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  Defensive Strategies 
 by Milkshake Butterfly  

 Notes: Written in twenty-six hours for the Kink/Cliche Challenge on LJ
back in May; part of the reason I took so long to post it was given that
time frame I wasn't at all sure of the results at first. The challenge
sent three different prompts out from the two categories, and let you
write a story based off of whichever you chose; I think for archiving
purposes I won't say what mine was, and let the story speak for itself. 
Also, the Detroit line came from Syal, after one of my discussions of the
pairing, and someone else came up with Housexual, though we never did
figure out who. 
Warnings: Surprisingly few. Much to my surprise, it stayed out of actual
smut scenes. Of course it was written in 26 hours, with all the uniquely
desperate, demented brilliance that implies.... 
Thanks: To Canthlian, Cristin, & RosaleenDhu for Alphaing, Azarias and
Emily for incredibly fast Beta turn-arounds, Tris B. for her usual
brilliant Beta-ing consults, and especially to Catalase, who Beta'd, did a
bit of Alpha, helped me figure out what I was doing, and generally kept me
sane while writing this.




"I need a sign," Wilson told House, settling in across the booth from him.

"What, like a 'voice from above' kind of sign, or a 'tasteful font and
maybe some graphics' kind of sign?" House asked, barely glancing up from
the basket of fries that had arrived while Wilson had been in the
bathroom. 

"Either would be nice," Wilson replied, stealing a fry. House gave him a
flat look. "But I was thinking more the second one, I admit," he finished,
after pausing to chew and swallow. Their drinks had arrived too, sodas for
both of them. Wilson had decided he wasn't yet at the stage of
post-divorce where drinking was all that great a plan, though he figured
it was probably a bad sign that he'd been through this often enough to
know that from first-hand experience.

House, on the other hand, might drink at home but only did so in public
when things were seriously screwed-up, though Wilson had never been
completely certain if that was because of control and safety issues, or
just because House avoided being in public as much as possible to begin
with. Agreeing to go out with Wilson would have been a sign of something;
the fact that he'd been the one to suggest they go out somewhere
positively screamed that something. Wilson just wasn't entirely sure what
that something was, or maybe he didn't want to be; if Wilson was in such
obvious pain that the man who was so introverted he wouldn't even talk to
patients if he could help it was trying to get him out among the happy
shining crowd, he didn't think he wanted to know.

Still, he did have to admit that working their way through a different
local restaurant every night did beat sitting at home in his new and still
too-bare apartment, brooding over past mistakes. Even if sitting at home
was safer, in some ways.

"So," House said, after a meditative fry-consumption pause of his own,
"what would this sign say?"

"I don't know," Wilson said, leaning back in the booth. The vinyl creaked
distractingly; it was too new to be totally broken in, but not new enough
to be completely resilient. "Maybe, 'Not Interested,' or, 'Look
Elsewhere,' or maybe just, 'Stop, Please, It's Flattering But I'm Not
Ready To Date Again Now, If Ever.'"

"You're gonna need a big sign for that last one," House pointed out,
licking ketchup off his fingers, and it took Wilson a second to remember
to reply.

"I could write it on a sandwich board and just wear that. Then I could
list other things, too, like the fact I'm oh for three in the marriage
sweepstakes." He swooped in and stole another fry when this last statement
caused House to pause for a second, a look halfway between surprised and
thoughtful on his face.

"That'd probably actually encourage a few of the more terminally
codependent types," House pointed out, after a second. 

Wilson bit down on an urge to tell him that House would know, after all,
and said instead, "Well, there's still the fact that not a lot of people
will hit on a guy who's wearing a sandwich board."

"They would if that was really all you were wearing," House pointed out,
with a dramatically overdone leer. Wilson rolled his eyes.

"You can always be relied upon to lower the tone of the conversation."

"Part of my charm," House insisted loftily. He paused for a second. "If
it's really bothering you, we could stop doing this."

"No," Wilson replied, and if it didn't come out as vehement as it wanted
to, he knew he'd still spoken too fast. House tilted his head, his eyes
widening slightly as he studied Wilson in that particularly diagnostic way
of his, french-fry held momentarily forgotten in his fingers. Wilson
resisted an urge to shift uncomfortably--that look always made him itchy
between his shoulder blades, somehow--and continued on, "You were right, I
do need to get out. I just wish...." He paused and gestured slightly with
one hand towards the bar, where a small cluster of girls was seated. They
kept sneaking little looks at him and then giggling together. "You'd think
I'd be used to it, but I'm not."

"Think of it like trauma recovery," House told him, taking a sip of his
drink. "Stuff that never meant anything beforehand is going to be a lot
harder to handle."

Neither of them glanced towards House's cane. But then, neither of them
needed to. "It'll be flattering and fun again someday, but right now I
just wish they'd stop," Wilson said, leaning forward on his elbows and
sighing.

House looked thoughtful again for a minute. "Well, you could always," he
began, then looked at Wilson for a long moment and shook his head. "No,
that wouldn't work."

"What?" Wilson asked, sitting up straighter.

"I was going to suggest you could try to be less attractive, but short of
shaving your head completely bald, which would cause the nursing staff to
have hysterics...." House said, musingly.

"Gee, thanks," Wilson said, rolling his eyes and leaning back again.

"It's not my fault you were born looking like that," House pointed out.
"Blame your mother."

Wilson rolled his eyes again. "I could slouch."

House thought about this a second. "Nope."

"Wear ratty clothing?" he suggested.

The reply was faster. "Nope."

Wilson's turn to think for a second. "Be mean?" he finally offered,
tentatively.

"Again, you'd just attract a different sort of girl. You're better off
with the ones who like you because you're nice, believe me."

One of these days, Wilson was going to get the full story about Cameron
out of House. Until then, he was just going to go insane with all the
hints House dropped.

"So you're saying I'm screwed."

"You could always wear a wedding ring," House said, gesturing towards
Wilson's clasped hands with a fry.

"I didn't wear a ring when I was married," Wilson pointed out, and ignored
the little quirk of eyebrows this provoked out of House, though House
otherwise kept his eyes were fixed on the fry basket. "I was always afraid
I'd take it off to wash my hands and lose the damned thing," he added. He
was aware that seemed defensive, but he needed to say something.

"So, just wear it when you go out," House said, looking up from the fries
with a casual shrug. 

Wilson sighed, leaned forward, and stole another fry. "I'd rather not."

"Because it's dishonest?" House asked, his voice strangely clinical.

"Because...." He paused, and snagged another fry, using the time to eat it
to think, then sighed again. "Because I'd rather not have the reminder,"
he finally admitted.

He was saved from any response House might have made to that revelation by
the arrival of their meals. The waitress smiled at Wilson in a way that
made him want to wiggle across the booth away from her, but otherwise
didn't do anything too disturbing--though the way she stared directly at
him when she said they should let her know if they needed anything else
was enough to make him shift uncomfortably again. House didn't comment,
just looked at him with something sardonic in his expression.

"See?" Wilson asked, when she was gone.

"I saw before," House said, reaching for the salt. He'd ordered a burger
with the works; Wilson had ordered a salad. House had looked at him and
Wilson had pointed out neither of them were getting any younger or
healthier. Now, presented with the contrast between his leafy green
selection and House's layered heart-attack delight, Wilson found himself
wondering if those potential extra years of life were worth it.

"Uh, House...."

House cut the burger in half without even saying, 'I told you so,' though
he did say, as they were transferring it over to Wilson's plate, "I get
some of the salad, and you're paying half my bill."

"Done," Wilson said.




They didn't discuss anything serious for the rest of the meal; Wilson
insisted on a share of fries, since House had gotten some with his burger
on top of the ones he'd had earlier, and they talked about sports. Hank
Wiggen was back in play and had just torn up the Yankees hitters, and
House took a certain proprietary pleasure in that for which Wilson
couldn't entirely blame him. And if there was something odd about the
theory of going out to spend more time around people and only actually
talking to House, well... Wilson really didn't think it was worth
examining too closely. He felt better, and this was life, not medicine, so
it didn't really matter why it worked so long as it did.

This might have held, and the whole thing gone down as a vaguely pleasant
evening only somewhat marred by the whole apparently
irresistibly-attractive-to-women thing, if it hadn't been for, well, the
irresistibly-attractive-to-women thing. They were done eating and it was
Wilson's turn to wait for House to come back from the restroom, only he'd
decided to do so near the entrance, to avoid being gawked at by the girls
at the bar some more. There was just one problem: the girls had followed
him.

Well, girl. They didn't usually come after him in hunting packs, like
Velociraptors, although that thought was probably going to keep him up
nights. Wilson still had the distinct feeling that her friends were
waiting just out of sight so as to be on hand to congratulate if she made
a kill or console if her chosen prey managed to escape. He was betting,
though, that she succeeded a lot more often than she struck out; there was
a determined look in her dark eyes that, when combined with the easy
confidence in her smile and movements, made him suspect she didn't often
fail to get what she wanted.

And 'girl' wasn't the right term, either, once she got separated off from
the rest of the bunch. Late twenties, early thirties maybe, with big dark
eyes and a waterfall of curly dark hair, smooth dusky skin and a body,
shown off to advantage in the tight pants and shirt she wore, that was
reminding Wilson it had been a lot longer than just the start of his
divorce proceedings since he'd had sex. Those breasts in and of themselves
were pretty breathtaking, even to someone who spent as much time around
Cuddy as he did, and had to be real--and Wilson was willing to bet even
House would be impressed by the lines of her legs.

Damn, it had been way, way too long. This was the real problem he had with
all the flirtation and offers; every time he said no, it used up another
little bit of control out of his definitely-not-inexhaustible supply. He
liked women and he liked sex, and that had always been a problem; he
didn't trust himself with relationships anymore. He'd gotten through his
marriages without cheating by the skin of his teeth, and that had been the
reason for his first two divorces; he'd come to the point where he knew he
was going to cheat, and that, not the actual cheating itself, had been the
final thing that told him it was over. His leaving Julie had finally
broken that pattern, but he was still hurting over her and knew he had no
business getting involved with anyone new, yet when this girl smiled
Wilson couldn't quite keep from smiling back, stupid as it was.

She had a great smile, too.

"Excuse me," she said, with that smile. Her voice went with the body and
sent his brain to very bad, porn-filled places. "I wouldn't normally do
this," she added, ducking her head a little and smiling up through her
lashes, a coyness not matched by the look in her eyes, and a distant part
of him admired her technique, "but some friends and I were at the bar and
we couldn't help noticing... you have a really great smile."

Well, at least they were on the same page. "Uh, thanks," he said, a bit
awkwardly but still smiling almost helplessly, and cursed that somewhere
along the line he'd learned flawlessly how to attract women but never at
all how to repel them. He sucked at putting people off. That was House's
job, and one of the unspoken exchanges of their relationship; when House
wanted or needed someone to whip out the winning smile and make nice, he
called Wilson, and when Wilson needed someone to be a bastard and offend
someone or get rid of them, he called House. Except right now his human
shield was off in the bathroom, and the girl was only five six or so and
had just leaned forward enough to give him an amazing view of her
cleavage.

He wondered if shouting for help was premature.

"Do you--" she began, then broke off with a pause that Wilson was pretty
sure had been planned, but only because he knew this game so well; she was
really very good. "Are you from around here?" she finished instead, with
just the right touch of awkward.

Fuck, but there was a voice in his head right now saying that if she was
this good, he should take it, because she couldn't possibly be expecting
anything too much. Some commitment-free sex would do him good, bolster up
that reservoir of control and let him say no again for a good long while.
Except Wilson was bad at commitment-free sex and he knew it; he always
somehow ended up with commitment, and the girls never seemed entirely
unhappy with that. "I... yeah," he heard himself say, and thought, you
complete idiot, what are you doing? Except what came out next, instead of
something that sensibly extracted him from the conversation, was,
"Actually, I work just down the street, at the hospital."

He wasn't sure if this was his libido or how he'd been raised, but right
now his common sense was pissed at both options.

Her eyes widened, and there were bits of him that couldn't help being
gratified. "Oh, you're a doctor?" she began, with a slight laugh. "That's
actually great, and kind of funny, because I-"

Wilson never got to find out what was great about it, because the cavalry
had finally arrived. The noise of the rest of the restaurant concealed the
familiar limping rhythm of House's steps until he was right on top of
Wilson and casually sidling into his personal space. It wasn't really a
surprise, or all that atypical, except for the fact that instead of
pausing just slightly-too-close and helping Wilson hold the velocibreasts
at bay with the force of his personality, House cheerfully crossed over
the entirely-too-close line and slipped an arm around Wilson's waist. It
was warm and very weirdly comfortable, all things considered.

"Sorry," House told the girl, who was staring at them with a startled
expression, "he's taken."

When Wilson had been praying for rescue, somehow this wasn't exactly what
he'd had in mind.

Still, the rapidly reassessing look on her face suggested it might work,
so he marshaled his self-control and did not turn and stare at House, or
jerk away and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. The first
actually took a lot more effort than the second; he knew what was House
was doing, after all, and it really wasn't too horrible a fate to bear for
a couple minutes.

He did think he owed the girl something though, for leading her on and the
embarrassed flush rising to her cheeks, so he signed exasperatedly,
turning his head slightly to get House in his peripheral vision, and
began, "She wasn't--"

"No, I'm sorry," the girl interrupted him, and gave him another one of
those smiles; he had to look slightly away to avoid the attractiveness of
it, and House's arm momentarily tightened. Probably warning he was giving
off mixed signals, but under the circumstances he was lucky he wasn't
giving off coherent ones--just of the complete wrong type. "I.... It was
nice meeting you," she said, and fled, taking her somewhat battered
dignity and a really great view of her backside with her. 

Well, it was more than some people got away from House with.

"Oh, you owe me for that," House said, watching her go, just loudly enough
that Wilson could hear him. He didn't immediately let go of Wilson,
either--but then, that might have alerted the rest of the pack to the
charade, and it was probably a bad sign that he was thinking of women in
those terms these days. 

"For pretending you're getting to have sex with me?" he asked, turning to
face House, and blinking for a moment at how close his face was. House's
eyes were even more distracting than normal from this range. "I think the
debt-burden there is on the other side."

"Well, I suppose really that depends on who's on top," House said,
waggling his eyebrows.

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Okay, I did not need that image. You going to let
go of me any time soon, or do we walk to the car like this?"

"Well that would certainly get the rest of the women here to leave you
alone--not merely gay, but clingy."

"In this scenario, you'd be the clingy one."

"Might be worse. Gay with a clingy boyfriend who owns a stick, very bad
idea to hit on."

Wilson rolled his eyes again, and House finally let go--but not without
grabbing Wilson's ass as he did so.

"Hey!" It was more formulaic than anything else; Wilson didn't think House
meant anything by it.

"Playing to the crowd," House said, loftily, before heading for the door.

Wilson trailed after him, sighing, "House...."

"Well, you wanted a sign," House pointed out, over his shoulder. "There
you go. Neon, ten feet high," he added, indicating the metaphorical sign
with a jerk of his chin.

The air was cooler when they'd gone in, but still not chilly. "I'm
thinking the wedding ring idea might be better than having you grope me
everywhere we go."

"You sure?" House asked, as they headed for the car.

It took Wilson a moment to think about. "No."

House gave him a strange look, but he didn't comment.




There was probably some parallel universe where it ended there, just
another slightly odd event in a more than slightly odd friendship, and
Wilson eventually got over his latest divorce and got back into dating and
maybe eventually ended up with yet another wife, House went on with his
life as well, and they just stayed friends. That was probably, actually,
the easier universe, if not necessarily the better one, though sometimes
Wilson wondered.

In this universe, which was the one that mattered to Wilson anyway, it
didn't go that way, and didn't end there, because two weeks later, in a
different bar and grill, they ran into the girl with the attack breasts
again.

For about five days House had stuck with his particular plan, which Wilson
endured with a dignified silence and a lot of staring. House insisted it
was a really noble self-sacrifice on his part, but Wilson didn't find that
particularly plausible; House was getting way too much enjoyment out of
things like slipping out of his shoe and running a socked foot up Wilson's
leg under the table. He always had gotten a kick out of doing shock-value
things. They stopped on the fourth day not because it wasn't
working--Wilson still got hit on, but never by anyone who had seen the two
of them together, which made for a noticeable drop in volume--but because
it was working a little too well; it had, after all, been way too long
since the last time he got laid, and Wilson's body was starting to
threaten to react on pure stimulus grounds, no matter how inappropriate it
was. He told House that the reprieve had been enough and called a halt to
things before they got out of hand.

So things went back to normal, or at least normal for them, which even
Wilson had to admit was actually pretty strange by most standards. They
worked their way through another string of restaurants on nights when they
weren't stuck at the hospital, they saved a couple more lives, House made
some suggestive comments about Cuddy's cleavage, and life went on. 

Right up until the Friday evening when they ended up at Terry's Bar and
Grill, sitting at the bar ordering appetizers, mostly because there
weren't any other options--the place filled up fast--and it was better
than standing around awkwardly while waiting for a table to open up. Six
years ago, House would have spun on the stool; now he eyed the floor with
the practiced look of a man who knows that at some point he is going to
have to get down, and he probably won't enjoy it by then. It wasn't even
the height, Wilson knew; it was the lack of support, so that by the time
they were finished, his lower back was going to be hurting. You didn't
spend that much time leaning on a cane without paying for it in other
ways.

He'd have suggested they go somewhere else, but House had that determined,
stubborn look in his eyes, and Wilson knew if he did House would just
briskly turn him down, and secretly be a little hurt by it. So he didn't.

They were waiting on the onion rings--House had won that round--and
debating what to order for dinner off of the menu when Wilson heard a
faint, discreet sound behind him, and swiveled to find himself presented
with a pair of smoldering breasts and bountiful eyes. Or maybe that was
the other way around.

"Um," he said, when he finally rescued himself from the vision of cleavage
past, "hello."

The look the girl gave him was bitterly amused. Her hair was pulled back
into a tight ponytail tonight, and her eye makeup was maybe a little more
dramatic, but if the clinging pants and shirt weren't the same as last
time, they were close cousins. "Well, well, if it isn't the doctor. Or,
excuse me, the taken doctor," she said, and he had no idea how on earth
she was managing to be both seductive and scornful, but it was actually
more of a turn-on than just seductive might have been. Which probably, now
that he thought about it, said very bad things about him.

House, he saw out of the corner of his eye, had only turned his stool very
slightly, so he was angled towards Wilson, and was giving her a look over
his shoulder. Wilson knew that look. It was House's 'I'm not going to like
you, am I?' look. Wise people feared it and ran away; this girl just gave
him a quick, dismissive flick of her eyes before focusing back on Wilson.

"You lied to me," she told him, a wounded note creeping into her voice.

"I... what?" he asked, blinking slightly.

"I've been asking around," she said, stepping forward and resting one hand
slightly on the lapel of his jacket. He was peripherally aware of House
sitting up straighter. "You could have just said no. You didn't have to
make me think I was an idiot."

Oh, that lie. Which technically had been House's lie. Except he had a
feeling admitting that would be a very bad idea, and for once his sense
was overruling other, older instincts. "I'm... not sure what you mean," he
said, leaning back very marginally, away from her hand.

She dropped her arm, but her eyes looked disdainful, and flicked back and
forth between them. "You two are not an item. I hear he attended your
wedding."

Well, that explained why his good sense was momentarily overpowering those
other, stupider instincts: this one was dangerous. Wilson might have been
an idiot when it came to relationships, but there were some levels of
idiocy he avoided, and getting involved with this sort of woman was one of
them. "That doesn't actually mean anything," he pointed out, and wondered
if it would be fair to slip off the stool and bolt for the restroom,
leaving House to deal with her. It bothered him, though, that he couldn't
quite decide the question of fair to who. It was possible that neither of
them deserved each other, or maybe that they both did, and in either case
it might have been really entertaining to watch them duke it out, except
he didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. 

She gave him a haughty look. "Please. I think in the very least you should
owe me dinner."

Running seemed like a very good idea, suddenly. He was just opening his
mouth to try and think of a good excuse--maybe he could figure out a way
to fake a page, that always worked for House--when once again the cavalry
arrived.

"You know, there's an easy way to settle this," House said, turning his
stool a little farther towards Wilson and sitting up a tiny bit
straighter. Both the girl and Wilson turned towards him, her with a
skeptical expression and Wilson with one that might have looked slightly
desperate. House smiled slightly at their mutual regard, and suddenly
Wilson felt a brief moment of unease.

Then House leaned forward on his stool, grabbed Wilson's lapels so that he
was dragged forward as well, and kissed him.

House's lips were surprisingly soft, and his tongue was surprisingly
friendly--Wilson had barely even realized his own lips had parted when he
found that tongue sliding against his own, before it continued on in what
Wilson couldn't help but think of as a dementedly cheerful exploration of
the rest of Wilson's mouth. Maybe it was the way he could almost feel
House's smile, or... no, as close as they were there was no almost about
it. House's stubble tickled for a second, and then started to rasp and
burn slightly, and it was only when he felt House's biceps moving under
his hands that Wilson realized his arms had come up and he was clinging
for dear life. And it was only when that sunk in that he realized he was
kissing House, he was kissing his best friend, he was making out with the
guy he worked with and ate lunch with and mocked the nursing staff with.
And he was doing it in public.

And it felt really good. Really good. The kind of kiss that, if you ended
a first date with it, meant that it was certain you were getting a second
one, and if you ended a second date on it, you were clearly getting some
on the third.

Very dimly, just before they broke for air, Wilson wondered exactly what
the protocol was for that sort of a kiss after years of friendship and
what might be considered three solid weeks of dating. Seeing the quickly
smothered heat in House's eyes, and thinking back over how much House had
clearly enjoyed taking liberties during that period of pretending to be
involved, Wilson mentally scratched out 'might be considered': they'd been
dating. Wilson just hadn't noticed it.

Most people would have called this an epiphany, Wilson knew, and some of
them went to ridiculous lengths to have one, including embracing strange
religions, climbing strange mountains, and taking strange drugs. House,
judging by the easy and casual way he seemed to get bolts of revelation,
probably called it a Thursday afternoon, if even that. Wilson didn't know
what to call it, except 'epiphany' felt like too exciting a word for
something that left him feeling like an extraordinarily dense idiot.

He risked a glance over at the girl, and found her mouth hanging slightly
open. She shut it with a snap when she realized he was looking.
Unfortunately, this did nothing to take away from the realization that she
wasn't the only one staring at them; the nearby diners were all gaping as
well.

House gave them all a glare that, despite the general distribution,
managed to have only marginally less intensity than the kind he bestowed
upon only a single individual. "What, is this something you've never seen
before? Do none of you get cable?"

Very suddenly everyone found other things to look at.

It occurred to Wilson he was still clinging to House's arms, and he let go
abruptly, flushing and staring at the floor. Which meant he missed
whatever expression was on the girl's face--not to mention a last view of
her cleavage--as she said, "Fine," in a very strange, strained sort of
voice, and turned to stalk away.

He did raise his eyes long enough to get another view of her in retreat,
but that was kind of instinctive.

He couldn't quite meet House's eyes when he looked up--what did you say
when your best friend had just kissed you in public? 'Sorry,' might have
been appropriate, except Wilson wasn't, and he didn't think House was,
either. 'Thanks,' might have been even more appropriate, but required a
level of calm and casual he couldn't quite muster, especially when House's
lips quirked into a smile for a second, and drawn by the movement, Wilson
found himself fighting an incredible urge to grab him and try that all
again.

"Don't worry," House said. "I know you'd do the same for me." There was a
brief pause, during which Wilson tried to remember how to speak, and then
tried to figure out which words to use. His lips were tingling faintly.
"Well, okay, maybe not," House said, "but in any case, any response would
of course be purely Pavlovian, and I'm not going to attach any real
significance to it. And hey, look," he said, straightening and looking
past Wilson, his tone brightening and warming, "the gods of timing are
smiling for once, because I see our waitress and she's bearing onion
rings. Think they're ours?"

They were, and further they came with the attached notice that a booth had
been freed up for them. Wilson didn't know if he was grateful or not. He
might not have known what to say, but he was fairly sure he needed to say
something. When he automatically stood too close to House, so that House
leaned into him while standing up without having to admit he needed to,
Wilson was acutely aware of the brief contact of House's body in a way he
never had been before... or maybe had just never admitted to before.

As he followed House across the restaurant, Wilson found himself thinking
that House might not think it meant anything... but he did.




They talked more about sports, and ordered based on habit; at this point
it was something of a given that Wilson would get half of House's steak
and House would get half of Wilson's pasta, and they'd split the salad and
fries. The only differences were that after what had just happened Wilson
found it very hard to keep his mind on the conversation, and the waitress
didn't bat an eye when they asked for extra plates. Apparently if you were
okay with kissing at the bar, sharing meals was perfectly normal as well. 

Kissing. At the bar. House. Him. Wilson felt like he needed a drink,
except he knew better than that and just kept it to soda; the last thing
he needed was to get drunk and do something he'd always wonder about later
on. Whatever decision he made, he wanted to be clearheaded about it, at
least.

Except it was very hard to be clearheaded when House kept licking dipping
sauce off his fingers, and Wilson kept thinking back to that tongue in his
mouth, which led to very bad thoughts about that tongue elsewhere, and he
wasn't gay, so this was all completely wrong.

Well, he thought he wasn't gay. The fact he suddenly wanted to spend hours
getting better acquainted with his best friend's tongue probably indicated
that wasn't as certain as he had always assumed. And if Wilson was honest
with himself, he'd been attracted for a while now--just glancing at the
past couple weeks could tell him that, and if he went and looked back at
all their prior relationship, it was.... Well, it was something. Something
that wives and girlfriends had actually been jealous of, much to his
perpetual bewilderment at the time, though he had to admit that it
suddenly made a lot more sense. So... was he gay, and had just been in
denial all this time, closeted so deeply even he hadn't known it?

A girl passed them by, and Wilson recognized her as part of the
velocibreast pack; she slowed slightly to give them a disdainful stare,
which meant Wilson had plenty of time to process the fact that while her
cleavage wasn't quite on par with her friend's, it was still very nice,
very much on display, and once again, very real. Also, he was very clearly
not gay.

So, if he wasn't gay, did that mean House really was right, and this was
all just a Pavlovian response, something that might go away if he found a
nice, less-velociraptor-like girl and got his libido soothed?

House glanced up at him from underneath slightly lowered brows while
making a point about batting statistics, and Wilson's pulse gave a little
jump that was in no way related to anything as blatant as licking. Wilson
smiled back, and definitively ruled the 'Pavlovian' option out as well; he
had no conditioning at all to respond that way to a certain set of blue
eyes. Except that meant he really was attracted to another guy. Not just
any guy, either: he was attracted to House. Which, despite the fact Wilson
really liked him as a friend, was only marginally more sane than getting
involved with the girl with the smoldering breasts.

The food arrived, and Wilson had never been so happy to have a distraction
before in his life. Not even when House had shown up the first time to
save him from the velocibreasts. Though if that had led to this, he might
want to worry more about where this might lead.

Especially since he couldn't seem to stop thinking about it, and now that
they were eating the conversation had tapered off a bit so he didn't even
have the distraction of mutual Yankees-loathing. The idea that he might
not be purely heterosexual should have bothered him more, only as far as
he could tell, trying it on for size, it didn't actually change much of
anything, except possibly to explain why he'd always had a weakness for
musicals. He wasn't gay, he just wasn't totally straight, so the net
lifestyle change he had to seriously contemplate here was... nothing,
unless he wanted it to be. Unless he decided to act on those
less-than-straight thoughts.

Which was the problem, Wilson had to admit, because he'd just woken up to
the fact he'd been flirting with his best friend for years. That was way
more terrifying than realizing maybe he had some bisexual
tendencies--after all, he knew about Kinsey's studies, so it wasn't like
the idea of that wasn't possible. But to go instantly from, 'Okay, I could
like a guy,' to, 'Okay, I like House,' was.... This was real, this was
here, and this was now, and it was tangling up his emotions and his
intestines in about equal parts, to the point he was just picking at
dinner, and House was shooting him the occasional speculative or concerned
glance.

"I said it didn't mean anything," House finally pointed out. 

"And I heard you," Wilson replied, winding some pasta around his fork
slowly. "I'm.... I'm not bothered by it, House," he said, and realized as
he did so that he wasn't.

He was bothered by the fact he wasn't bothered by it. Wilson was
completely okay with kissing House. In fact, he wanted to kiss House
again. It was just that he knew he should be bothered by this, he should
think this was a bad idea, he should be wanting to run screaming from even
the idea of any relationship with House. It bugged him that it didn't bug
him.

He was getting very confused.

House gave him a skeptical look, and Wilson said, "No, really. I'm not
bothered by it. I just...." The problem with House was, once he saw that
there was something wrong, he had a tendency to keep picking at it until
he found the root cause; it made him a wonderful doctor but a terrible
person to be friends with, in some ways. Unless you learned to cope. "She
creeped me out," Wilson said, indicating the girl and the bar and maybe
the whole scenario with a flick of his eyes, before taking a sip of soda.

House's eyebrows raised, and he leaned back slightly for a moment, giving
Wilson a look that told him House didn't really believe that was
everything at all, but that he was willing to accept it for the moment.
And then he stole one of Wilson's carefully apportioned shrimp.

"Hey!" Wilson said, and got momentarily distracted from his thoughts by
the resultant food-swiping competition. 

It didn't last, though, and as soon as there wasn't something actively
going on, his brain went back to pondering what he'd just realized. The
thing was, if Wilson didn't have that urge to run screaming--if he just
accepted that he was bisexual, and that he was attracted to a man, and
that man was House, and he was okay with that--where did that leave him?
Well, with the question of whether or not House liked him back, and Wilson
wasn't even sure if that was worth asking. In fact, he was wondering how
the hell he had attributed House's clear enjoyment of all that flirting
he'd done to just his love of startling people--it wasn't that House
didn't like shocking people, but that situation had been another thing
entirely. So Wilson liked House, and House liked him, and now he knew that
House was a great kisser. He also knew that House came with a set of
emotional baggage so vast you could have used it as a life raft at sea,
but then again, Wilson had been dealing with that baggage in capacity as a
best friend for years now, so even that was a lot less intimidating than
it should have been. And from the opposite viewpoint, House knew about and
had been dealing with Wilson's emotional baggage for the same time period,
so neither of them would be entering into this with any illusions about
the flawless nature of the other person, only to get their hopes dashed
later on down the road.

And from that point of view, getting involved with his best friend
suddenly didn't seem like such a bad idea after all.

Theoretically, this should have been when the panic set in, or Wilson's
good sense caught up to the rest of him.

In reality, this was when the dessert menu arrived.




House ordered a chocolate cake that sounded like it had the ability to
bring strong men to their knees and possibly create world peace; he always
seemed to gravitate to things like that on the menu. Given the state of
his nerves, Wilson ordered another glass of sofa, which caused House to
give him a level stare.

"You realize you just ordered a couch," House told him, and Wilson blushed
and tried to ignore the amused, knowing look of the waitress.

"I know what he meant," she told them, with a grin, and headed off towards
the kitchen.

"You're not getting any of my cake," House informed him, as soon as she
was gone.

"I don't want any of your cake," Wilson replied, which was true, except
possibly in a metaphorical sense. House just gave him a dubious look.

By the time the cake actually arrived, Wilson was pretty much completely
reconciled to the bisexual thing, although he hadn't completely ruled out
the possibility that he was just Housexual instead. In either case, his
common sense still hadn't uttered a single protest, his subconscious was
informing him that it had been in favor of this for years, his libido
didn't even need to make its opinion known, and Wilson was feeling more
and more that he should probably do something to act on this revelation at
the first opportunity that didn't involve public lewdness.

Watching the faces House made over that cake made him rethink the lewdness
part of his plan. After all, the staff here could see this too, and
couldn't possibly blame Wilson for losing control. And if they hadn't
thrown them out for French kissing while at the bar....

Then again, there was always the chance he might someday have to deal with
one of these people in the clinic, so it was probably better to restrain
himself at least until they got to the car.

The check had arrived with House's cake, and when Wilson looked at it he
realized they'd not only been rung up together, but that this marked the
first time they'd never even been asked. Probably, again, the kissing at
the bar. Wilson got out his credit card wordlessly; the waitress swung by
to take it just when House was making a particularly intense, eyes-closed,
orgasmic face, and Wilson found himself unable to look away and acutely
aware that he was never going to be able to eat here again without the
faint patina of embarrassment and lingering associations of arousal.

The waitress gave him another amused look, and he flushed again and
glanced away, which was lucky since House's eyes popped open right then.
Wilson wasn't quite ready to meet that particular steady blue stare
head-on just yet, all things considered.

He had a feeling that the chocolate cake was the only thing saving him
from a particularly intensive grilling, though, because House's eyes
narrowed as they studied him for a long moment before he returned to
demolishing the five-layers-drizzled-in-hot-fudge confection in front of
him. Consequently, Wilson wasn't sure if it was a relief or not when House
finished and pushed the plate away from him. On one hand, it meant he
couldn't avoid actually doing something for very much longer, but on the
other hand, he'd already rolled both their straw wrappers into little
balls, fiddled with his drink as much as he could possibly stand, shifted
in his seat so much that even a much more dense person than House was
bound to know something was up, and talked himself down from an erection
twice.

The way House ate cake ought to have been illegal. The way he licked his
spoon had to be in violation of some decency act or another, and Wilson
wasn't even going to think about the little happy sounds. Really.

Make that talking himself down from an erection three times.

House leaned back in the booth and eyed all this with a bemused
expression. Wilson avoided looking directly at him again, tapping a spare
straw against his glass, and after a heartbeat House gave an easy shrug
and grabbed his cane. "Meet you at the car?" House offered, jerking his
chin towards the back of the restaurant and the restrooms. Wilson gave a
jerky nod in response, not trusting his voice at the moment.

The waitress came back with the bill, and Wilson gave her a much more
generous tip than he normally would have just to make up for the French
kissing and the orgasmic faces, and then hesitated upon standing up. It
was a nice night, clear and not too cold, and he really probably could use
the time alone to gather his thoughts, so there was absolutely no reason
not to go and wait for House at the car, like they'd agreed. None at all.

He pivoted on his heel and headed for the bathrooms instead.




The bathroom was small, as restaurant bathrooms went--just two stalls, a
urinal, and a sink. House was at the sink when Wilson walked in, but the
place was otherwise deserted. Perfect.

There was a knack to wedging a bathroom door shut. Most people never
learned it; Wilson had perfected his technique before he was even
twenty-one. He should probably feel bad about that, or at least worried
about the potential consequences of blocking off the men's room in a
crowded restaurant, but mostly what he felt was desperately horny and
tired of waiting. He blamed the cake.

House, who had flicked him a vaguely interested look in the bathroom
mirror when he entered, watched the door-blocking spectacle with a bemused
expression on his face, almost absently drying his hands with a paper
towel before crumpling it and tossing it expertly into the trash can. "You
know," he commented, with a lightness that seemed totally genuine but
struck Wilson as false, somehow, "I knew you weren't fine with it."

"I'm not--" Wilson began, and then hesitated, because he wasn't exactly
sure how to finish that, or for that matter, what to do next. The reality
of being alone and theoretically uninterrupted in a bathroom with House
hadn't exactly hit until this moment. Adrenaline, shock, and a lot of
rationalization had gotten him this far, and suddenly Wilson found that
tide of that receding, leaving him beached in a very strange place indeed.
"It's...." he tried again, and ended up just staring at House, swallowing
after a moment.

House tilted his head and gave a small, almost privately bitter smile.
"Well, this is going to be fun. We could try charades. Or maybe you could
write it on a note and pass it to me. You know, this was the reason I was
going to wait until we got to your apartment...."

Thoughts of House in Wilson's apartment led to thoughts of House in
Wilson's bed, which brought back some of that impelling horniness, at
least. Wilson licked his lips awkwardly, and House glanced away from him
for a moment, that small bitter smile increasing. "I'm not sure I'd have
managed the car ride home," Wilson admitted, his voice coming out
strangely atonal. 

You had to know House fairly well to be able to read how he took that: no
reaction but a slight widening of his eyes, and that total lack of
response was the most telling. Wilson's own eyes widened and he found
himself doing a very fast, very desperate mental reevaluation, because
there was no way that statement should have gotten that pained a response
out of House.

House still wasn't meeting his eyes as he limped for the door. "Well, we
can call a cab," he began, but didn't get any further as Wilson's brain
finally caught up to the fact that House had managed to interpret
everything completely the wrong way, and was stuck on the idea that Wilson
really was bothered by it. That Wilson had a serious problem with what had
happened, in an 'I don't know how to be friends with you anymore' kind of
way.

He was fairly certain that grabbing House, pushing him into the wall
beside the door, and kissing him hard settled that, at least. House's lips
were as nice as he remembered, and his tongue every bit as friendly, once
the initial moment of stunned shock passed. Now that they weren't both
perched on stools Wilson could lean into him, pressing House back against
the wall and himself into House, taking care to make sure his weight
landed on House's good leg and hip and not the bad one. House made a small
sound as Wilson rubbed against him, tongue darting little flicks into
House's mouth, and his left arm came up to wrap around Wilson's back.
Wilson made a happy sound of his own at that, and rubbed a little harder,
enjoying the pressure of House's hip and thigh against his groin, and the
fact that for the moment, at least, he didn't have to talk himself out of
this fourth erection.

He let go of the handfuls of House's jacket he'd grabbed and ran his hands
down House's chest, enjoying the noise House made in response. He knew
House took somewhat better care of himself than it often at first seemed,
but it was still almost a surprise to feel the density of muscle
underneath his clothing; Wilson couldn't resist skimming his fingers down
to the hem of House's t-shirt and then sliding up underneath it, skin on
skin and the muscles of House's stomach and ribcage trembling under his
touch. House jerked out of their latest liplock with a gasp, and Wilson
took the moment to steal a few panting breaths of his own before attacking
House's mouth again. He realized, now that the initial rush of sensation
had faded a bit, that he could taste the chocolate cake, and barely held
off a laugh, because it seemed he had gotten some of it somehow, with the
bonus of an added flavoring of House. Quivering House, very nearly
whimpering House, 'is that a stethoscope in your pocket or are you just
happy to see me' House, and Wilson was wondering if House could feel his
grin in the kiss the way Wilson had been able to feel House's smile
earlier.

This was an utterly ridiculous thing to be doing, but at the same time it
seemed to make perfect sense, and it wasn't even alarming at all to find
his hands sliding back down House's ribs to tease along the waistband of
House's pants, getting a low, faint sound out of House that was quite
possibly the sexiest thing Wilson had encountered all week, and he was
including the girl with the breasts. He kissed House harder, pushing him
more firmly into the wall, and slid his hands across the tops of House's
hipbones, wondering where this was going to stop, and if he ever wanted
to.

Some part of Wilson was still pretty sure he should be more bothered by
this. After all, he had twenty-plus years of being a practicing
heterosexual male behind him, and it seemed a bit extreme to be going from
that to suddenly wanting to suck the cream filling out of his best friend
like a particularly bizarre Twinkie. In a restaurant bathroom, at that.
But at the same time, this didn't feel anything like a new development;
more like something that had been going on and building up for ages now,
and he'd just happened to finally notice it right before it hit its
climax. Which was probably a very bad word to use, under the
circumstances, because when House shifted his hip like that it dragged
across Wilson in a way that pulled a needy moan out of him.

Which was right when House unhooked his arm from around Wilson's back, got
his balance under him, and pushed Wilson away. 

He found himself stumbling back a few steps from the sheer unexpectedness
of it, staring blankly at House, who was staring back at him with a
carefully controlled expression only slightly marred by the fact that his
lips were swollen and his breathing was still coming at a near-pant. 

Okay, now Wilson was thinking that maybe 'Sorry,' was the right thing to
say. Except he couldn't quite remember how to talk just yet.

Maybe House couldn't either, because he looked away from Wilson, down at
the floor, and licked his lips. Just that little detail was enough that
Wilson had to suppress a full-body shudder, and he swayed very slightly,
because his libido was telling him it hadn't been finished there, but his
good sense had finally crawled out of whatever hole it had been hiding in
and was holding him in place.

He also suppressed an irrational urge to check his watch and find out how
long that had taken in nonsubjective time. He was pretty sure it had been
a lot faster than it seemed, but since Wilson hadn't thought to look at
the time before grabbing House, it wouldn't have told him anything to
check now.

"Okay," House finally said, still not looking at him, and some part of
Wilson decided that he might just love the man for being the first one to
break that silence. "That was not what I expected."

Wilson licked his own lips and was surprised when his voice came out
fairly even. "I told you I didn't have a problem with it."

That got House to look up slightly, though without really raising his head
much as he did it. "No, you did. Just not the problem I thought you had."

Dammit, Wilson hated it when House pulled a shift on him like this. He
knew he was missing something vital here, something that he should have
seen or guessed, except he hadn't, and so knowing about it was just
irritating. Like having a splinter he couldn't find, much less remove. "So
what problem is it I'm supposed to be having?"

"I... appreciate..." House began, very awkwardly, eyes staring into some
middle distance over Wilson's shoulder, "that it's been a while, and that
you could read a certain clear interest in the earlier events and so it
might have seemed like here was a nice, safe solution to your libido
issues--"

"Oh God, not this," Wilson said, covering his face with his hands and
biting back a groan.

"What?" House's face, when Wilson lowered his hands, was genuinely
bewildered for a change.

"I don't believe that you're stupid enough to actually believe that,"
Wilson told him.

"And I don't believe that you're gay enough to be kissing me in restaurant
bathrooms for any other reason," House retorted.

Well, at least there was an obvious counter to that. "That's because I'm
not gay," Wilson said, lightly.

"See?"

"I'm just not straight. I figured it out over the pasta."

House rolled his eyes and leaned back against the wall. "I have had people
tell me less plausible things, but that is only because I'm a doctor."

Well, Wilson had to admit that even in his own head that sounded a bit
strange. It just also happened to be true. "House...." he began, taking a
step forward, and then paused and shook his head. "This isn't about sex."
He paused again and thought for a second. "Well, it's not entirely about
sex."

House gave him the sort of skeptical look he usually reserved for patients
who were either clearly lying or obviously insane, and Wilson sighed
again. "All right, let's try it this way: we've been flirting for years."

"Well--" House paused, tilting his head and looking thoughtful for a
second. "Yeah. Okay. But you never meant it."

"Funny," Wilson replied, lifting his eyebrows, "I always thought you never
meant it."

"And if I thought you didn't mean it," House said, ticking off points like
they were in a differential, which in a weird way they could be, "and you
thought I didn't mean it, and we still kept doing it, that really means
that neither of us meant it and it meant nothing."

"Or that it meant everything," Wilson said, quietly.

House hesitated, taking a deep breath before saying, "I find the former
more likely."

"More likely, or more safe?" House wouldn't meet his eyes, and Wilson
risked another step forward, back into that slightly-too-close zone. "All
right, I admit that a whole lot of what's going on here is me wanting to
pin you against a flat surface and do some exploring, but that's not
everything."

House's eyes came up to meet his for a disturbingly direct moment that got
the blood pounding in Wilson's ears. Then he sighed, so gently Wilson
almost missed it, and focused back on Wilson's shirt again. Wilson found
himself taking another step almost despite himself, and despite the way
that House's lips quirked when he did it, a brief, bitterly amused
expression crossing his face. "And that," House said, drawing the word out
for a second, "would be the other problem."

Wilson blinked. Two shifts in one conversation didn't really seem fair,
although he might want to consider this a preview of the whole
relationship and take it as due warning. "And which 'that' are we dealing
with now?"

"Mechanics." House pronounced the word with flair and a slightly
lascivious lift of his eyebrows that was probably supposed to convey more
to Wilson than it did.

"Mechanics," he repeated, blankly.

"As in, who's on top, who's on bottom, who's on first, what's on second,
what's in second, and given the pasta-based timing of your little
revelation I'm going to take it as a given you've never actually done this
with another man."

"Oh. Um," Wilson said, fighting off a blush and staring at House's shirt
now; he probably had the better bargain there, since House's shirt had
writing and Wilson's just had a red and blue striped tie. "No."

House didn't say anything, just leaned there and gave him raised eyebrows.
Someone tried the door and swore loudly as it didn't open; they both
glanced over for a second, and then went back to their mutual regard of
each other's clothing choices. Again, Wilson thought he had the better
deal; House in a black t-shirt, red button-front shirt, and black jacket
was.... Well, the mechanics couldn't be too hard to work out, right? "That
doesn't matter to me," he heard himself saying, mentally tracing out
curves of musculature under cloth.

House had that bitter smile again. "Of course it wouldn't. To you."

Wilson closed his eyes. "House...." He opened his eyes and caught House's
stare for a second. "You're saying you don't want this."

"I'm saying...." House's eyes wandered away from him for a second, and
then back. "This is a bad idea."

"We've had worse," Wilson pointed out, with a lightness he didn't feel. "I
think my marriages qualify, for a start."

This would have gotten at least a ghost of a smile out of House, once, but
this time he just kept staring at Wilson with that too-intense look on his
face. "What do you think you want?" he asked, and there was something
halfway between gentle and yearning in his voice.

Wilson dropped his gaze back down to House's chest. "I... don't know. I
want... Really, anything that you want sounds good right about now." He
could just see the edge of House's collarbone peeking out from under his
t-shirt where Wilson had tugged it askew, and somehow his eyes had locked
on it as if it were hypnotic. The temptation was too much; he couldn't
keep from taking a last half-step forward, then lowering his head and
licking at it, slowly, nudging cloth as far out of the way as he could
with his mouth to follow it along.

"Oh, please don't do that," House said, but there was a quality to his
voice that told Wilson only about half of him meant that, and even that
half's defenses were crumbling fast.

"Why not?" he mumbled, into House's skin.

"Because," House began, and Wilson could hear the strain under that; his
next words came out in a rush. "Because all the blood rushes towards the
head without a brain and I can't think clearly enough to remember why this
is a bad idea and I should stop you."

Wilson couldn't help a smile. "So you do want me."

House sighed, and with it a tension went out of his body that Wilson
hadn't even noticed was there until it was gone. "What kind of an idiotic
question is that? Of course I want you." House paused. "Everybody wants
you. Nurses, accountants, other doctors--of both genders. Cashiers at
grocery stores and waitresses at restaurants. You're a walking, talking
wet dream, and the worst of it all is that you're so nice. It's like a
fantasy come to life. Everybody wants you. That's how we got into this
mess in the first place, remember?"

It was like flipping a switch; suddenly it was hard to breathe for all the
wrong reasons, and Wilson was pushing back and away from House,
half-turning towards the sink but not completing the movement because he
couldn't look at his face in the mirror any more than he could stand to
look at House's. He fixed his eyes on the trashcan, breathed slowly in and
out, and tried to ignore House, who was still leaning against the wall and
staring at him.

"That got you to let go?" House's voice was incredulous, but when Wilson
risked a glance up, the surprise was quickly fading from his face to be
replaced by an expression that Wilson knew entirely too well. It was that
intense stare, that figuring-things-out look, and suddenly, Wilson wanted
nothing less in the world than to be diagnosed in a restaurant bathroom by
Gregory House.

"You were right, this was a bad idea," Wilson told him, and headed for the
door. House stopped him by the simple method of sticking his cane out so
it hit across Wilson's chest; not hard, and Wilson could have pushed by it
if he really wanted to, but some traitorous little part of him didn't. So
he stopped, licking his lips and staring at the door.

"If you were a patient," House told him, voice strangely factual, "this
would be the part where I told you what was wrong with you." Wilson closed
his eyes. "You're not a patient," House continued on, and Wilson drew in a
sudden breath, but kept his eyes closed. "And this isn't the hospital. And
as... easy as it would be to let you go out that damned door...." Wilson
opened his eyes, still unable to stand looking at House, but even without
being able to see his expression, Wilson could hear some of the strain in
his voice. "Talk to me."

"Is that an order?" he asked, almost angrily, not but quite; he could
recognize even as he said it that he wanted to be angry more than he
actually was.

"Would you be more likely to do it if I asked nicely, used your name, said
'please'?" House's tone was nearly gentle, and Wilson closed his eyes
again and swallowed.

"I... House...." He didn't know how to do this, or say this, in the middle
of a bathroom where people were bound to start pounding on the door soon.
Odd, that hadn't bothered him five minutes ago. "It...."

"What?" Still that strangely soft voice, and Wilson finally found it in
himself to straighten and turn to look at him. 

"Not here. I'll talk to you, but not here."

"All right." House looked like he might have said more, but instead he
flicked his gaze down at the floor briefly and then back up before
lowering his cane and pushing off the wall. When he spoke again, something
of his earlier lightness was back in his voice. "My place or yours?"

The words sent a little shiver down Wilson's spine despite everything. He
closed his eyes for a second and considered the urge to retreat into the
relative safety of his own space--except at this stage it still barely
qualified as that. And if worst came to worst, it was easier to walk out
of someone else's home than it was to throw someone out of your own.

"Yours," Wilson said, and opened his eyes just in time to catch the brief
look of surprise on House's face before he smoothed it away into a
controlled mask again.

"Okay," House said, and unblocked the door.




They got looks exiting the restaurant. Wilson avoided meeting everyone's
eyes and prayed none of these people ever ended up in the clinic, or worse
yet, needed an oncologist. He also made a mental note to never eat there
ever again, which was a shame; the meal itself, or at least what he could
remember of it around his massive sexual identity crisis, had been
excellent.

The car ride back to House's place was not the most awkward thing he'd
ever endured, or even in the top five most awkward things, but he'd been a
geek in high school and being married three times also meant three
different sets of in-laws, which probably had a lot to do with it. There
were a lot of uncomfortable silences and sidelong looks, but the good
thing about what had just happened was it had gotten his libido to ease
back and behave itself a little, and so he didn't spend the whole trip
thinking that for the Corvette to really be christened as House's, they
ought to have sex in it. Not the whole trip, no--just selected bits of it.

And come to think of it, House in black and red would look really good
sprawled out across the car's hood.... No. He wasn't going to think about
that. His libido was not driving. House's libido was driving, and clearly
he was in a lot better control of it. Maybe. Hopefully.

Wilson didn't know what significance, if any, to attach to the fact that
pulling up to House's back door felt like coming home, or the way that
stepping inside made him relax somehow, even with the unspoken state of
affairs hanging between them. He also wasn't sure if he wanted to think
too hard about that, either; he had enough on his plate at the moment.

There was a moment of awkward silence, the two of them standing beside the
door and doing that not meeting each other's eyes thing again, before
House abruptly asked, "Want a beer?"

"I think I'm better off doing this sober," Wilson admitted.

House made a faint noise that might have been agreement and headed through
the kitchen towards the living room, pausing on the threshold long enough
to peel off his jacket and toss it, with a faint rattle of the
pill-bottle, across the back of the sofa. Wilson followed a little more
slowly, but it felt stupid to keep his jacket on when House had his off,
and so his suit coat ended up on the back of the sofa as well, dark gray
against black. 

He was noticing color contrasts more tonight for some reason.

House ended up seated on the piano bench, facing him, which right there
said something, because that was his comfort zone. Back when Wilson had
told him he was getting divorced from Julie, House had sat there the whole
time, occasionally playing a single note or two to punctuate the
conversation, and the hairs on Wilson's arms had nearly stood up when he
finally placed the eerie familiarity of it: House had done the same thing
when Wilson had told him he was going to ask Julie to marry him. This time
he locked both his hands around the handle of his cane, and Wilson was
grateful; House played beautifully, but those one or two note
counterpoints to the discussion were horrible on his nerves.

The silence stretched. Wilson stood somewhat awkwardly in the middle of
the room, hands in his pockets, and looked at House, or more accurately
looked at the leg of the bench House was sitting on. House looked at him,
and the fact that he was really looking at him had a lot to do with the
reason Wilson was looking at the piano bench.

"Well?" House finally asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I--" Wilson began, then broke off and licked his lips.

"You said you'd talk," House pointed out.

Wilson gave him a somewhat resentful look. "You're usually better at
this."

"I'm usually not--" House began, then broke off and stared away for a
minute.

"Not what?"

"You talk. Your issues. That was the deal."

"I'm not so sure our issues separate out that neatly."

There was a pause and then House gave a ghost of a laugh, smiling faintly
and looking back up at him. "I usually don't care that much. You--" He
paused again, then took a deep breath and finished, staring intently at
Wilson's knees. "You matter."

The warm rush of pleasure that caused was entirely unexpected, and enough
that Wilson finally found it in himself to try sitting down in a nearby
chair. House turned on his bench to follow the movement. But even seated,
Wilson wasn't sure how to explain this, because he wasn't sure he
understood it, either.

"Should I begin?" House finally said, after a minute.

"I.... No. I just need to...." He paused and tipped his head back, staring
at the ceiling.

"You have to know that everybody likes you," House pointed out, in his
most reasonable tone.

"Of course I know that. I--" He sighed again and looked back at House.
"The thing is, they don't. Everyone I've ever known who liked me has done
it because of... all that. The fact that I'm attractive, and nice, and
successful, and... the good guy." All he could think of now was when he'd
told Julie he was leaving her, and she'd spit something about how a third
divorce was going to make him look, and he'd finally realized he didn't
care about that anymore. That it didn't really matter. It had been
simultaneously terrifying and liberating. "I don't know if any of them
ever actually like me for anything but those things. Or if, once you took
all of that away, they'd vanish too."

There was another silence, and Wilson found himself staring at the rug.
House finally broke it with, "Except me."

"Except you," Wilson agreed, and felt another degree of tension slip out
of his body. "I...." He swallowed, and took a deep breath, and admitted,
"I want you." It was surprisingly easy, all things considered. "But I want
you to want me for more than just...."

House's smile was wry. "Not just another pretty face?"

"It seems kind of stupid, doesn't it."

The smile slowly slid away as House's eyes stayed on him. "No, it
doesn't," he finally said, quietly, before levering himself up and moving
over to perch on the arm of Wilson's chair. House gave him another long,
searching look, and Wilson found himself wondering how he'd managed to go
this long without acknowledging the way those blue eyes made his pulse
speed up. Then House leaned in and kissed him again, gently and softly;
Wilson's eyes drifted closed, but House lingered only for a moment before
pulling back.

"It was never about that for me," House told him, from just inches away.
Wilson kept his eyes shut and took a second to just enjoy what this felt
like, inhaling the breath House exhaled, the warmth and closeness of it,
and how it somehow felt more intimate than their body-to-body kissing in
the bathroom earlier.

He knew that it couldn't last, and it didn't, because House leaned back
and pushed to his feet again, hobbling across the room to what Wilson
couldn't help but think of as the protective distance of the couch. "This
is still a bad idea," House told him, along the way. 

If he got up to follow him, House might end up trying to bolt even
farther, so Wilson just leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands
between his knees and tracking House with his eyes. He waited until House
was seated to say, "I still say we've had worse."

House's expression was unreadable, and he studied the floor for a long
second before looking up and asking, "Do you know how this will end?"

"What says it has to?" Wilson challenged him.

House looked briefly exasperated before looking away again. Wilson
couldn't help noticing that his arms were crossed loosely over his
stomach, for all the way the rest of his posture was trying to imitate a
sprawl. "My luck. Your history. Both our sets of respective issues. The
odds. My bitterness. Your loneliness. The way I push people away and you
can't seem to help drawing them near. My--"

"Stop," Wilson said, flatly, closing his eyes against the litany.

House did, for a minute, before continuing, in an almost gentle voice.
"The point is... this can't work."

Wilson opened his eyes and met House's stare head on. "You don't know
that."

House continued as if he hadn't spoken, gaze turned inward. "And when it
falls apart, neither of us will have the temperament to go on from there
in any way approaching civil. It'll be a disaster and one of us will have
to move to Detroit."

Wilson couldn't help a small smile at that, and offered, "I think we might
be able to get away with Pittsburgh."

House gave him an equally small smile back, but with a lot more bitterness
to it. "No, definitely Detroit at the least. And that's only if it goes
fairly well; there are some scenarios that end with one of us moving out
of the country."

"I think you're exaggerating," Wilson said.

"Or else you just want to think that. You always go into relationships
telling yourself that it'll work out, that this time it'll be the one. The
only difference is, this time I know I'm not the one, and I'm not afraid
to tell you that," House countered, voice almost painfully even.

And he had a point, Wilson had to admit: he did do that. He just didn't
think he was doing it this time, and besides, there was another thing in
what House had said that was worth looking at. "But you are afraid. Of
this. Of what could happen if it did work."

There was a pause, and then House asked, quietly, "Aren't you?"

Which was... simultaneously the most wrong and the most right thing anyone
had ever said to him. Because there it was: the only thing more
frightening than the possibility that this wouldn't work was the
possibility that it would. That this really could be the rest of his life,
because he'd never planned on anything like this; it wasn't on the map.

But then, neither had been those three divorces, and looking at it now, a
lot of the stuff Wilson had planned for... didn't have the same value it
once had. It was the normal stuff, the stuff you were supposed to want,
and until Wilson had met House he'd never once questioned that they were
things worth having. Except House had never seemed to consider them as
such, and had provided a completely different list of things to value, to
work for. The honest, if grudging, respect of his peers, rather than the
insincere respect he got because they felt they had to give it. The
knowledge that he'd done the absolute best job he was capable of in any
sense, rather than just the formality of a job fairly well done and then
praised far beyond what it deserved. The thrill of taking a risk, daring
to take a chance, and seeing it pay off, rather than staying in the
careful bounds of safe perfectionism. Having friends who liked you so
deeply they stayed your friend even when they wanted to throttle you,
rather than friends who only knew you on such a shallow level that they'd
never encountered anything that would make them even feel put-off, much
less homicidal. Living, in the now and in the moment, rather than just
being good for some nebulous future payoff that might or might not happen.
Because this was not a test, none of this was a test, so everything that
you did now mattered; this moment, this heartbeat, had as much value as
the ones you'd have fifty years from now, and should be used and lived to
its fullest potential.

And put that way, suddenly Wilson had never wanted anything more in his
life. 

He found himself grinning, which was worth it just for the, 'Okay, what
the hell?' look that crossed House's face in response. "Am I afraid?
Terrified. But I wouldn't pass up the opportunity for anything." House's
stare got a little more blatant and Wilson added, "I mean that."

House rolled his eyes. "Did they drug the pasta?"

Wilson was still grinning as he got up. "You'd better hope not. You had
some too--in fact, the way you were stealing my shrimp, I think you had
slightly more." He crossed the room and settled down on the couch beside
House, who gave him a look halfway between longing and fear.

"I'm not lying to myself, House," Wilson told him. "I'm not expecting some
fairy-tale romance and happy ending. I think a lot of the time it's going
to suck, because you're frankly a bastard and I have... my own issues. But
on the other hand...." He reached out and took one of House's hands,
pulling it away from his body; House only hesitated a moment before he let
go, and Wilson gently uncurled House's fingers, leaving his hand palm-open
and face up before Wilson planted a brief kiss in the middle. The fingers
on House's other hand tightened where they were still wrapped around his
body, Wilson noticed, but he ignored that in favor of meeting House's
doubtful gaze with a steady one of his own. "Are you going to tell me it's
not worth it?"

House smiled slightly, but it still had that bitter edge. "You're not
going to take no for an answer, are you."

Wilson hesitated a moment, looking down. "If you honestly tell me that you
don't want this.... I'll leave. And we can... try to go back to the way
things were." It hung unspoken between them how unlikely it was that the
attempt would be successful. "But...." He met House's eyes squarely again.
"You've always told me you never lie. Well?"

House looked at him for a long moment, eyes starting out wide and
searching and then slowly narrowing. "Oh, hell," he finally said, and
grabbed Wilson by the shoulders, dragging him into another entirely
willing liplock.

Grinning into the kiss, Wilson decided he could get very used to becoming
more regularly acquainted with House's tongue. In fact, half-sprawled
against House as he was, he was deciding there were a lot of other things
he could get used to as well. His hand started out braced on House's good
thigh, but when he managed to shift around enough to regain his balance,
it seemed the perfectly reasonable thing to do to move his hand both in
and up, and introduce himself with a handshake to a whole new portion of
House's anatomy, which seemed very happy to meet him. House jerked out of
their kiss with a gasp that turned into a moan as Wilson continued his
exploration, and he found himself smiling at that expression, mentally
deciding to try and get House to make it again as often as possible.

In fact, pulling back slightly so he could study the view further, Wilson
decided there needed to be a guidebook for this sort of thing, because
there really ought to be a word for the moment in an ongoing sexual
identity revelation when you went from merely being attracted to another
man to actively wanting to do something physical and never before
contemplated with said man. Like how right now Wilson found himself
wanting to drop to his knees, pin House's hips to the couch with his
hands, and proceed to find out if giving a blowjob was as easy as some
girlfriends had made it look, or as difficult as other ones had. In case
it was the latter, though, he decided to forgo it for right now; there
would be other times, even if he had a sneaking suspicion that House could
make a great new fashion statement by wearing that open red shirt, a black
t-shirt, a flushed erection, and nothing else.

Just not necessarily one fit for public viewing.

"You know," House pointed out, leaning back on the couch and baring the
line of his neck in what Wilson found an irresistible invitation, "we
still haven't worked out that who's on top thing...."

"You always have to complicate things," Wilson muttered into the skin of
his jawline.

"Part of my charm," House murmured, lazily rocking his hips up into the
pressure of Wilson's hands. "Hey," he added after a pause, "Do you think
you could still try that wearing only a sandwich board thing?"

Wilson stopped what he was doing and gave House a long stare. "You realize
you're weird, right?"

House gave him a lopsided smile. "Weird works for me."


*** 
Coda 
***

While the fallout from that particular night theoretically stretched on
for years, what Wilson considered the last really big impact from it came
five weeks later, when he turned around at the counter in clinic one day
and found himself confronting a strangely familiar pair of breasts. 

When he finally raised his attention up from the cleavage, which was
encased in a nice white blouse and dark red suit coat with a nametag
reading, "Dr. Charmaine Larue," Wilson found himself meeting a very
familiar, sardonically amused pair of dark eyes.

"Oh God," he said, without even thinking, "tell me you don't work here."

Her smile was every bit as good as he remembered even with less makeup and
a professional setting, which was what had thrown him for a minute; he
hadn't quite recognized the attack breasts out of their natural habitat.
They camouflaged surprisingly well. "No," she said, and the purring,
porn-inspiring quality of her voice was surprisingly absent, leaving it
brisk and fairly impersonal. "I just got called in on a consult and
couldn't quite resist saying hi when I saw you. Plus I also wanted to put
to rest the idea you might have had that I was stalking you or
something--I just happened to see the two of you together the last time I
was here, and asked." Her smile briefly got wry. "And was assured there
was nothing going on. Nice cover you've got going--God knows how you
maintain it."

She was a lot more reasonable when separated off from the rest of her
pack, clearly. "Um... thanks, I suppose." She raised her eyebrows at him
for a minute, and Wilson found himself unable to help asking, "You're
really a--"

He got interrupted from two directions at once. House's arrival was
slightly worthy of deja vu, except for the fact he didn't go so far, here
at work, as to slide an arm around Wilson's waist; Wilson wiggled slightly
away from him anyway, on general principle. From the other direction,
Cuddy appeared, and she and House spent a long second staring inscrutably
at each other, having one of their silent conversations that even sleeping
with House hadn't gotten him any closer to deciphering.

Whatever the hell they communicated, they broke out of it at almost the
same moment, Cuddy turning towards Dr. Larue and House turning towards
Wilson. 

"So, you about done here?" House asked him in an undertone, indicating
with a slight tilt of his head and flick of his eyes that the question was
about the sudden reappearance of the smoldering breasts in the hospital,
rather than Wilson's clinic duty.

At the same time, much louder, Cuddy said, "Dr. Larue, thank you so much
for your help. Is there anything else we can do for you before you go?"

There was a brief pause, during which Wilson met Dr. Larue's eyes and saw
the same, slightly bemused expression in them that he suspected had to be
in his own.

"On second thought, maybe it was for the best," she told him, grinning
slightly. "I don't know if I could take dealing with this on a regular
basis. You two..." her grin got wider and her eyes briefly burned with a
familiar wicked light, "have fun. Not that I have any doubts that you'd do
that anyway." She flashed one more grin at them, and then turned around
and sauntered out of the clinic, with the three of them staring after her.

"There goes a pair of breasts as great as any I have ever seen," House
said, watching her go. Cuddy turned towards him with raised eyebrows and a
faintly incredulous expression, and House gave her a falsely apologetic
look in return. "Yes, sorry, including yours." He paused a second and eyed
the line of her blouse. "Though it's close."

Wilson rolled his eyes and briefly looked away; he'd never really taken
this seriously even before he and House had gotten together, and wasn't
about to start now. They had enough problems without pointless jealousy.

Cuddy's faint snort seemed to agree with his assessment of House's
sincerity, anyway. "So do you two want to tell me what that was about?"

Wilson suddenly became very interested in studying the file-folders, but
House just grinned casually at her. "She strike you as the persistent
type?"

Cuddy's raised eyebrows conveyed a, 'Yes, and?' that even Wilson could
read.

"Well, she is," House continued on. "Was going all single-girl-hunter-mode
on poor Jimmy here while he was still in post-divorce weakness." Wilson
rolled his eyes, but let House run with it. "So we pretended to be
involved to get her to leave him alone."

Cuddy's eyes widened and her eyebrows went back up; mentally, Wilson filed
the expression away for a rainy day. It wasn't the most incredulous look
he'd ever seen her give House, but it probably ranked in the top ten. "And
this... worked?"

"Well... yeah," House said, as thought it was blatantly obvious.

Cuddy's eyes cut between the two of them before she took a very deep
breath and added, "And... there's really nothing."

"All an act, I swear," House told her, all bright-eyed innocence and
enthusiasm, which just made her roll her eyes and turn to Wilson, who gave
her an uncomfortable little smile and shrug.

"Well, it did work," he told her.

She paused, gave them one more dubious look, and then walked away, a hand
pressed to her temple and a faint mutter of, "No, I don't actually want to
know," trailing behind her.

They watched her go, and then turned and stared at each other for a long
moment.

"Well, it was true at the time," House offered.

Wilson smiled, shook his head, and headed for the door.

  
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