddy watched his face, so animated, so alive with emotions. Fear,
confusion, sadness, searching for an answer; a treatment; a cure. House
could not be the ass - could not be JUST the ass - everyone thought he
was. He was human. If he was not, where did all the feelings come from? 

"House. Wilson's going away. But I'm here for you, if you need me." It was
saying just enough. He would accept it without embarrassment and respond
without discomfort. 

House looked at her, with just a flick of his indigo eyes, and nodded
once.

"Talk to him please." She urged. "I didn't want to lose Wilson. I don't
want to lose you." She could think of no other advice.

House looked adrift. "Things keep changing." He looked at her and Cuddy
saw it in his eyes. House needed stability. 

Mirroring her own mind, he said, "I don't know how." And slipped into the
bathroom.

8888888

The sun was just rising, turning the sky a lazy pink when Wilson slid his
card key through the card reader. The Suns Inn was expensive but the only
one that was within walking distance from where he'd had house drop him.

"Dammit!" Wilson snarled to no-one when the card didn't work. He tried
again and the door gently popped open. 

Closing and locking it, he switched on the light and sat down on the hard
bed. He had no luggage and so no razors or shaving cream. And no change of
underwear or deodorant. No apartment to go back to. No job.

He flopped back bonelessly and rubbed his face. In the afternoon he would
call Cuddy and see if he could get his position, or some other position,
back at Plainsborough. Hopefully in an office far away from House.

Wilson stepped into the shower, letting the warm spray wash away the
tension in his back and the headache in his head. A House-headache. And
House tension. House warmth. Soft House spray. 

Wilson groaned when erotic images of the man turned over and over in his
mind. He almost regretted not taking House up on his one-night offering.
What was it like to hold him close? Kiss him hard? Touch him all over with
his lips, smell his skin? Cover him with his own body? Fuck him until he
groaned and begged?

Wilson's heart thumped and he couldn't help touching, stroking himself.
The fucking son-of-a-bitch had a prison hold on his mind and soul.
"Fuck..." He moaned into the hot spray and came. Wilson lay down to sleep
and drifted off almost immediately. Images of House were there, in his
rest. House smiling at his own jokes. Shouting at Cuddy when she refused
him carte blanche. Sitting silently in depression. Grimacing when in pain.


Stealing his potato chips. Borrowing his car. Drinking with him, working
with him, going through break-ups, going through pain, gossiping about the
nurses... 

Sharing a few, rare, precious feelings when he was scraping life's rotten
bottom. 

And House was still a man unknown. A genius. Nuts. Totally unique. 

Marvelous.

Wilson slept for five hours when he suddenly awoke. A dangerous idea had
come in the night. But it was a way to understand House. Maybe.
Understand, perhaps, a little more of him.

888888

Wilson took the seat opposite the Doctor seated behind his large, polished
real oak desk. The grey-haired doctor had made some time for the younger
one on the understanding he was there to discuss a former patient.

"My pleasure, Doctor Tesky." Wilson said.

 "Doctor house, yes. I treated Greg House. Several years ago, without much
success I'm afraid. His type of muscle and nerve damage holds dismal
promise of improvement."

"Really? you think there's no hope?"

Tesky withdrew a file from a bottom drawer - perhaps his unsuccessful
cases - then polished and put on his reading glasses. "Let's see." He
said. "Ischemia Caused by an infarction. Muscle death to 39 percent of his
Vastus Latoralis and 37 percent of his Rectus Femoris. Femoral nerve
damage. Severe chronic pain..."

Wilson said "-What I want to know is what he feels."

"You mean pain scale? That depends on activity, if the leg is stressed,
over-worked, under-worked..."

"I'm trying to find out what it feels like. I...need to know what he
feels. Physically." Wilson doubted Tesky would accommodate him.

Tesky was wary. "You mean you want me to...hook you up and cause you...?"

"Pain. Yes. The kind of pain Doctor House goes through."

"This is a very unusual request. I would need to know why."

"For us to help him, to help him cope, we can't do that unless we
know....how hard it is for him."

Tesky looked down at his desk. "I'm not sure I can ethically assist you in
this."

"I'll sign any form you like that absolves you."

"We're physicians, Doctor Wilson, you know there is no such form. We're
here to ease suffering, not cause it."

"I've been an Oncologist for fifteen years. My patients often explain to
me, at length, their pain and how bad it is. After fifteen years, I still
don't know, really, how they feel. They tell me that often the worst part
is that others don't understand. House is a friend. He suffers. People
around him think it can't be that bad." 

Wilson sat forward. "I need to know. One person in his life needs to know.
We can't do anything about the pain. This...could be the only way I can
help." 

Tesky thought a moment. Nodded. "I'll assist you in this." He pointed at
him with his glasses. "But you must know that this will be unpleasant. To
say the least."

I'm counting on it, Wilson thought.

"Remove your pants and lie down." Tesky said.

Wilson complied. The table with it's sheet of paper was cold and hard. 

Tesky busied himself for a moment setting up his equipment. "Electrical
stimulation of nerve and muscle is an effective treatment for pain in most
cases. Here we use transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation - carefully
controlled." Tesky looked down at his "patient". "For you, I will be
causing, not relieving pain. Are you sure you want to go through with
this?"

Wilson nodded. 

"Okay." Tesky placed the electrodes onto strategic spots on Wilson's upper
and lower, right thigh, explaining. "We target the actual nerves of the
muscle, they respond to stimulation far more quickly than does muscle
tissue. Ready?"

"Yes." Wilson said.

Tesky switched on his machine and moved dials.

Wilson felt a tickling, then a sensation of burning in his thigh. "I can
feel something."

Tesky watched his read-outs carefully. "That's one of the settings for
therapy." He turned a dial. "It should begin to hurt now."

He was right. Wilson felt his thigh muscles twitching. The spasms sped up
until a steady cramping set in. Still the twitching did not stop. It
really began to hurt! Wilson broke out in a sweat. "Is that what House
feels?"

"Not yet." Tesky upped another setting.

Wilson thought he had steeled himself sufficiently for bearing more pain
but the shock of it took his breath away. "Ahh!" He could not hold back.
"Shit!"

"I'm going to stop now." Tesky said.

"No! Is this what House feels without the Vicodin?"

Tesky looked over at him a bit sadly. 'No, that's what he feels like WITH
the Vicodin." He turned another dial. "This is without."

It was a black agony. Murderous. 

Wilson grabbed the sides of his head with both hands. "Oh my God!
How...how can he live like this?" Wilson had determined to endure several
hours of the House-like pain but wondered if he was a fool to think he
could. 

Tesky moved to terminate. "I'm turning it off."

"No!" Wilson said through gritted teeth. "Leave it."

"This could cause some damage." He warned Wilson.

"Leave it." Wilson said. He closed his eyes to the pain and let it wash
over him. Wave after wave of it exploded in his leg and washed north,
across his pelvic area and into the muscles of his abdomen. Nausea boiled
up in his stomach. A small headache began and grew with each passing
minute until his head pounded.

Tension. Blood pressure rising. Heart rate increasing. He began to sweat
profusely. Still the pain did not ease. Wilson needed to know. An hour. At
least an hour and maybe he would understand.

Lights ripped across the inside of his eyelids. White flashes, blue
sparks, the photo manifestations of misery. He suddenly remembered his
fifth Birthday party when his father and bought him his first two-wheeled
bicycle. After a few wobbly pedals, he'd crashed it into the garage and
broken his collarbone. Cried from the pain. Pain in a memory he had not
thought of for thirty-five years came back as fresh as morning. 

Not the dream-state-pain gouged uncaring fingers into his flesh and so an
image of horror crossed his mind. A man with an ax, chopping his leg off
just below the hip joint. Blood shot out like from a hose. But the relief!
The gratitude to his faceless maim-er.

House spoke to him from a time before: "My leg hurt. You think this is a
scam??"

In the painful dark, Wilson spoke back. "Either way, you get the high you
think you need. You're leg is fine. You were so strung out!..."

"I was in pain! You have to believe I have a problem so your betrayal has
the illusion of nobility. The nausea's bad this time..."

"Then go to Rehab...I thought you might prefer people to pills..."

A depressed and desperate House on the floor, lying in vomit. Wilson sad
and sickened by the scene. Disgusted. Angry. Slamming the door. Leave him
in it. Serves him right.

"I know you were just trying to help me, protect me..."

"Was the apology real?"

"Believe what you want."

Inside the lake of pain, the answer was easy. It was real. There had been
no other clear reason for House to have said he was sorry, except that he
was. 

Wilson thought, knowing it would not reach House's ears: I never said I
was sorry for not believing you. For leaving you when you were at your
lowest point. The Ketamine failed. You were in ten kinds of agony and I
didn't believe you. God help me.

"You'll function without the muscle." They had said to House/Wilson.
Promised him: "The pain can be managed."

Like balancing a budget. Just so much per day of agony. We're certain the
leg will cooperate with our very reasonable schedule of pain. 

 Assurances, "You can live without the narcotics." 

Name-calling, "You're a junkie, an addict." 

Righteous accusations, "You like the high, you love the pills..."

Wilson laughed at their ignorance. Proverbial eyes were opened. A once
blinded mind, clearly seeing.

One of those agonies hauled back and drop-kicked him from the memories.
Nerves were crushed and twisted. Muscles were starved and withered away. 

Wilson screamed.

"Doctor Wilson!" Tesky yelled into his ear. 

As Wilson came to, he saw with fuzzy vision Tesky turning down the dials
on his terrible device. The pain eased but the memory of it remained in
mind and limb.

"You passed out." Tesky explained.

Wilson sat up slowly. His thigh throbbed still but it was nothing. A
tickle. Laughable. "For how long?"

"A few minutes."

"I mean how long was I under the machine?"

"About forty-five minutes. I terminated when your heart rate shot up just
now."

Wilson stepped down from the table. His right leg collapsed from under him
and he almost fell.

"Careful." Tesky warned. "Your leg's going to cramp for at least a day.
Walking's going to be a challenge for a few hours."

Wilson wiped the sweat from his face. "How can he stand it day after day?"

"Pain patient's learn to cope; grit their teeth. And remember he's had
this pain for five years now, and he's on narcotics. Those two factors
will have damaged - and therefore numbed slightly - his already damaged
nerves, so he'd have some reduction in the level of pain."

"You mean he's used to it."

Tesky nodded. "Yes."

Wilson felt sick with grief. 

8888888

House downed three ounces of cheap Rye and threw some clothes into his
back-pack. His bottle of Vicodin, Gravol, sleeping pills and his cell
phone completed the job. 

He loved his job. Knew he was good at it. Probably the best.

He just sucked at relationships. People baffled him sometimes. Other times
they were transparent. Easy to read, manipulate. Use.

People he could mostly live without. Not because he really wanted to, he
just didn't have much choice. He knew he wasn't likeable. Not great
friendship material.

House sat on his Honda without starting it. It was a miserable night, snow
fell and the wind cut up through his new black leather jacket's open
collar and sleeves. Goose bumped his skin. 

Wilson might even be gone by now. Still House did not start the bike. 

He hated all the emotions that had surfaced because of Wilson's
confession. Despised the weakness of his own need. House started the bike,
revved the engine. Again. and again until it high-screamed in protest.

He shut it off angrily. Looking up, fluffy flakes fell on his face and
melted. Little cold spots all over. His breath hitched and sped up.
Stress. Nervous break down? - So? - What hadn't gone to shit lately? His
eyes, as dry as the remnants of whiskey in his stomach, closed. 

Aches and pains and none of it from his leg. House slammed his hands down
on the handle bars. 

Again. Hard!

Harder again. And again! Painful distraction accomplishing nothing. 

His forearms stung. There'd be bruises tomorrow. Somehow it was no
comfort. Like when Stacey packed her three suitcases and bugged out. The
hollowness she'd left in him had spread like a fungus. Wilson had
suggested counseling.

Sure. Get right on that. Therapy for the leg. Learning to walk again. No
job and no prospects of any. Gonna' drink for a few months, 'K? Emotional
crash first, if you don't mind. 

Cuddy swooping down, that gorgeous raven, and rescuing him with a job. And
a smile he dreamed about during every shower. 

House felt sick and terrified. Not the first time in his life (good ol'
Dad). Certainly not the last. He started the Honda again and rode through
the sloppy streets to the hotel where Wilson had been staying. If he was
no longer there, O god. If he was....

...O god.

888888 

House tossed his backpack on the carpet and his new leather jacket on top.

Wilson stood in his briefs and Goose bumped white skin. He was smooth
chested, fit and trim. A naturally slim man who would never have to worry
about running to fat. "It's one AM. What do you want, House?"

House didn't say anything. He didn't look Wilson's way. 

He was breathing a little fast, and Wilson wondered if he was in pain. "Is
your leg okay? You seem-"

House nodded once. Addressing the wall, "It's...not bad." He murmured.
Quick, clipped words that nearly had not made it all the way out.

Wilson stepped back so House could enter further and the door could be
closed. House said nothing so Wilson filled the space. "I called Cuddy
today. I have my tenure back if I want it. Since I have no where else to
go, I accepted."

House looked at the far wall beyond Wilson, and said "You win."

It was an odd response and Wilson was too tired to ponder it. 

But as much as he wanted to yawn, dismiss House with a few choice words
and return to bed, he was too curious, and puzzled, by House's odd
behavior to do so. "Are you all right?" 

House was acting like a cornered dog. Injured and staring suspiciously at
the hand extended to him. 

Wilson the did reach out. "You're white as a sheet."

House looked at the ceiling for a second and, reaching behind him, grabbed
hold of his tee-shirt and pulled it over his head. He held it in front of
him, arms still imprisoned by the sleeves, t-shirt accordion-ed into folds
across his bare chest.

House looked at the floor. "I said, you win." He repeated, now looking
directly at Wilson, his eyes begging him to understand and ask nothing
more. 

And Wilson did understand. As clear as rain-water. 

House was there to offer himself. 

Again.

Wilson felt a tsunami of emotions while his eyes never blinked nor turned
away from the uncontainably beautiful thing he had just witnessed.

And in that instant he saw a little further into the murky depths of the
genius man. 

House. Brilliant doctor. Insightful friend. Angry child. Funny man. Sad
loner. Arrogant ass. Mercurial junkie... 

Who stood alone on the edge of good, human experience, looking but almost
never tasting. Dwelling along the peripheral of a world that, in its
mostly acidic machinations, would someday eat him alive.

Without Wilson, House was without protection. He was helpless.

Even in his self imposed isolation, he would be caught and skinned in the
unyielding, unforgiving eyes of those who dwelled inside the circle.

That is what Cuddy had meant when she said House needed him. Without
Wilson, House would not survive. 

That's the thing; the essence that drew only the deeply caring to the man.
Not the leg. Nothing so palpably obvious. Wilson now knew what he needed
to know. He comprehended that aspect of House that, without a deflecting
presence, would lead to his eventual annihilation from job, people and
life. It was the key to him.

A raw, aching vulnerability.

Wilson weighed his next words with the care of a goldsmith. The wrong
thing would end this where it started. "I'm glad you're here." 

Wilson stepped forward, making certain his movements were casual, almost
accidental, and took House's t-shirt from him, laying it across the desk
chair by the door. He was close to House now, just two feet from him. His
hair was damp from the snow but Wilson could feel his body heat.

Wilson moved to put his arms around him and House tensed. 

"It's just a hug." Wilson said. "That's all."

House nodded. That quick, barely agreeing tip of his head. The trademark
of a man suddenly finding himself out of his depth. 

Wilson put his arms around him and held him firmly. It was neither sterile
nor passionate.

But he was holding House for the first time. Feeling, finally, House's
naked skin. Flesh, strong and soft. He smelled like the fresh outdoors. 

He would taste, Wilson knew, like a new creation. The way love and sex had
been new once upon a time. 

Wilson turned his head just enough to kiss House on the neck. House didn't
pull away, but he was silent and his breathing was irregular. One second
normal, the next he'd hold it when something unfamiliar occurred. Like
when Wilson next kissed his cheek, then the side of his face. Tiny, barely
touching kisses across his rough jaw until finally he found House's lips
and lingered there. With his tongue he teased House's lips, then his
teeth, apart. 

Now kissed deeper, stronger, more urgently. House did not kiss back but,
again, he did not pull away. 

Wilson stroked his hands up and down, so slowly up and down, House's back.
His fingers played over the muscles there, learning them, studying their
smoothly carved beauty with hungry hands.

In his secret mind, Wilson was already inside House, hard and penetrating,
loving and forceful, passionate and demanding. 

In the peace of the actual, Wilson gently guided House to the bed. House,
without his cane, limping and heavily leaning on Wilson.

House had to stop when the backs of his legs hit the mattress. Wilson
continued to push him until he fell, bouncing once on the hard springs.
House kept his eyes on the headboard. His hands shook.

House's jeans were next and Wilson unzipped them, pulling them down and
off. Beneath house was wearing his cotton pajama bottoms. He'd hastily
thrown his clothes on over them.

It caught Wilson's breath up. He could just see the darker flesh of
House's genitals through the thin fabric and was hard instantly. 

Wilson took the pajama's draw string and pulled very slowly, savoring the
power and thrill of undressing House. The string was loose. It came
undone. And Wilson almost followed course.

O fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck... 

Wilson slipped the pajama's off those perfect legs and took in the sight
of naked Gregory House on his bed, underneath him, about to be made love
to by him. Wilson felt like a trapped animal when the cage door finally
swings wide. 

He took House's nervous hands in his own to still them, laying his full
body on him. Wilson began kissing him again, non-stop, pushing his tongue
inside House's mouth. House was silent. Wilson kept on kissing him so
House could rest easy in that he did not have to say a word nor
acknowledge what was happening. 

For Wilson, he needed no confirmation from House. That it was happening
was enough. Plenty. 

Everything, the only thing, he desired.

He explored House's chest and abdomen with hands, and lips and tongue. Oh
holy god, the man was beautiful.

With his right hand, House covered his scar - by habit, Wilson suspected.
Wilson removed the hand and covered the scar with his own. Gently caressed
it as just another desirable, sexual portion of House's perfect flesh.
"Nothing hidden." Wilson whispered into his ear. "Not anymore."

He took a second or two to look into House's eyes. Some trepidation there
but House looked back just once before resting his gaze elsewhere again.
But a tiny yes had been spoken in that glance.

Wilson moved down House's body, kissing, teasing, licking the soft hair on
his chest, abdomen, until he reached the reality of his most erotic
dreams. Wilson's ministrations had not been lost on House, physically at
least. He was hard. Wilson looked up. House had his eyes squeezed shut.
Embarrassed because it was Wilson.

Wilson had expected that. To bring House's shame to nothing, he kissed
House on the upper thigh, between his scrotum and his penis, everywhere
but touching the engorged organ of his long held lustful want.

Wilson looked up again. House was trembling. As alien as Wilson's mouth
might feel to him, he wanted it too. 

Suddenly House looked down to the sight of Wilson about to swallow him
whole.

Wilson's cock answered with a thrill when House's mouth formed a single,
silent word: Please.

Wilson complied eagerly and took House's entire length in his mouth, right
to the pelvis, then drew his lips back, sucking hard. Again he swallowed.
It was the best food, the best place, the perfect earthly spot. 

Wilson swallowed and sucked and teased the tip of House's hard, beautiful
cock until his own body cried out for the same. 

He swallowed once more and House was on the very edge. "Come on, baby."
Wilson whispered it softly. Enough so it would just reach House's hearing.
House threw his head back and came - a silent sexy shuddering - as Wilson,
now ever-so-tenderly, sucked and swallowed until his lover was spent.

House slumped like a rag doll. His chest rose and fell. He did not look at
Wilson.

Wilson moved up again and lay on him, reeling in the ardor of House's
movement. And his heartbeat. A few minutes passed. Wilson knew House
wanted to get up now.

Not a chance. Wilson kept one eye on House's wary eyes and kissed his
neck. "I want you." He said softly while his thoughts were far more
veracious: I want to fuck you until I can no longer breath or feel
anything but your writhing flesh. I want to pound my cock home until you
groan into my mouth and beg me to stop! I want no other to touch you again
ever!

Too soon for such categorical honesty.

House surprised Wilson by placing one hand on his back. 

Christ....Wilson couldn't help himself. "I fucking love you." And kissed
him hard.

House played an Ace and kissed back. Wilson almost came. He groaned, his
body alive with an aching desire that seemed a separate being, screaming
to get out. "I have to have you...now!"

House said nothing but continued to kiss Wilson. More openly - mouth
openly. Passionately. Wilson could have been flying without wings and it
would not have equaled this. House was enjoying him.

Wilson leaped from the bed, leaving House laying languid on the rumpled
covers, waiting patiently, as he rummaged through the toiletries he'd
purchased that afternoon. No lubricant but he did have a small travel tube
of hand-cream that would do in a pinch.

No condoms. He didn't care. House was clean. So was he. And, Wilson got
hard again as the thought entered his consciousness like a star-burst, he
wanted to come inside House; fill him up! Mark him as his own; pour
himself out until the man moaned in his ear. 

Wilson returned to the bed and spread the cream on his fingers. He would
make it perfect. There would be no pain. Not a twinge. House had to be
fucked with grace. It would, could not ever be, the last time.

There would be many more, hundreds, thousands of times. 

Paying particular care to House's crippled, sexy, delectable right thigh,
Wilson lifted House's legs until they lay almost on either side of his
head. Wilson took a moment to sweep hungry eyes across the naked willing
body beneath him. Perfect angels in the heights above... 

"You are so fucking, goddam sexy!" Wilson growled in his ear. He turned
his attention back and inserted a finger into House's anus. Carefully.
Slowly. Gently. Lovingly he pushed it farther in until he could feel House
relax a little. Two fingers. With exquisite delicately, three...

He applied a liberal amount of hand cream to his ripe and ready cock and
pushed in. House sucked in air but gave no indication that it hurt. 

Wilson put his weight behind it and shoved himself until he could go no
further.

"Fuck..." He growled again. He stared to move, not thrusting in and out as
he'd been told by a male companion or two that such can hurt quite a bit
in a virgin ass. So he just moved, up and down and back and forth, faster
and faster, his breath squeezing out between clenched teeth.

House began to move beneath him, feeling the strike of Wilson's cock
against his prostate - never having felt it before outside a doctor's
stilted glove. House moaned.

Wilson, hearing that, leaned forward, grabbed House by the hair with both
hands and kissed House hard, tonging him deeply, as he burst inside him.
He continued to rock up and down furiously until long after he was empty
and flaccid.

Wilson closed his eyes. Opened them. House was still there, laying beneath
him, breathing as hard as he was. House had come again on himself and
Wilson. 

Enough physical evidence to convince Wilson it was not just an amazing
dream. 

It was an incredible reality. "I love you." He said to House. Let house
damn him for that if he liked. "No more hidden things." He repeated.

House sighed, more from exhaustion than Wilson's chatter-boxing. "I have
to pee." He said.

Wilson smiled and rolled off him. Watched dreamily the movement of House's
muscles as he limped to the bathroom and closed the door. Wilson would let
him have his way with the bathroom privacy thing. For now. 

When House came out, to Wilson's disappointment, he was wearing his pajama
bottoms again. But at least the material was almost see-through. And, to
Wilson's delight, House wore no boxers beneath, so Wilson had an
unobstructed view of House's delicious shapes under the fabric. 

"Mmmmmm." Wilson said.

House looked at him and went to his back-pack. Wilson had a fleeting
moment of dread that House was getting ready to leave. But relaxed when
House found his Vicodin bottle and dry swallowed two of the pills.

"House rules." House said.

Wilson forced his attention from House's lower quarters to his face.
"What?"

"House rules." House cracked a beer he'd apparently brought along as well,
and took a large gulp. "I am not gay. I will never BE gay. We are not
having a love affair, we're having sex." 

Wilson nodded. "'K."

House stood and moved around the room with his lurching, and to Wilson,
heart-wringingly sexy limp, settling into lecture mode. "Get yourself an
apartment because we are not going to live together." 

House sat on the bed beside Wilson, sipping his beer and scratching his
privates. "I like women. If I choose to rent a hooker, I will. If two
hookers, or three, you aren't to say anything about it."

Wilson listened, fascinated, by House's list of restrictions. It was not
wholly unexpected. House had gone far and above the call of
friendship-duty. He deserved to make up all the rules he wished. And
Wilson felt so goddamn happy just knowing House was going to be in his
bed, he didn't give a shit. 

"Sure." Wilson agreed.

House looked at him sharply as though not expecting it. "This, you and me
thing, is fine as long as the sex is great and it's kept between us.
Because," He stared at Wilson to drive the point home, "I'm NOT gay." 

"I never expected you to become gay."

"Good."

House drank his beer and worked the TV remote. He found a science fiction
movie. "Oh, and, no matter what you say, I am never going to plant my
cucumber in your potato patch."

Wilson smiled at that. "Concession?"

House looked at him. Frowned. "What concession?"

"That if you some day change your mind, I won't hold you to that
concession."

"I won't, but okay."

And House wasn't finished. "At work, we are workmates - scratch that -
work colleagues! I will still flirt with any female, cup size B or better.
I will tell all the damn gay jokes I like. We are not going to drink
champagne on our anniversary or take a cruise together. In fact there will
not BE an anniversary..."

Wilson listened and rolled onto his side, leisurely watching House as he
spoke and drank his beer. Handsome, sexy, thoroughly thrilling,
frustrating, infuriating, lovely, kissable, fuckable House.

Wilson leaned over and kissed one delicious hip. "Whatever you say, Doc'."

888888888

Wilson promised he would find an apartment soon. But for now, House had
agreed to let him stay at his place.

House turned on the televison and flipped channels until he found the
Giant's game. "Last one of the season. They're going to win." He said to
Wilson.

Wilson did not want to watch football. He was warm with three beers and
reached across the space between him and House to fondle House's
magnificent thigh. "No." House said simply.

Wilson withdrew his hand. "You liked it well enough last night. Wasn't it
fun?"

"Sure." Was House's understatement to their previous evening of carnal
lovemaking. "But tonight I want to watch football. You stay over there."

Wilson leaned back, linking his hands behind his neck. He was content.
Things were back to normal. Even better.

He glanced right to the genius mind and the generous body. 

Things weren't better, they were practically perfect. 

The world rolled along and Wilson with it, not minding the occasional
bumps that loving the Genius and the Generous brought. 

The world spun by and he felt fine. 

And for House, the unfathomable racing world had slowed.

Just a little.

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.