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  Balances 
 by Milkshake Butterfly  

 Notes: Originally I intended for this to be a nice little PWP for a
challenge on the House_Slash LJ Comm. The characters declined to
cooperate, or for that matter to shut up. Consequently we have a much
longer fic, though there is still a nugget of tie!pron goodness at its
center. Also, written before Kids aired; I'm never sure how much these
things matter, but I figure it has to mean something from at least a
characterization standpoint. 
Warnings: There is sex in this story. It is kinky if you are not okay with
slash or were both before 1923. On the other hand, if you have the former
problem, I'm not sure why you're reading an adult House/Wilson fic to
begin with. 
Thanks: To Canthlian, Cristin, & RosaleenDhu for Alphas, to Catalase,
Marisol, Lifeisame, & Ouri for Betas, and to Tris B. for being a Goddess
of Emergency Editing Consults.




House knew his living room sofa wasn't as comfortable or inviting as it
could be; hell, that had been one of the selling points when he bought it.
He liked it, but most visitors didn't seem to feel the same way. There was
something about the way the leather slid, or how the cushions shifted and
occasionally gaped in ways suggesting they might be carnivorous. Or maybe
the problem was its somewhat awkward size and placement, which, unless you
sat in it sideways like he usually did and was doing just now, left a
vaguely ominous space yawning behind your back. In any case, it didn't
inspire them to linger, which suited him fine; House wasn't really the
sort to encourage guests, for the most part. The rare exceptions to this
'leave me the hell alone' policy either honestly didn't seem to care about
it, like Wilson, or else were so used to putting up with his personality
quirks that his furniture quirks were just part and parcel of the package.
Besides, the entertainment room, despite the fifty thousand game consoles,
was a lot more comfortable than this, for the people he really liked. The
only reason anyone would have to stay in this room was the piano, and the
number of people he would play it for was even shorter than the number of
people he'd welcome into his house in the first place.

Wilson teased him about that, sometimes, or at least he had before. With
everything else that was going on right now, House thought that maybe
Wilson was grateful for that bubble of space House had created around
himself, and for the way that being around House included Wilson in that
protective sphere almost by default. House screened all his calls and
ignored most knocks at his door, and had trained nearly everyone at work
to avoid him whenever possible; the more time Wilson spent around House,
the less time he had to endure the polite condolences from people who had
heard, or the pitying or speculative stares. After the first time House
called someone on those stares--it was a divorce, after all, not a
funeral--they evaporated in his presence, to mostly be replaced by glares
at him and him alone, but he could handle those just fine. He was used to
it. His team, in a pleasant surprise, had managed to figure out at least
that part of what was going on right away, which had been convenient, to
say the least; with Chase the gossip, Cameron the sympathy girl, and
Foreman the respectable one all quietly mentioning that Wilson was
spending more time around House in order to avoid having to deal with
anyone else while his latest marriage broke down, no one was coming up
with any ulterior motives.

Not that House was entirely sure they would, at that point; the gossip
about his supposed relationship with Wilson had burned out years ago, back
when they actually were just friends. He was starting to wonder if anyone
would believe they were really sleeping together now, if word got out--or
would they just go, "Oh, that's old news. Wasn't true then and probably
isn't true now. Stop beating the dead horse," and move on to speculating
over, say, Wilson and Foreman instead?

Actually, that was a fairly disturbing mental image, so he forcibly
shelved the thought before it caused him to lose the level of the video
game he was playing. Under mildly different circumstances, he wouldn't
even have been camped out in the living room the way he was--between his
new patient, his new patient's family, and Cuddy's fury over the
complaints of his new patient's family about House's treatment of his new
patient, he felt that it would be fully justified to break out one of the
ultraviolent games on the big TV, rather than messing around with space
monkeys on the portable player. And whatever else people might say about
what he normally wore to work, it was damn convenient to be able to just
peel off a few upper layers and be down to a basic t-shirt, jeans, and
socks. He'd thought about getting a start on dinner, but that seemed like
a bit too much work for the moment, and besides, Wilson had left work
early for another meeting with Julie and the dueling divorce attorneys,
and House was kind of hoping by being in the living room, he'd get a
chance to surprise Wilson and see what he looked like before James put on
his, "I'm okay, I'm fine, don't ask me about it," face. Which House knew
he wasn't, of course, and it particularly sucked because House couldn't
even find a proper target for his anger on this one. Julie was being as
reasonable as she could be, all things considered, and she and Wilson
seemed to have settled into a sort of highly strained politeness in all
their dealings since the night Wilson left their house and showed up on
House's doorstep with the assorted baggage of three broken marriages, four
changes of clothing, a childhood of too-high expectations, assorted
toiletries, and five years of unrequited lust. Or love, if you wanted to
believe Wilson's side of things, for all that he never used the word.
House... wasn't as sure of which was true as he once had been, and had for
the moment shelved that debate, waiting on further evidence. 

It wouldn't really have mattered, though, if Wilson and Julie had been
communicating only through highly stylized haikus at that point--and there
was another image to make him almost lose his place in the game; did "our
marriage no longer works" have seven syllables, or eight?--because
whatever the causes, however mutual that final agreement had been, however
reasonable Julie was trying to make herself be about this and however
understanding Wilson was forcing himself to be, it was still... something
dying. Awkwardly, and not before its time, House thought, but he'd said it
before and he'd probably say it again, given the stupidity of the average
person he dealt with: there was no dignity in death, and that was true of
a person or relationship. Or, he thought, glancing down at his right leg,
a group of muscles in your thigh. Wilson's marriage had been a part of
him, and now it was choking out its last breaths, and House wasn't
anywhere near naive or egotistical enough to think his presence in
Wilson's life was going to make it all better. Maybe a little better, if
he was lucky, but there was nothing, really, that could take away all the
hurt, nothing that could short-circuit the grieving process there and make
it all okay. Not and still leave him James Wilson, anyway; the way he
handled things was too much a part of who he was, and that loyalty,
however misguided or stupid it might have sometimes seemed, was probably
one of the main reasons House had finally trusted Wilson enough to let him
in--into his life, into his home, and lately... if not into his heart,
then at least into his aorta. Or maybe, if you were feeling optimistic,
one of the pulmonary veins. Definitely not a vena cava, though; whatever
else you wanted to say about Wilson, House was pretty sure he was
oxygenated.

He heard the turn of Wilson's key--and it had to be Wilson, since the only
other person who had one was his mother, and she was in Guam just now--in
the lock, and deliberately didn't put the game down, or look up; his being
there was be enough to tell Wilson he was worried, and there wasn't any
point in giving him any more ammunition than that. There was a long pause
after the door opened, and House glanced up for a moment to find Wilson
standing there, coat still on, bag in one hand and keys dangling in the
other, silently taking House in with an unreadable expression on his face.
House raised his eyebrows as if daring him to comment, and then pointedly
and casually turned his attention back to the space monkeys. After another
moment, he heard the door close, and when House got to the end of the
level, paused, and rested the game on his lap, both of Wilson's coats had
been put away and his bag was resting on the chair, Wilson standing
somewhat awkwardly beside it. 

"If I'd known," Wilson said, with a strained sort of levity in his voice,
"that you were concerned enough to wait for me, I'd have asked you to meet
me at the door with a cocktail and a kiss."

"How very fifties housewife," House replied, and he was fairly certain the
lightness of his tone was a lot more successful than Wilson's attempt. His
mind automatically catalogued the symptoms, like this was any other
problem he had encountered. There was the obvious: the tightness around
Wilson's eyes, the muscle that still hadn't stopped twitching alongside
his jaw, and the tension in his shoulders that was only more apparent for
the lack of suit or labcoat. Those all suggested it had been bad, but the
subtle signs, and what he could guess from them, worried House more: the
very slight loosening of Wilson's yellow tie, not enough to make him look
any less tidy in his dark dress pants and subtly-striped shirt, but enough
to suggest he'd felt like it was closing in, choking him a little, how
Wilson couldn't quite meet House's stare, as if he didn't want to know
what House would read there, or maybe vice-versa, and the way his hands
kept unconsciously flexing, like he had had them clenched on the steering
wheel the whole way home, and was still trying to restore full blood flow.

"I always did have a soft spot for Lucy, I suppose," House added, trying
to keep the conversation light while figuring out the next step in this
particular domestic diagnostics problem. He got briefly distracted when he
tried to picture himself in an apron and dress, and couldn't do it, so he
tried to do the same with Wilson. Somehow, along the way, the dress got
lost, and as a result he was picturing Wilson in just an apron, which was
nice, if not exactly where he suspected he was supposed to go with that.
"Ah, role-playing," he said out loud, in a musing voice. "Could be fun.
Tell you what: I'll do the fifties housewife thing if you'll do the French
maid thing in exchange."

That should have gotten a rise out of Wilson--god knows it was getting a
rise out of House, though the mixture of amusement and arousal that image
was causing was a bit strange--but all Wilson did was shoot him a glance
which House suspected was supposed to be irritated or reproving, but
mostly came across as exhausted. 

That bad, then.

"So," he asked, deliberately casual, "still getting a divorce?"

Wilson's eyes tensed even more, his body going briefly rigid, and he shot
House a glare before he abruptly strode past the couch and over to the
sideboard, pouring himself a shot of something out of House's usually
carefully rationed liquor supply, determinedly not looking at House as he
did it. "What do you think?" he asked, voice harsh and fast, before
downing the contents of the glass in one gulp and slamming it back down on
the table with a ringing thud, still staring at the floor or the
baseboards or the internal vision of flaming wreckage of Mr. and Mrs.
James and Julie Wilson. Maybe all three.

House raised his eyebrows, mostly to hide a wince. "I think there's no
reason to take it out on the scotch," he said, mildly. "If you want to get
abusive, I can stock vodka. Vodka likes it when you get rough." 

Wilson laughed and briefly glanced up at him, but it was a humorless
sound, and that tightness was still around his eyes. He looked back down
at the floor again and said, "She's keeping the house."

"I didn't think you wanted it." In fact, from the way Wilson had pretty
much begun treating House's possessions as his own, House suspected that
Wilson had taken advantage of the 'temporary' living-together situation
the divorce had caused to sneak in the back door, so to speak, as far as a
more permanent solution went. It was probably the only way he could have
done it, too; after Stacy, 'living together' raised a number of hackles in
House he hadn't quite figured out how to smooth down yet. But with Wilson
already there, the hackles got smoothed down by the fact it was really
just a perfectly logical progression of events, and didn't have to mean
much of anything, except that he could justify buying a feather duster for
Wilson on the grounds that he should help clean up around the place if he
was going to help make the messes.

"I don't," Wilson said, with a level of vehemence that more or less spoke
to the layers of memories that house was probably shrouded in for him.
"I... it's too big for just me," he added, awkwardly--and if neither of
them really believed that, with Wilson, House was actually tactful enough
not to point it out. "But if she's keeping it...."

"She's staying around here," House finished for him, then tilted his head
slightly and stared into space, considering that. "Disappointing, but not
really unexpected."

"For a little while, she was talking about maybe going to Oregon. She's...
got a sister there, a few friends." Wilson still wasn't looking up, and
House tried to figure out if 'talking about' meant Julie had been
deliberately leading Wilson on, or if Wilson had just heard her mention it
and blown the seriousness of that mention all out of proportion in
desperate need for hope--because however okay Wilson usually tried to
seem, House knew damn well the prospect of running into Julie in the
produce section of the store or across the way at the gas station made
Wilson flinch. So it was hard to say exactly what the cause was in this
situation, particularly without talking to Julie, and there was a list of
reasons as long as House's arm for why doing that would be a spectacularly
bad idea. Impressively, the fact that he was sleeping with her
technically-still-husband wasn't even that high on the bill. 

"Whereas here she's only got, what, her job, all her other friends, the
other sister...."

"I don't need the reminder that I was leading myself on, thank you,"
Wilson said tightly, leaning back on one hand against the sideboard.

"Sorry," House said, and meant it. There was a certain unpleasant pleasure
in rubbing salt into people's wounds, even when you were smart enough to
know it for the sign of rotten mental health it was, but Wilson was on
that very short list of people he actually cared about enough to feel
sympathetic pain for. And while House was quite capable of taking a
perverse joy in rubbing salt in his own wounds as well, teasing Wilson was
only fun when it only hurt a little, not... like this did. And if he was
going to hurt James, House also figured it ought to be over something more
worthwhile than Julie.

Besides, Wilson was perfectly capable of twisting the knife in his own gut
over that.

As the silence threatened to stretch, House decided that clearly some sort
of drastic measures were needed, and broke it. "Well, I suppose this calls
for some sort of suitably supportive response," he said musingly. "I'd
take you out to dinner, except you don't look like you'd enjoy being
around people any more than I do for a change, and if I tried to hold your
hand while you cried it would just be awkward and you'd probably hit me
anyway." The look Wilson shot him was unreadable. "Real men commiserate
over their woes with beer and sports, only I'd prefer not to lose
consciousness any sooner than I have to tonight, and besides, we've only
got repeat games to watch and you suck at darts and pool."

"But I'm good at golf and Pictionary," Wilson pointed out, pushing off the
sideboard and crossing over to the middle of the room, a few feet in front
of the couch. 

"Pictionary isn't a sport," House objected, swinging his legs off of the
couch and sitting up into a more normal position, tossing the game out of
the way on a table. The cushions tried to shift on him the way they did on
everybody, but he had years of experience and compensated automatically. 

"It is the way you play it."

"Point. But I think we'll have to discard the 'real men' approach-"

"-which is good," Wilson interrupted him, shooting House another
unreadable look, "since most 'real men' don't conclude the evening by
giving each other head-"

House paused for a minute to give him a stare that he meant to be
reproving and aloof, but probably came out more on the side of 'dirty old
bastard ogling the hot young thing' than that, which was only fair, since
he was. Wilson gave him a small smile in return. "And try something else,"
he finished. "We could go to the entertainment room, watch TiVo'd soaps
together on the couch, and eat ice cream out of the carton," he suggested,
grabbing his cane and swinging to his feet. "I've got something from
Friendly's where the mixed-in toppings probably outweigh the actual ice
cream."

"I did have other ideas," Wilson admitted, looking at him from beneath
lowered lashes. House couldn't resist a smirk in response, which turned
into an inquisitive expression when Wilson stopped him with a warm palm
across his chest after just a few steps away from the couch. There was a
smile on Wilson's lips as well, but it didn't look pleased as much as
dangerous, somehow, when considered with that slowly smoldering spark in
his eyes. House felt his own eyes widen when Wilson took a step forward,
brushing their bodies against each other, and snaking his free left hand
briefly around House's right before he skillfully slipped House's cane out
of his grip and let it drop back against the couch with a faint thump.

House's heart started beating faster almost instantly. It wasn't that he
couldn't do without his cane for periods, particularly at home, but there
was something about Wilson's deliberate removal of it that made his mouth
instantly dry, something that, combining with the look in Wilson's eyes,
the set to Wilson's shoulders, sent hot prickles down House's spine,
settling in his groin and starting a particularly intense burn there. He'd
been getting warm the whole conversation, more or less, but this was on a
different magnitude altogether.

Wilson's fingers brushed over the pulse in House's wrist for a moment, and
then he smiled wider, and House couldn't help swallowing and breathing
faster. Wilson's grin got a little more dangerous, and that look in his
eyes became more intense, before he slipped his arms around and behind
House and stepped forward again. It was a big step, with not a lot of
space between them to begin with, and as a direct result House found
himself off-balance, tipping backwards and forced to lean his weight into
Wilson's arms, acutely aware of the precariousness of the position he was
in, breathing fast and rapidly getting hard even before Wilson completed
the move by bringing their mouths together with an intensity just short of
brutal. He was already dizzy on that, already insanely aroused by a
vulnerability that would normally make him uncomfortable; he didn't really
need Wilson's tongue nudging his lips open and then wrestling his own
tongue into submission without any real effort, or the feeling of the
muscles in Wilson's back bunching and relaxing under his hands, with the
attendant realization that House's arms had gone around him and he was
clinging, hard.

He'd never been a fan of loss of control, and he should have hated the
whole thing, but instead the rush of blood to southern regions left him
unable to manage more than a vague, "Um," when Wilson finally surfaced for
air. Which turned into an, "Oh," as he felt the tension on Wilson's
muscles give in to trembling, and went into a laugh as they ended up
stumbling backwards and collapsing together onto the couch, Wilson missing
House's bad leg more by sheer luck than anything else. His cane got
knocked over and hit the floor with a clatter, several pillows went
flying, and somehow the phone fell off the end table with a crash, handset
coming loose and skittering across the floor into the other room, before
everything came to rest on a long moment of silence.

Wilson's face was pressed against House's neck, his arms were still
trapped under House's back, and one thigh was wedged in between House's
legs, rubbing up against his erection in a pleasantly persistent way, but
the most remarkable thing was, aches and bruises and breath being knocked
out of him notwithstanding, this wasn't actually that uncomfortable; his
leg, aside from a thankfully very brief stab of pain on impact, wasn't
even as bad as it could be. The second most remarkable thing was that
Wilson was laughing, softly, the breath tickling at House's skin, and with
everything else going on, House figured that laugh was probably worth it
even if the phone was a total loss. 

"Disadvantage to having a lover taller than you are," Wilson mumbled into
his neck, getting control of himself, "you're harder to hold."

"I'm glad you said 'taller'. I'd hate to think that you think I'm getting
fat."

Wilson gave a soft snort and started trying to wiggle his hands free.
House helped as much as he could, but the angle they'd ended up on the
couch didn't give him a lot of room to maneuver, and while he had enough
of a Vicodin cushion that his leg wasn't giving him the hell over their
fall that it could be, it still wasn't entirely happy. "You're the one who
keeps buying those ice creams with the fudge ribbon and the candy and the
nuts and-"

"You just object because it's harder to eat off your body than plain
chocolate," House pointed out, and that image didn't do anything to help
his arousal, though given the way Wilson was squirming against him, that
was probably a lost cause anyway. If that spectacular drop and the quiet
throb in his thigh weren't enough to do it, after all, not thinking bad
thoughts probably wasn't going to make much of a difference.

"There is that," Wilson said, finally freeing his hands enough to push up
off of the couch a bit and look down at him. Wilson's skin was flushed,
his lips were slightly swollen, his hair was mussed, his tie was hanging
down like a convenient handle, and his shirt was rumpled, and House wanted
to keep him like this forever, because he looked like an open invitation
for sex--sex now, or at least as soon as possible. For a moment, House
thought they'd get up, check the damage on the phone, and go back to
normal, or at least as normal as they got, but then Wilson smiled with a
sharp edge to it, eyes narrowing and going dark. Very deliberately, he
shifted so that his hip rubbed, hard, against House's erection. House's
breath caught and his pulse sped back up again, and his libido managed to
work out that remarkable agreement with his nervous system that he wished
it could do more of, where the pain suddenly took a very quiet backseat to
a wave of desire.

"Why, Doctor House," Wilson purred, and the way he said House's name was
enough to ratchet up the level of arousal another few degrees, "I think
you like me being on top."

He had his pride. "Not if it's going to keep costing me in property
damage," he managed to reply, his voice coming out more strained than
even.

"Mmm. How does that go? Your lips say 'no'," Wilson said, shifting his
weight to one hand and trailing the freed one down House's stomach, to
press against his dick through the fabric of his jeans, "but this says
'yes'."

He had his pride, it was just that Wilson could make it lay on its back
with its paws waving in the air like a particularly shameless puppy.
"Dicks are really unreliable," House informed him, a bit desperately.
"They'll say yes to nearly anything."

Wilson lowered his head a little, just enough to make his hair fall
forward, and licked his lips, the heel of his hand rubbing little circles
in denim. House had to bite back something alarmingly like a whine.
"Anything?" Wilson asked, eyes intent and voice down several registers.

House shivered and reminded himself it would be a very bad idea to come on
the spot. "Nearly," he said, voice rasping.

Wilson smiled a fraction more, and then lowered himself down and kissed
House again, every bit as aggressively as he had been before, only now
there was new and interesting rubbing going on. At this point, it wasn't
just his dignity rolling around at Wilson's feet; for the promise of
actual contact of skin on his dick, House would gladly have sat up and
begged himself. He wiggled around a little and tried to find a way to
brace himself to shove up against the pressure of Wilson's hand, but it
wouldn't have worked that well even with two working legs; as it was, it
just made Wilson chuckle a little, back in his throat, and nip lightly at
House's lower lip. Wilson's mouth tasted like purloined scotch, and House
decided right then and there this might be his new favorite way to enjoy
the drink, flavored with lust and laughter and aggressive James. It
wouldn't even interact with the Vicodin as much.

Which was why he couldn't quite keep back a sound of disappointment when
Wilson pulled away again--not just his mouth, but his hand as well, and
House had been making plans for that hand.

"Hey," he objected, and then again, "Hey!" as Wilson maneuvered himself up
off the couch. "My dick is still saying yes, and it's impolite to ask a
question and then walk away like that." 

Wilson's eyebrows went up, and he smirked down at House, but that wicked
intensity was still in his eyes. "'Ask a question'? Is that what they're
calling it now?"

"Well, it's a better metaphor than some," House pointed out, musingly. "I
mean, you have your soft, sympathetic questioning, your vicious
interrogation, your good cop/bad cop...."

"Is that your way of trying to tell me we should invest in a pair of
handcuffs?" Wilson asked, and he didn't look entirely like he was joking.
Normally, House would have pictured Wilson in those cuffs, but today it
was Wilson using those cuffs on him, and that thought was distracting
enough to stop him with his mouth slightly open.

Wilson's eyes widened, and the grin that broke out across his face was
pure evil delight. "Really. Handcuffs, French Maid outfits, liking me on
top... any other kinks you'd like to confess to? Public sex? Japanese rope
bondage? Whips and chains?"

Whenever he was around Wilson, lists like that just started to seem like
agendas--but then, so did a lot of things. States, for example; he
definitely thought they should try to have sex in every state in the
union. And maybe the territories, too. They could visit Canada and go for
provinces while they were at it. "Right now I'd confess to liking
anything. Remember what I said earlier?"

"The bit about you getting fat, or the bit about you being easy?" House
opened his mouth to object, and Wilson shook his head, still smiling, held
out a hand. "Come on. I've got plans for you and your indiscriminately
affirmative penis in the bedroom."

"Now there's a memorable turn of phrase," House remarked, but he let
himself be dragged upright anyway, and took his cane with something
approaching dignity when Wilson stooped down, snagged it, and passed it to
him. Or at least as close to dignity as a man with a hard-on tenting his
jeans could get when ogling a younger man's ass. "What did you have in
mind? I could still get the ice cream."

"And the TiVo? No, I remember the last time that I let you talk me into
mixing sex and soaps. As amusing as that was, I told you, I have plans."
His smile made House think of scotch and kisses again, and intensified the
ache in his groin. Or maybe that was being caused by the way Wilson
trailed his hand down House's back to rest possessively for a moment on
his ass. "Now get moving," he added, with a sharp smack on House's rump
for punctuation.

Anything he said would have come out with an embarrassing crackle to it
because of the dryness in his throat, so House just stared for a minute,
managed a twitch of his lips that could probably pass for a smile, and
started hobbling for the bedroom at best possible speed, which between his
leg and his erection was somewhat faster than your average slug, but a bit
behind a particularly determined snail. Halfway through the dining room,
it occurred to him Wilson wasn't following, and he paused to call over his
shoulder, "You still haven't told me what you have in mind."

Wilson was finishing loosening and taking off his tie when he caught up, a
sight which never entirely failed to make something deep inside House
flutter in what he couldn't help but think of as a betraying fashion,
since he couldn't attribute it to lust or affection or anything he could
handle. As a diagnostician, he had his suspicions that it came from
somewhere in the vicinity of a metaphorical atrium or ventricle. All their
years of friendship, and until that night when Wilson had finally kissed
away all his objections and rationalizations and denials, House could have
counted the number of times he'd seen Wilson without a tie on without
having to resort to toes; he'd barely have needed the fingers on his
second hand. There was some part of him that couldn't help reveling in
every time he saw it now, and jealously resenting every woman who had seen
it before this, gotten that glimpse of Wilson with his defenses down and
his restraints loosened, seen Wilson when he felt safe enough to take off
some of the armor. Except they had, inexplicably, let him go, or more
accurately pushed him away, so he was just House's now, for as long as
that could last. House didn't believe in forever, hadn't really even
before Stacy, but he still intended to make the time they did have as long
as he possibly could.

He trusted he kept that internal flutter off his face, though, or at least
if he didn't Wilson had never said anything; this time House just hid it
behind another little smirk and eyebrow quirk. Wilson's eyelids lowered in
response, and then he was suddenly backing House into the wall, hooking
his tie around the back of House's neck, and kissing him hard again. He
let go of the tie ends after a moment and slid his hands under House's
t-shirt and up onto his ribs, the pressure of his own erection rubbing
insistently into House's hip. House leaned into the movement gladly,
enjoying another taste of scotch-flavored Wilson before it faded away, and
only sighed faintly when Wilson finally pulled back after a final few
licks. 

"If you're asking that question," Wilson told him, "I think you're getting
too much blood to the brain."

"What question?" House said, and followed him down the hall to the
bedroom, Wilson laughing softly and shaking his head along the way, tie
still dangling loose around House's neck.

The bedroom, which should have just been House's bedroom. He'd always
suspected he'd be putting Wilson up when things broke down irretrievably
with Julie, but had planned on doing so by giving him the spare bedroom.
Wilson still kept some things in there, though plenty of them had migrated
across the hall to House's room, but he'd never slept on the bed; even on
those nights they didn't have sex, Wilson seemed to need the contact of
someone in bed with him in order to sleep almost as badly as House needed
his evening Vicodin dose, and maybe for the same reasons. House hadn't
asked, yet, exactly what pain Wilson was chasing away, but learning this
little behavioral fact had explained a lot about the near-constant string
of lovers, girlfriends, and wives over the years, even as it made
something deep down inside House uneasily shift over the thought of being
just another link in that chain, for some other future lover of Wilson's
to look back on with new understanding. Mostly he tried not to consider
it, and let himself be bemused by the way the bedroom he'd carefully
cleaned up and aired out had turned into something of a glorified closet,
if even that. 

Wilson claimed to like House's bedroom better, anyway, which House figured
he could understand; the spare bedroom was furnished with an eclectic mix
of stuff he'd run across at stores and flea markets and hadn't been
entirely able to resist. He was pretty sure that some day, the giant
metalwork statue of an upright frog holding a tray that was currently
serving as a night table in there would make a perfect gift for someone.
He was kind of thinking maybe Foreman. But for the moment, he didn't
exactly blame Wilson for not wanting to wake up to it every day. House's
taste for the odd didn't extend to jeopardizing his own comfort; his
bedroom was tastefully decorated in deep blues and greens, a matching dark
wood furniture set, and a king-sized four-poster bed that had earned him a
brief, deeply speculative glance from Wilson the first time he'd seen it.
They hadn't been quite as close, then, and so House hadn't asked; now that
they were rapidly approaching as close as you could get without improbable
psychic events or marriage vows, he hadn't found the right occasion to,
yet.

It actually looked like he might get an answer tonight; lagging slightly
behind as House was, Wilson had already crossed the room and was running a
hand lightly and disturbingly caressingly up the carvings of one of the
bedposts at the bed's feet. It was phallic and suggestive enough to make
House stop dead in the doorway for a moment, willing his breathing under
control.

"You know, I've thought about doing this for years?" Wilson said, shooting
him another glance beneath lowered eyelids, head tilted forward so that
his hair fell across his face. It was clearly visible even in the dimness
of late-afternoon sunlight leaking through the drapes, and House had to
suck in a breath just from that look before he could respond.

"Whatever it is," he said, crossing the floor to stand beside the bed
himself, trying to ignore the way Wilson's hand rested loosely around the
post, "I'm hoping it's nothing too kinky. Lube is so hard to get off of
wood without staining."

"Actually, I'm thinking about gagging you," Wilson said, in a disturbingly
conversational way that made the bottom of House's stomach fall out even
as his erection gave a noticeable, distinct twitch, as if it was nodding
in enthusiastic approval. From the small grin on Wilson's face, he caught
some of that, and as he turned away for a moment House shot his rebellious
body parts a glare.

He tried to pretend he hadn't been doing that when Wilson looked back up,
but Wilson's lingering smile suggested House wasn't fooling anybody.
Wilson let go of the bedpost--and House was on a damn tight thread if that
was enough to make him feel slightly disappointed--and reached forward
with both hands to grab the ends of the tie he'd left dangling forgotten
around House's neck, pulling him forward into another melting kiss. Not
that House needed a lot of tugging; as soon as he was sure he was balanced
enough not to have a repeat of the living room, he let go of his cane and
heard it thump to the floor, figuring he probably wasn't going anywhere
but the bed next, and if he was he could make Wilson pick it up and steal
another ass-ogling chance.

"You know, I've never liked you in this yellow," House observed, when they
finally broke free.

"Really? That's convenient," Wilson said, still oddly casual. Then he
leaned in close to House's ear and nibbled at his neck for a moment,
breathing hot and heavy before murmuring, in a low, throaty voice, "I'm
going to shove you down on the bed and tie you to one of the bedposts."

House dragged in another sharp breath and actually surged up briefly onto
the balls of his feet before dropping back down; it beat coming in his
pants, which was his initial impulse. He exhaled slowly and shakily, and
then, eyes half-closed against the image, allowed, "I... like that plan."

Wilson pulled his face away from House's neck, tilted his head up at him
and smiled again, eyes glittering with an unusual intensity, before slowly
and teasingly pulling the tie off of House by the one end, the silky
material sliding across the back of his neck. He let it puddle onto the
bed when he was done, the yellow in high contrast against the layers of
dark blue and green bedding; nice. Though that brought with it the
question of whether or not Wilson had dressed for the day planning this,
and that... was not a conducive thought to House's whole 'not coming on
the spot' plan. He tried to think about something else instead, like a
world without General Hospital, or clinic duty, or that one pharmacist who
hated him, but he couldn't keep any focus going with the way Wilson's
hands were back under his shirt again, skimming up each rib like he was
counting them, or else performing a disgustingly sexy exam.

"Any unusual swelling or tenderness?" House couldn't help asking.

"Tenderness, no," Wilson said, his eyes never leaving House's, and he
spread his hands on House's sides and gave him a sharp tug forward, so
that their groins ground together and House had to suck in another breath.
"But swelling...."

"I see. You might want to get that looked at," House suggested.

"Well, I was thinking along those lines, only with the positions
reversed," Wilson murmured, resuming the upwards movement of his hands,
House's t-shirt riding up with them by default. He hissed as Wilson's
thumbs hit his nipples, and tried to pretend he wasn't disappointed when
Wilson kept on going, until the bunching of House's shirt under his arms
stopped him.

"Doctors make very bad patients. I thought you knew that," he observed, as
if confiding a great secret, then shrugged out of the shirt, letting it
fall on top of his cane on the floor.

"I wasn't kidding about the gag, you know," Wilson said, a little wryly.

House shivered a little, which of course Wilson felt, and swallowed, but
with James that close there was no pretending that was anything but a
happy thought. Wilson smirked at that, and smoothed his way up House's
skin to his shoulders, then pushed House down onto the bed, which House
was only too happy to do, never once breaking eye contact--and at some
point that had become as sexy as anything else.

"Does the clothing level not seem disproportionate to you?" House asked,
tone light.

"Gag," Wilson reminded him.

"Pushy today."

"Well, you won't let me drive the convertible still, so I've had to find
another stick to handle," Wilson said, with a wicked grin, taking
advantage of his standing position to do another one of those kisses from
above. House could still taste scotch faintly, but mostly what he was
tasting now was arousal, and probably more his than anything else; if he
didn't get out of these jeans soon, he was going to start fearing
embarrassing medical conditions. 

Wilson took pity on him, wedging a knee up on the bed to give him the
balance to reach down without breaking the kiss and thumb House's jeans
open. A small part of House that had been entertaining thoughts of Wilson
doing that with his mouth and teeth was a bit disappointed, but most of
him was frankly relieved, shamelessly shoving up into Wilson's touch as he
pulled House's erection free of the tangle of cloth.

"Oh god, yes," he muttered into Wilson's mouth.

Wilson laughed a little and slid his tongue along House's in time to a
quick up and down stroke with his hand, and House made a little sound deep
in his throat that was embarrassingly close to a whine. "I suppose," he
said, pulling away from House slightly, "if I said good things come to
those who wait...."

"I'd bite you, yes."

"Biting, now. We really are learning all about the kinks of Gregory House
today," Wilson said, and House growled and threw himself backwards on the
bed, taking Wilson, laughing, with him. Except it didn't go exactly as he
planned, since Wilson seemed to take this as some sort of challenge, and a
lot of kissing, squirming, and rubbing later, House was down to only his
socks, with a fully clothed James Wilson straddling his hips and pinning
his wrists together above his head.

"This is really just unfair," House said, lazily rocking his erection up
against Wilson's cloth-covered thigh and taking a certain petty pleasure
in the damp spot he was making there.

"Since when do you care about 'fair'?" Wilson asked, squirming slightly,
and a glance towards his crotch suggested to House that Wilson might be
reaching nearly terminal levels of pants-removal-need himself. Which
suited House just fine, not in the least because he didn't think Wilson
could do that with only one hand. He couldn't help smirking a little, and
Wilson gave him an exasperated look and said, "Scoot up, would you?"

That took a second to process, and when it did, House could feel the smirk
drain off his face. "You were serious."

"About the gagging? I haven't decided yet. About the bedpost?" Wilson's
eyes darkened again, and he leaned down close enough to House that their
lips were nearly touching, smiling that little smile again. "Deathly
serious," he murmured, the heat of his breath playing across House's lips.

He couldn't stop the upward twitch of his hips or the swallow that those
words and that look caused. Wilson's smile got a bit wider as he leaned
back again and said, "Now, if I let go of your hands and agree to take off
my clothing...."

"It's really unfair to ask me to participate in my own degradation."

Wilson started to reply something, then checked himself and gave House a
smirk instead. "And if I promise you'll enjoy it?"

"Well, that does add a certain positive spin. All right, you strip, I'll
scoot. But I want to get to watch."

"Deal, but if those hands of yours go anywhere but up behind your head
again, I'm getting the ice out of the freezer."

"Hey, I didn't sign on for slow torture."

"You sure about that?" Wilson said, with a wide, evil grin. House tried
his best to glower, as Wilson climbed off him. "Besides," Wilson added,
glancing deliberately at House's erection, "I told you. I've got plans for
that dick."

Impressively, the way he said 'plans' still sent a bolt of desire right
though House. Which Wilson seemed to be able to tell; he smirked again and
started deliberately and slowly tugging his shirt out of his pants, giving
little flashes of his stomach as he did so. House scooted with alacrity,
leaning back against his pillows and lacing his fingers together behind
his head. It was a technical fulfillment of their terms, but still got
House a slow, even look from Wilson before Wilson stopped pulling his
shirt free in favor of undoing his cuff buttons with a sort of careful,
deliberate, time-consuming precision that couldn't be anything but
intentionally planned for maximum torment. From there he moved on to the
buttons on the front of his shirt, again one at a time, always taking a
brief pause between undoing one button before moving on to the next, and
by the time he reached the last one, it was only House's laced fingers
keeping him from touching himself, teeth gritted together and hips
involuntarily twitching upwards, naked erection straining for some
contact, any contact at all.

Wilson shot him a look from beneath lowered eyelashes, and House had
another one of those fight-not-to-come-on-the-spot moments. "I could go on
like this, you know," Wilson said. "Start with the socks, then peel off
the shirt as slowly as possible, then see how long it can take me to
unbutton and unzip the pants, then slowly let them drop...."

God, the image that was constructing itself in his head was almost
tempting, even if it would kill him. "That'd drive you nuts, too," House
pointed out.

Wilson gave him a strangely lopsided smile. "Yes, but it'd send you there
a lot faster, and I think the trip might be worth it."

House took a deep breath and let it out, before saying in a tight,
dangerous voice. "Wilson, if you don't get the fuck out of those clothes
and get over here now, I swear I'll go seek my solace in my right hand and
slaughtering bad guys on Playstation." Wilson just raised his eyebrows, as
if he knew House wasn't remotely serious in his chances of carrying out
his threat, and House's next breath came out on a sigh, and his next word
came out something close to desperate. "Please?"

That got him a real smile, broad and genuine, and House made a mental note
to try using that word more often, if it could make Wilson's face look
like that. The shirt came off quick and easy, and House took a moment to
admire Wilson's chest--he worked out, and it showed--before letting his
eyes trail down to the dusting of dark hair starting low on his belly,
following it down as Wilson unbuttoned his pants and shoved them and his
underwear off together, stepping almost neatly out of the pile. Wilson
might not be showing his own desperation in his actions or on his face,
but that wasn't the dick of an uninterested or even only fairly-involved
man, House was pleased to see, in as much as he had time to observe before
Wilson was concluding fulfilling House's request by moving across the bed
and on top of him.

"About fucking time," House muttered just before Wilson covered House's
mouth with his lips again, covering House's body with his own at the same
time, and rubbing their cocks together in that delicious slide of skin
against skin. House moaned a little, into the kiss, and felt Wilson's grin
on his own lips.

"Impatient?" Wilson asked softly, trailing his mouth down along House's
jaw and neck, never stopping the slow, almost teasing rocking of his body
against House's. "And hands, House," he added, sharply, glancing upwards
as House started instinctively reaching out to thread his finger's into
Wilson's hair. The tone was enough to almost instantly surprise him into
dropping his arms, wrists and palm up towards the ceiling, on the pillows
on either side of his head again. Wilson gave a small, satisfied smile at
that, and went back to his own handless exploration of House's neck and
collarbone.

"Well, I was under the impression you had plans," House began, then broke
off for a moment to pant as Wilson's mouth hit a particularly sensitive
spot and he spent a while working it over with his teeth and tongue. "If
you keep this up," he pointed out, rocking up into the press of Wilson's
body, "this is going to end a lot sooner than you probably want it to, and
then we really will have to do the ice cream and TiVo thing while we wait
for a rematch. I'm not nineteen anymore." More's the pity, he added
silently.

Which did get Wilson to abandon that spot on his neck, though it was only
in favor of giving House another one of those almost too-hard kisses,
stealing his breath and leaving his heart pounding in his ears again. "If
you come first, next time, we'll do it your way," Wilson muttered fiercely
against his lips, which shouldn't have seemed like a threat at all--except
clearly it did.

"And if I do hold out?" he managed, despite the fact he seemed to be
suffering a strange lack of oxygen suddenly. Maybe it was the way Wilson
still hadn't stopped rubbing against him.

Though that got him to do it, as he leaned back into a kneel, smiling down
at House with a taunting edge in his eyes. "Virtue is its own reward?"

"There are lots of terms you could use to describe what we're doing right
now," House said, sliding his hands back up to clasp them again over his
head, Wilson's eyes following the movement and his breath picking up, "but
I'm not sure I would qualify 'virtue' as one of them." 

This got a small quirk of a different kind of smile out of Wilson. "True.
But I'm betting right now you're too turned on to actually come up with
something you'd want for a reward aside from what I'm planning to give
you, anyway...."

House didn't say anything in reply, and Wilson's smile took on an, 'I knew
it,' quality, which made House narrow his eyes and stick out his tongue.

"Is that an invitation?" Wilson asked, almost coyly, looking up at him
from beneath lowered brows and mussed hair. 

"You need one at this point?" House asked, widening his eyes and giving a
sort of whole body shrug to convey the fact that he was naked, Wilson was
naked, both of them were hard, and Wilson was welcome to get on with it
any time he liked.

Something changed and caught for a moment in Wilson's eyes, but before
House could follow that up or even be sure he'd seen it, Wilson was
smiling again, saying, "True," and reaching for the tie, forgotten on the
bed at House's one side. House's breath caught and sped up again, pulse
pounding in his ears, and Wilson's smile looked almost sardonic for a
second, watching him. "Shift over a bit," Wilson said, moving off of him.
"The angle's not right at the moment."

He didn't even trust himself to make a reply to that, as much as he
desperately wanted to, to defuse the tension or ease the sudden tightness
in his chest, so House just shifted over, raising his arms a little higher
above his head at Wilson's wordless guiding. Wilson's face was flushed,
the color of it trailing down his neck and into his chest, but his
expression was oddly intent as he wrapped the tie around House's hands and
wrists, securing him with a speed and efficiency that was actually a bit
alarming if House stopped to think about it, because he didn't think most
people were all that skilled in the fine art of binding their lovers to
the bedpost using only a tie and a bit of creativity.

"You've done this before," House observed, voice a little dry, and
realized with a certain surprise that what he was feeling was jealousy.
Again.

Wilson gave him a little sidelong gaze, but didn't stop what he was doing.
"Not... exactly." House raised an eyebrow. "You remember Jessica?"

Jessica, Jessica... the blonde. Three before Julie. Tiny, big blue eyes,
wore a lot of pink. House had never understood what Wilson saw in her--it
couldn't just be the gorgeous, because that was almost common in Wilson's
girlfriends. "Yeah."

It was charming, the way he could tell the slight flush of embarrassment
from the flush of arousal on James--something about the ears--or that
under the circumstances he could even still get embarrassed with House.
"She had a thing for.... Anyway, I've never done this to anyone before,
no."

Which just left.... "Oh, fuck," House breathed, closing his eyes and
thinking desperately again about clinic hours and angry pharmacists and
life without General Hospital or Vicodin, because James tied to the
bedpost with his own ties and Jessica on top was.... He'd never liked the
woman, but as someone perfectly comfortable in his bisexuality, that image
wasn't doing him any good, or maybe too much good. He flexed his hands
against the cloth of the tie, feeling it give just enough not to be
uncomfortable, and sucked in slow, teeth-gritted breath after
teeth-gritted breath, so hard by now that it actually hurt, the pounding
of each heartbeat a distinct and aching sensation in his erection.

"Hit my thigh," he muttered, not opening his eyes.

"What?" Wilson sounded... scandalized, actually. House could feel the warm
length of him lying along his left side, and was trying not to think about
that right now, either.

"You're the one who has plans," House told him, teeth still gritted, eyes
still squeezed closed. He could feel himself panting. "It's not my fault
you've got me running ahead and ready to go off at-"

"House," Wilson muttered, next to his mouth, "shut up a minute." Which
seemed unfair, since it was denying House some kind of release, but after
a moment of more teeth-gritted silence, Wilson's breath sliding across his
neck, he realized he could feel a slight movement coming from him, and
after another moment realized what it was. Despite himself, he felt one
side of his mouth crook up in a smile, and then the other, and opened his
eyes to stare a moment at the ceiling before observing, dryly, "Catching
up?"

Wilson didn't dignify this with a reply, which made House do the
tactically unwise thing of glancing at him; the sight of Wilson's glazed
eyes staring at him while his hand slowly moved up and down his own cock
was enough to make House have to close his eyes again, and try that
breathing thing again for a while. Think about something else, right.
Trees, birds, sky, his grandmother naked, that pharmacist naked, okay,
ugh, that actually might work. The whole clinic staff naked--no, wait,
that was overkill. He wanted to tone down his arousal, not kill it
completely. 

After a moment of this, Wilson laughed softly, and nuzzled his shoulder.
"God, you're bad for my control. The temptation to just keep...."

"You do," House swore, vehemently, "and I will kill you."

He opened his eyes to find Wilson giving him a lazy smile. "Except for the
tied-down bit...."

"You're not that evil."

"Maybe I've been taking lessons," Wilson suggested, coming up on all fours
again to straddle House, grinning down at him brightly for a second before
balancing further to reach over and fetch the lube and a condom out of the
bedside table drawer. "After all, you do have a tendency to rub off on
people."

"That's not all I'd like to rub, right now...."

Wilson laughed a little, and then sat back on his heels again, uncapping
the lube and treating House to the sight of him slowly working fingers
inside himself. Which explained about those plans, at least, even if House
couldn't watch that particular spectacle, complete with Wilson's eyes
drifting closed and lower lip gripped between his teeth, for more than a
few seconds before having to close his eyes yet again, leaning back in the
pillow and thinking those bad nudity thoughts. Maybe if he extended it to
the cafeteria staff, he could keep from coming all over himself and
cutting this embarrassingly short.

Then Wilson was sliding the condom over his erection, and after this long,
the touch was so intense it was almost painful; House couldn't stop the
sharp exhalation of breath he made any more than he could quite identify
the noise that went with it. He looked down to find Wilson giving him a
somewhat concerned look from the general region of his stomach, and rolled
his eyes.

"Are you trying to drag this out until I go insane?"

Wilson's lips quirked for a moment, before he leaned down to place a kiss
on House's stomach, just below the sternum. "Kind of a theme for our
relationship, wouldn't you say?" he asked.

Underlying desperate intensity concealed by a surface of casual
banter--okay, maybe Wilson had a point there. He didn't really need to
agree, though, or didn't want to agree, not with Wilson finally moving up
to straddle his hips, House's cock sliding in the groove of his ass with a
smooth motion that left House tipping his head back into the pillows and
exhaling heavily. "Any day now," he muttered, after another pause. 

Wilson laughed softly again and leaned forward and up a little, one hand
coming down to wrap around the base of House's erection and squeeze,
briefly. He let his breath out in a hiss. "Or I could stop giving
directions," he suggested.

"That might be an idea," Wilson said. His voice was oddly affable given
that House could feel the weight and hardness of his erection against
House's stomach.

"You're in charge," House observed, with a slight lift of his bound
wrists.

"I know," Wilson said, "and I'm kind of enjoying that." And then, before
House could even begin to fully register that, let alone process it,
Wilson started lowering himself down onto House's cock.

Heat, and tightness, and the flutter of muscles in House's belly as he
slowly slid inside, a look of absolute concentration on Wilson's face as
he eased downwards, the muscles in his thighs trembling, sweat prickling
on both their bodies. House panted, open-mouthed, and heard, "Oh, fuck,
yes," and was vaguely surprised to realize it was Wilson's voice and not
his own, that hard, rough tone, almost shocked, that James used so rarely.
Small movements, steady pressure, until he was completely sheathed inside
Wilson, and both of them were heaving breaths in and out, as Wilson rested
both his hands, open palmed, on House's chest, fingers splayed out across
his ribs and thumbs pointed up towards his nipples. Wilson's eyes were
closed, mouth open and shoulders raising and lowering, and if House hadn't
been more or less stuck in the position he was in he'd have leaned up and
kissed him.

This wasn't the first time they'd done this, or even the fifth, but there
was always that moment of initial vulnerability from Wilson--which
ironically was probably part of the reason it had ever worked in the first
place. That actual first time, House's vague hatred of the limits being
put on him by his leg had been somewhat overridden by Wilson's obvious
nervousness about the whole thing; with neither one of them exactly
thrilled, there'd been an odd sort of balance to it. House didn't know
what it said about him that he couldn't cede the advantage without feeling
like the other person was doing so as well, and he didn't honestly care;
this worked, and that was enough for now.

"Jesus," House said, and Wilson's eyes opened a fraction, their gaze
focused not on House's face but on his hands on House's chest. House could
feel every small flutter of movement inside of Wilson, some of them
corresponding to staggers in his breathing, which was erratic and
desperate-sounding. Wilson's hands slid up his chest again, a replay of
earlier, except the position House was in, the pull of muscles raising his
ribs into higher relief, the twist of his arms above his head, gave the
sensations a new intensity, and House had to choke back another gasp, eyes
blinking frantically in a vague attempt to deal with it all. Wilson's
stare stayed fixed on his hands, though, as they slid up to brace between
House's neck and his upturned shoulders, and he slowly rose up on House's
cock, knees digging into the bed on either side of House's hips, thigh
muscles shivering as he held himself there for a minute.

"You're going to pay for that in the morning," House observed, his voice a
dry rasp. "You're not nineteen anymore either, you know."

"House," Wilson whispered, still not looking at him, eyes still barely
open, "please just shut up."

House opened his mouth and then closed it again, swallowing thickly, and
then took a deep breath and just... did it. Shutting up shouldn't have
been that hard, not when it was something of a default state, but he was
on his back, pinned under Wilson's weight, with his hands tied above his
head, and the only thing he had left was the freedom of his mouth.
Surrendering that really was giving Wilson control, all of it, and it was
so much more difficult than he'd ever have believed. Then Wilson pushed
back down onto his cock, hard, driving House in deep, and suddenly
shutting up was completely worth it, as long as Wilson didn't object to
the wordless, choked-off cry his motion drove out of House.

"Oh, God, yes," Wilson half-hissed, half-snarled, and then he raised
himself up again and back down, smooth and hard, hands digging into
House's collarbone and gaze fixing on his face now, eyes glittering under
the fall of his hair. Up and down, each time a little faster, a little
harder, legs shoving open wider as if trying to get House even deeper
inside, and god, he loved Wilson like this, loved the mix of complete
control and complete lack of control in Wilson's face and Wilson's
movements, loved the desperation he read in that ever-increasing pace.
House sank his teeth into his lip, aching to thrust up to meet Wilson's
movements, straining his hands against the cloth tying them down,
completely unable to do anything more than lie there and take it,
hip-muscles rolling along with the pace. A sharper down-thrust of Wilson's
body, and he was getting House in deeper, he had to be, dizzying pressure
and pleasure and need breaking through House like waves, matched only by
the intensity of the locked stare between the two of them.

Every inward drive was pulling a cry out of him now, but Wilson was
clinging to a sort of determined silence, throat and jaw clenched around
whatever sounds he might make, only little hisses escaping between his
teeth. House wanted to swear at him, or maybe plead with him, but he bit
the words back, clenching his fingers together to fight off the orgasm he
could feel building, heart pounding in his ears. Then Wilson's eyes closed
and his head dropped down, and House could feel from inside him the
trembling flutter of Wilson losing that battle himself, and gratefully
gave in to his own shuddering orgasm even as Wilson's muscles locked and
he came, warm across House's stomach, finally giving voice to a low,
choked moan. For a moment, that held, Wilson's muscles quivering against
him and House's head tipped back into the pillows, and then he went limp
moments before Wilson joined him, sprawling across House's body in a
sweaty, sticky, and strangely boneless pile.

Dimly, through a really impressive endorphin haze, House wondered what
sort of a sign it was that even in post-orgasm collapse, Wilson still
managed to avoid hitting his bad leg. Even more dimly, he dug up one of
those mental checklists of things he'd wanted to do with James, and marked
off 'simultaneous orgasm'. Though really, that might be worth trying again
sometime. Possibly several more sometimes. Future sometimes, though, as
right now he could barely muster the strength to care that Wilson's head
was pressed into the bend between his left shoulder and his neck, and the
muscles there were starting to twinge a little.

Eventually, Wilson shifted a little, slowly prying himself free with what
House recognized as a faint, hastily concealed wince. He suppressed the
urge to tell Wilson he'd told him so, and just watched through half-lidded
eyes as Wilson eased himself off of House, pausing only long enough to
peel the condom off of him and trash it before vanishing into the
bathroom. House leaned back into the pillows again, working those twinging
muscles out as best he could reflecting that this bit of being tied down
he could actually get to like--but he refrained from making that comment,
too, even when Wilson reappeared with a damp washcloth and wordlessly
cleaned him up.

That done, Wilson finally leaned back on the bed and stared at him for a
moment before raising an eyebrow, and then suddenly breaking out in a
laugh. "You can stop shutting up any time now," he said, grin flashing out
of his face. 

"Thank you," House said, as gravely as he could manage, and then gave
Wilson a small smile of his own, raising his bound hands and his eyebrows
at the same time. "Planning to leave me here much longer?"

"I do have to admit I'm tempted...." Wilson said, slowly. House didn't
even dignify that with an answer, just rolled his eyes. He was a better
cook than Wilson, and figured he'd probably get let loose eventually when
Wilson got hungry enough no matter what. Wilson laughed again, and reached
up to undo him, swatting House's arms occasionally when he tried to 'help'
by wiggling them free. 

"This would go faster," Wilson pointed out, "if you just laid st--ah,
there we go," he finished, unwinding the tie. House lowered his arms
somewhat gratefully and flexed his hands--they hadn't been uncomfortable
yet, exactly, but it was still good to get movement back--and then propped
himself up on his elbows and watched with an interested expression as
Wilson deliberately folded the cloth up and tucked it into a bedside table
drawer, giving House the kind of look that just dared him to comment.
House decided not to, wiggling around to get under the covers instead, and
wordlessly held out an arm in invitation for Wilson to join him. He did,
after a second, resting his head against House's shoulder, both of them
staring towards the ceiling, the light seeping through the drapes gone to
sunset colors now.

"We'll have to eat at some point," Wilson pointed out.

"Shut up and enjoy the moment," House countered, which earned him a rude
sound, not quite a snort, before Wilson settled in. This was... nice.
Comfortable. Dangerous, some part of House wanted to say, but he knew that
voice and knew that even if it had good reasons to say the things it did,
it wasn't always necessarily right about them. Besides, he had a few other
reasons for wanting to take a moment.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and deliberately just tried to
feel for a second, not the fading remnants of his post-coital buzz or even
the emotions provoked by Wilson's presence, but that ragged, jagged edge
of constant pain he did his best to always ignore. It came up fast and
hard, and worse than he'd expected--probably the fall earlier, since
they'd gotten a lot more athletic in bed than that before with less
effect, or maybe it was the whole day catching up with him. His stomach
lurched, his breathing picked up a bit despite himself, and he mentally
replanned his Vicodin schedule; he wasn't due, yet, but if he waited until
he was he had a nasty feeling about how the evening might go. He felt
Wilson stir behind him, probably alerted by the change in breathing, and
after a moment his voice came, hesitantly, "House...?"

"I'm fine," he said, and Wilson didn't call him on that--but he'd found
most people never did. Two words that people would almost always accept no
matter how blatant a lie they clearly were. He sat up--the movement was a
distraction, and welcome for helping drag the ache back out of focus--and
snagged his bedside Vicodin bottle, shaking a pill out of it into his
hand. After another moment, he dug out one of the halves as well. You paid
for what you did, after all. Even healthy, whole people did; the price tag
just got steeper for people like him. And you paid for what you did to
help deal with paying for what you did, and someday he'd have to pay for
that payment, too, but that likewise wasn't necessarily any different than
what regular people went through, unless it was in the billing procedures.
Death paid for everything sooner or later, anyway--and while he'd always
aimed for later, House realistically had known, from the moment that he'd
realized what was really wrong with his leg, that his 'later' had been
moved up considerably sooner, and he was going to have to fight for the
time and quality of that time he had left. A tricky balance: how much time
was it worth cutting off in exchange for being able to enjoy the time you
had right now?

He could see Wilson's eyes following him in the dim light, but Wilson
didn't say anything, just watched him swallow, and House had decided a
while ago that they still weren't ready for this particular fight, this
particular argument. Wilson might have agreed, because he didn't say
anything as House settled back down in bed, just wrapped himself around
House again, face buried in his shoulder, breathing slow and even while
House listened to it, staring at the ceiling.

"That bad?" House asked, after a little while, and Wilson let out a long,
slow breath. House knew he wouldn't have to ask what House was referring
to, and he was right.

"She...." A long pause, and House kept his eyes on the ceiling. "She
looked good. New haircut, new clothes, I think she's done something
different with her makeup. She looked...."

"Like she was moving on."

Wilson let out another long slow breath, this one shaky. "Yeah."

"Try to look on it as a positive thing."

"How?" Wilson's voice was incredulous.

"Well, look at you," House pointed out, tilting his head slightly. "Same
haircut, same clothes... kinky new sex life."

There was another pause, and then Wilson said, "Oh," then gave what might
have been a very soft laugh, or else another shaky exhalation. "You could
have a point."

"Of course I do," House said, a bit smugly, and could practically feel
Wilson rolling his eyes. "I often have a point. But then, so do you."

"Huh." Another long pause, and House started trying to figure out what was
available, and not too difficult, for dinner. "It's different, you know,"
Wilson finally said, almost abruptly.

"What?" His mind was still in the pantry, and he didn't think Wilson was
there with him.

"This. Us. I didn't... I couldn't have done this, with anyone else."

House flicked his eyebrows upwards, tilting his head to look over at him.
"Well, anatomically speaking...."

Wilson gave him an exasperated look. "That's not what I meant, and you
know it." There was another pause, and House found himself strangely
unable to look away from the intensity in Wilson's stare. Wilson finally
swallowed and said, in an uneven voice, "So if you're worried about...
becoming just another ex...."

House closed his eyes and turned his head back to stare at the ceiling.
"Doesn't preclude it," he said, trying to keep his voice as dry and as
factual as possible.

"Doesn't indicate it, either," Wilson pointed out, going up on one elbow
to enter his field of vision, albeit peripheral vision, again. "If the
symptoms aren't there, it doesn't matter what the patient history says.
You should know that better than anybody."

"Ah, but if the symptoms only present after a certain period...." House
said, continuing in his best, clinical voice. Just another diagnostic
problem, just another medical puzzle, nothing that really mattered,
nothing that had his stomach twisting itself into knots. 

"It's...." Wilson closed his eyes and licked his lips before continuing.
"People change, House. Even if diseases don't, people do. Can." A pause,
and his eyes opened, staring at House with that same intentness. "Have."
House looked away, down across his room, and tried to just listen and not
judge. "Stop looking for what isn't there, before something you've been
ignoring while focusing on that non-existent issue becomes a real
problem."

He flicked his gaze back up to Wilson's face. "You're suggesting I treat
our relationship like... like a patient?"

"Why not?" Wilson's voice was challenging.

House raised his eyebrows again, looking slightly away. "Well, for one
thing, I avoid patients."

Wilson actually smiled. "And you avoided our relationship for how long?
Gee, how could I possibly have drawn a parallel," he said, lightly, and
then grinned down at House as if expecting him to share the joke.

Except it was House's turn to stare intently back up at Wilson, whose grin
slowly faded. "And once I take on a patient," House said, slowly and
deliberately, "I don't let go."

Wilson swallowed, but didn't look away. ".... I know. That's the point."
He swallowed again, and did look down briefly, before glancing back up and
saying, "I'm not going to say I won't hurt you. I'm not that... naive,
anymore. And I expect you'll hurt me, and there'll be bad times and
miserableness and...." He looked away again and dragged in a deep breath.
"You know, sometimes I feel like they never... none of them ever actually
married me. They married this image of James Wilson, without the flaws or
the problems, and when that didn't turn out to hold true...." His gaze,
when it came back to House, was disturbingly direct. Open. House thought
of unwrinkled suits and lab coats and ties, Wilson's cabinet full of
trophies and his wonderboy record, his board status and his entry in Who's
Who, and how none of that had ever mattered to him; it had been everything
else about Wilson that drew him to him, all the things that lay underneath
the polished exterior. 

"I love you." The words came out completely unpremeditated, which was
probably the only way he could say them; even under these circumstances,
they made House's stomach drop unpleasantly nearly as soon as he realized
what he'd just said. Wilson's eyes snapped open wide, and he jerked back,
like he'd been hit, then lowered his head until his forehead rested
against House's collarbone. House could feel the faint trembling in
Wilson's muscles against his side, and raised one hand, awkwardly, to rest
against Wilson's right shoulder.

The words were whispered into his skin, as though even Wilson couldn't
stand to hear them. "I'm afraid of that word, now."

They both had their scars. House's were obvious, both the physical and the
emotional, both by necessity and by choice. You couldn't ignore them. But
that didn't necessarily make Wilson's purely intangible ones any less
real, or any less painful--in some ways it made them dangerous, for the
way he covered them up so well you could find yourself hitting weakened
tissue without ever realizing it was even there. Between the two of them,
with their badly-healed wounds, House still didn't know if this could ever
really work... he just knew that somehow, at some point, Wilson had made
him willing to try. To hold on, for all it was worth... and to know when
to let go.

Apparently he'd been wrong about that pulmonary vein thing after all.

"Let's go get dinner," House said, abruptly. "Turkey clubs?"

Wilson's muscles relaxed, and he took in a deep breath before raising his
head and giving House a smile. "Not bacon cheeseburgers?" he asked.

"I'm watching my weight. If we land on the sofa like that too often, we're
going to break the springs. Which reminds me, we still need to check and
see if the phone survived."

Wilson's eyebrows rose. "You were planning on putting us in a position to
do that again?"

House couldn't help smirking. "Let's just say...." Wilson's eyebrows
lifted a fraction more. "Buy more ties."

Wilson's eyes widened, and his smirk matched House's. "Now that might be
worth it."

House stretched. "I thought so," he said, and then slid his eyes over to
Wilson, taking in the whole mussed and naked thing. "Hmm. Would you do me
a favor?"

Wilson shot him a wary look. "What?"

"Grab my cane for me?"

"What, you can't get it yourself?" Wilson said, skeptically.

"Well, I could...." House said, meditatively, before continuing, "But then
I'd lose the chance of checking out your ass."

Wilson hit him with a pillow, but he got the cane anyway, and House
decided maybe everything would be all right, after all.

  
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ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House
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