Fanfic: Scenes from a Friendship
Title: Scenes from a Marriage Friendship
Characters/Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2011
Spoilers: None
Author's Notes: I'm struggling with the dynamics of a longer fic that jumped me while I was TRYING to write something short, and I needed a distraction. This happened. I was going to try for a higher-rated piece, but, well, you'll see what those bastards did to my attempt at smut. Ended up in unmitigated fluff, I'm afraid, with a little Wilson-angst for the sadists in the room ;) Un-beta'd, but spellchecked. Aussie spelling again.
Do you know I watch you?
Only when you're not looking, but...I wouldn't be astonished to find out that you know.
I feel...disloyal, if I'm not keeping an eye out for your best interests.
Even when they go against my own.
I know you see me looking at you. Our eyes meet, and eons could pass while we exchange information that no one else knows about. So I know you see me looking. I just don't know if you know how much I watch you.
Looking isn't the same as watching.
Sometimes I think you can see inside my head, when you look at me. Your glance is so sharp it pierces my skull and splits me open to be read, absorbed, known...every inch of me exposed to you. But maybe I'm imagining it. Maybe I'm safe behind the walls of familiarity and friendship.
I push you away even as I cling to you. I couldn't live without you. Wouldn't live without you. If I lost you, I too would be lost. But I can't let you get too close. We can't take that last step towards each other. I can't reach out and grab, as much as I might want to.
If you love something, set it free. If it doesn't return, it was never really yours.
You keep coming back, but I keep letting you go.
Perhaps you're like a bird, seeming tame as long as I cast you crumbs, but fleeing forever if I try to grab you, hold you.
God, how I want to hold you. Even under the guise of friendship, that would almost be enough.
We circle each other, like dancers, never touching as we pass. But I can't tell if you're aware of the patterns we make, or if it's just chance.
Are you circling me, as I circle you? Are you watching me too? Am I imagining this byplay of words, of looks, of moments that I think we share? Do you mean what I want you to mean? Am I reading too much into meaningless things?
Do you love me, as I love you?
Not that it matters.
Best buddies, that's all. All we can say, all I can lay claim to. All you'll ever admit to.
But I'll take what I can get. More than I deserve, even if it's less than I could wish for.
Best friends. No more.
*****
"Paging Dr Wilson?"
His friend's voice breaks through his reverie.
"Huh?"
"Penny for your thoughts? You were miles away."
Ah, curiousity...your good old reliable vice. Good thing I know how to keep a little mystery in a relationship...
"If you offered me a penny, I think I'd have to give you change."
A raised eyebrow in response. Thinking of nothing? With that look on your face?
"No, really, I think I'm just tired."
"Of course you're tired, Boy Wonder Oncologists always work too hard for their own good. It goes with the job description. Along with the cape."
Rolled eyes, but no reply. That's right, laugh it up...
"Chinese?"
Well that was a non sequitur...
"What?"
"You wander off again in there, did you? I'll elaborate, for the hard of thinking, and this time I'll speak slowly, just for you. Do, you, want, Chinese, food, for, dinner?"
Ah, the Jimmy Wilson patented look of exasperation...and it's all my own work!
"Fine. But I'm not paying this time." And isn't that an empty threat... "And you can provide the beer."
"If I pay for the beer, you have to pay for the Chinese."
I'd rather pay for the part that gets you drunk and stops you wandering off inside your own head. And refusing to tell me what you're thinking about. Maybe I can even get you to 'fess up if I slip a little vodka into your beer...
"I just said I wasn't paying." Always an empty threat...
"Come on, I'll make the call and we can pick it up on the way to my place."
"I'm not riding that death trap of a bike of yours." Too close, too near, too much, right now.
"Of course not, you're driving so you have somewhere to put the Chinese food after you pay for it." And so I don't have to feel you flinch away from the cripple. No, that's unkind, you would never flinch from a cripple. So I don't have to feel you flinch away from me...
A sigh. Relenting, as always.
"Fine, you make the call and I'll see you back at your place. You'd better have a beer waiting for me when I get there."
Ready, waiting, and seriously spiked...
*****
He doesn't even have to knock before the door swings open and warmth floods out into the night. The bags of food are gone and a beer is in his hand before he even gets across the threshold. He puts the bottle on a shelf near the door and laughs as he takes his coat off.
"At least give me a chance to get inside before you start trying to get me drunk!"
You don't know the half of it...
"I'm already one ahead of you, you'd better hurry up or you'll get left behind."
"We're making drinking a competitive sport now?"
"Of course! I'm in training for the next Olympics. It's only going to be an exhibition sport for now, but we have serious hopes of making it official for 2012."
They sit, and the bags are torn open with reckless abandon, containers spread across the table as favourites are dug out and claimed, fought over and stolen from.
"Hey, you don't even like kung pao chicken!"
Through a mouthful of illicit chicken, "Doesn't taste half bad when it's someone else's."
Bottles collect on the floor, and it's not until House has gone to the kitchen to collect them three times that Wilson starts to wonder at this uncharacteristic generosity. And his own oddly advanced state of inebriation.
"Is it my imagination, or are you not as drunk as I am?"
"You're just a lightweight, Jimmy, you'll never make the team at this rate!"
"Please. What is it, you're watering yours down? You're pouring some of it away? No, you'd never waste booze...you're slipping something into mine?"
Even a poker face can slip when it's trying to hide that level of smug glee.
"You're spiking my beer now?? It's not enough that you make me pay for the Chinese, then steal half of mine, now you're trying to get me trashed?" and why? Why are you trying to get me trashed?
"Perhaps I just thought you needed to relax?"
"Relax? I was drifting off standing up earlier, and you think I need to relax?"
They're laughing now, laughing like idiots, and they're not entirely sure why. Laughing because spiking beer with more alcohol seems so silly, now that they're both wrapped in the warm glow of the secreted spirits...because House did want to get Wilson drunk, but that didn't mean he wanted to let him have all the fun. Laughing at each other and at themselves.
Wilson tries to stand up, but, four beers and four vodkas down (only three vodkas ahead of House, but it's enough), doesn't make it very far, and he's back on the couch beside his friend, and now they're leaning on each other and laughing, and laughing till the tears run down their cheeks.
The laughter subsides but they stay as they are, propped against each other. Now and then, House chuckles, and that makes Wilson giggle, and they're both feeling loose and drained of the tension that colours their days at the hospital. Wilson is warm against House's arm, but he's heavy, and House feels his own elbow being pressed into his side. Without thinking, he lifts his arm and lets his friend fall against him, and his arm fall back to drape over Wilson's shoulders.
He's lying against his friend and, he realises in a moment of strange clarity, there's a strong arm around his shoulders and a head leaning against his. He almost tenses up, but long years of practice and repression and out and out lying have almost cured him of awkwardness, even in moments like this. He can be awkward in conversation, or when caught out, but these moments are special, to be treasured, and he's trained himself to stay calm, let them last, not tense up and give the game away. His only weakness now is the bike. He can't stay calm on the bike, and it's not just the sight of the ground rushing past at blinding speeds. It's the intimacy, the closeness of that contact, and the thrum of the engine between his thighs, and the sheer terror that he'll give himself away involuntarily like that. But this moment he can hold to. Lock up the memory like a precious stone, like a fire in the darkness, to keep him warm through lonely nights.
He has his arm around his friend and it feels comfortable and easy. No flinching now, and smugness again fills his body to the brim. A few (extra) drinks, and the tension, the careful distance that appeared between them the only time they'd been pushed this close together before, when he'd offered Wilson a ride on the bike, was gone. A drowsy and satisfied smile flits across his face. But he can't let things lie.
"So what were you thinking about, before?"
"I told you, nothing." Mumbled, quiet, but he's too relaxed to worry about the questioning.
"Let's just take it as read that you've lied to me, and I haven't believed you, and move on from the part where you tell me the truth." The words are caustic, but the tone is gently teasing.
Another sigh. He wonders if you can run out of sighs. And, if there's a quota, how many of his he's used up like this.
"Friendship." Only half a lie...
"Really?" That's only half of the truth...
"Really."
"Didn't look like happy thoughts to me."
"Thoughts about friendship have to be happy?" Let it drop, oh, let it go...
"You'd want to hope so."
"You've never worried about a friend?"
"Of course, but worrying about a friend doesn't qualify as thinking about friendship."
Yet another sigh. He'll run out, the way things are going.
"Do we have to have this conversation? Does it really matter?"
The tone of quiet despair is enough to make his heart ache, and he lifts his head from where it rests against his friend's, and turns to plant an apologetic kiss on the soft brown hair he's been using as a pillow.
Only when he's drunk, perhaps not as drunk as Wilson, but drunk all the same, and with the added bonus of the vicodin, would he do something like that. Or sit like this, their bodies pressed together, not quite fitting together, but curved around each other. He's glad he's drunk, because this feels good. Feels right.
"Friendship always matters." He whispers it through the fine curtain of hair. Words he wouldn't speak aloud anywhere else, or with anyone else.
The hair is gone, replaced by a face as James turns to look at him, head tilted sharply so their eyes can meet. He's so close, House feels his breath on his skin, warm and damp.
But he doesn't say anything. He just looks at him, like he's just discovered the holy grail, or better yet, a cure for cancer. The intensity of Wilson's regard makes the hairs rise on the back of his neck, but he's not quite sure why.
Finally he breaks the silence.
"Yes," out on a breath, that House feels on his lips. "Friendship always matters."
He's not quite sure what's just happened, but James turns back and rests his head on his shoulder again, and closes his eyes, as though they've just come to some kind of agreement on the future of the universe, or discovered some arcane, deep truth, some knowledge that can change the world.
Perhaps, he reflects, they have.
Characters/Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2011
Spoilers: None
Author's Notes: I'm struggling with the dynamics of a longer fic that jumped me while I was TRYING to write something short, and I needed a distraction. This happened. I was going to try for a higher-rated piece, but, well, you'll see what those bastards did to my attempt at smut. Ended up in unmitigated fluff, I'm afraid, with a little Wilson-angst for the sadists in the room ;) Un-beta'd, but spellchecked. Aussie spelling again.
Do you know I watch you?
Only when you're not looking, but...I wouldn't be astonished to find out that you know.
I feel...disloyal, if I'm not keeping an eye out for your best interests.
Even when they go against my own.
I know you see me looking at you. Our eyes meet, and eons could pass while we exchange information that no one else knows about. So I know you see me looking. I just don't know if you know how much I watch you.
Looking isn't the same as watching.
Sometimes I think you can see inside my head, when you look at me. Your glance is so sharp it pierces my skull and splits me open to be read, absorbed, known...every inch of me exposed to you. But maybe I'm imagining it. Maybe I'm safe behind the walls of familiarity and friendship.
I push you away even as I cling to you. I couldn't live without you. Wouldn't live without you. If I lost you, I too would be lost. But I can't let you get too close. We can't take that last step towards each other. I can't reach out and grab, as much as I might want to.
If you love something, set it free. If it doesn't return, it was never really yours.
You keep coming back, but I keep letting you go.
Perhaps you're like a bird, seeming tame as long as I cast you crumbs, but fleeing forever if I try to grab you, hold you.
God, how I want to hold you. Even under the guise of friendship, that would almost be enough.
We circle each other, like dancers, never touching as we pass. But I can't tell if you're aware of the patterns we make, or if it's just chance.
Are you circling me, as I circle you? Are you watching me too? Am I imagining this byplay of words, of looks, of moments that I think we share? Do you mean what I want you to mean? Am I reading too much into meaningless things?
Do you love me, as I love you?
Not that it matters.
Best buddies, that's all. All we can say, all I can lay claim to. All you'll ever admit to.
But I'll take what I can get. More than I deserve, even if it's less than I could wish for.
Best friends. No more.
*****
"Paging Dr Wilson?"
His friend's voice breaks through his reverie.
"Huh?"
"Penny for your thoughts? You were miles away."
Ah, curiousity...your good old reliable vice. Good thing I know how to keep a little mystery in a relationship...
"If you offered me a penny, I think I'd have to give you change."
A raised eyebrow in response. Thinking of nothing? With that look on your face?
"No, really, I think I'm just tired."
"Of course you're tired, Boy Wonder Oncologists always work too hard for their own good. It goes with the job description. Along with the cape."
Rolled eyes, but no reply. That's right, laugh it up...
"Chinese?"
Well that was a non sequitur...
"What?"
"You wander off again in there, did you? I'll elaborate, for the hard of thinking, and this time I'll speak slowly, just for you. Do, you, want, Chinese, food, for, dinner?"
Ah, the Jimmy Wilson patented look of exasperation...and it's all my own work!
"Fine. But I'm not paying this time." And isn't that an empty threat... "And you can provide the beer."
"If I pay for the beer, you have to pay for the Chinese."
I'd rather pay for the part that gets you drunk and stops you wandering off inside your own head. And refusing to tell me what you're thinking about. Maybe I can even get you to 'fess up if I slip a little vodka into your beer...
"I just said I wasn't paying." Always an empty threat...
"Come on, I'll make the call and we can pick it up on the way to my place."
"I'm not riding that death trap of a bike of yours." Too close, too near, too much, right now.
"Of course not, you're driving so you have somewhere to put the Chinese food after you pay for it." And so I don't have to feel you flinch away from the cripple. No, that's unkind, you would never flinch from a cripple. So I don't have to feel you flinch away from me...
A sigh. Relenting, as always.
"Fine, you make the call and I'll see you back at your place. You'd better have a beer waiting for me when I get there."
Ready, waiting, and seriously spiked...
*****
He doesn't even have to knock before the door swings open and warmth floods out into the night. The bags of food are gone and a beer is in his hand before he even gets across the threshold. He puts the bottle on a shelf near the door and laughs as he takes his coat off.
"At least give me a chance to get inside before you start trying to get me drunk!"
You don't know the half of it...
"I'm already one ahead of you, you'd better hurry up or you'll get left behind."
"We're making drinking a competitive sport now?"
"Of course! I'm in training for the next Olympics. It's only going to be an exhibition sport for now, but we have serious hopes of making it official for 2012."
They sit, and the bags are torn open with reckless abandon, containers spread across the table as favourites are dug out and claimed, fought over and stolen from.
"Hey, you don't even like kung pao chicken!"
Through a mouthful of illicit chicken, "Doesn't taste half bad when it's someone else's."
Bottles collect on the floor, and it's not until House has gone to the kitchen to collect them three times that Wilson starts to wonder at this uncharacteristic generosity. And his own oddly advanced state of inebriation.
"Is it my imagination, or are you not as drunk as I am?"
"You're just a lightweight, Jimmy, you'll never make the team at this rate!"
"Please. What is it, you're watering yours down? You're pouring some of it away? No, you'd never waste booze...you're slipping something into mine?"
Even a poker face can slip when it's trying to hide that level of smug glee.
"You're spiking my beer now?? It's not enough that you make me pay for the Chinese, then steal half of mine, now you're trying to get me trashed?" and why? Why are you trying to get me trashed?
"Perhaps I just thought you needed to relax?"
"Relax? I was drifting off standing up earlier, and you think I need to relax?"
They're laughing now, laughing like idiots, and they're not entirely sure why. Laughing because spiking beer with more alcohol seems so silly, now that they're both wrapped in the warm glow of the secreted spirits...because House did want to get Wilson drunk, but that didn't mean he wanted to let him have all the fun. Laughing at each other and at themselves.
Wilson tries to stand up, but, four beers and four vodkas down (only three vodkas ahead of House, but it's enough), doesn't make it very far, and he's back on the couch beside his friend, and now they're leaning on each other and laughing, and laughing till the tears run down their cheeks.
The laughter subsides but they stay as they are, propped against each other. Now and then, House chuckles, and that makes Wilson giggle, and they're both feeling loose and drained of the tension that colours their days at the hospital. Wilson is warm against House's arm, but he's heavy, and House feels his own elbow being pressed into his side. Without thinking, he lifts his arm and lets his friend fall against him, and his arm fall back to drape over Wilson's shoulders.
He's lying against his friend and, he realises in a moment of strange clarity, there's a strong arm around his shoulders and a head leaning against his. He almost tenses up, but long years of practice and repression and out and out lying have almost cured him of awkwardness, even in moments like this. He can be awkward in conversation, or when caught out, but these moments are special, to be treasured, and he's trained himself to stay calm, let them last, not tense up and give the game away. His only weakness now is the bike. He can't stay calm on the bike, and it's not just the sight of the ground rushing past at blinding speeds. It's the intimacy, the closeness of that contact, and the thrum of the engine between his thighs, and the sheer terror that he'll give himself away involuntarily like that. But this moment he can hold to. Lock up the memory like a precious stone, like a fire in the darkness, to keep him warm through lonely nights.
He has his arm around his friend and it feels comfortable and easy. No flinching now, and smugness again fills his body to the brim. A few (extra) drinks, and the tension, the careful distance that appeared between them the only time they'd been pushed this close together before, when he'd offered Wilson a ride on the bike, was gone. A drowsy and satisfied smile flits across his face. But he can't let things lie.
"So what were you thinking about, before?"
"I told you, nothing." Mumbled, quiet, but he's too relaxed to worry about the questioning.
"Let's just take it as read that you've lied to me, and I haven't believed you, and move on from the part where you tell me the truth." The words are caustic, but the tone is gently teasing.
Another sigh. He wonders if you can run out of sighs. And, if there's a quota, how many of his he's used up like this.
"Friendship." Only half a lie...
"Really?" That's only half of the truth...
"Really."
"Didn't look like happy thoughts to me."
"Thoughts about friendship have to be happy?" Let it drop, oh, let it go...
"You'd want to hope so."
"You've never worried about a friend?"
"Of course, but worrying about a friend doesn't qualify as thinking about friendship."
Yet another sigh. He'll run out, the way things are going.
"Do we have to have this conversation? Does it really matter?"
The tone of quiet despair is enough to make his heart ache, and he lifts his head from where it rests against his friend's, and turns to plant an apologetic kiss on the soft brown hair he's been using as a pillow.
Only when he's drunk, perhaps not as drunk as Wilson, but drunk all the same, and with the added bonus of the vicodin, would he do something like that. Or sit like this, their bodies pressed together, not quite fitting together, but curved around each other. He's glad he's drunk, because this feels good. Feels right.
"Friendship always matters." He whispers it through the fine curtain of hair. Words he wouldn't speak aloud anywhere else, or with anyone else.
The hair is gone, replaced by a face as James turns to look at him, head tilted sharply so their eyes can meet. He's so close, House feels his breath on his skin, warm and damp.
But he doesn't say anything. He just looks at him, like he's just discovered the holy grail, or better yet, a cure for cancer. The intensity of Wilson's regard makes the hairs rise on the back of his neck, but he's not quite sure why.
Finally he breaks the silence.
"Yes," out on a breath, that House feels on his lips. "Friendship always matters."
He's not quite sure what's just happened, but James turns back and rests his head on his shoulder again, and closes his eyes, as though they've just come to some kind of agreement on the future of the universe, or discovered some arcane, deep truth, some knowledge that can change the world.
Perhaps, he reflects, they have.