FIC: What's Past, 2/2
That night, he drove around for an hour or so, trying to find something that sounded even reasonably good for dinner. Eventually, he decided on Chinese, and drove to House's condo and let himself in. House looked up from the couch. "Hey," he said.
Wilson nodded. He didn't know what to say, now that he was there. He wasn't ready for the meaningful talk, not yet. That was the beauty of House; he could put it off forever, if he wanted to. "You eat yet?"
"I could eat again," House said.
Wilson tossed House his cell phone. "Get some extra lo-mein," he said, hanging up his coat.
He went to House's bathroom and took a long, hot shower. He thought, for the first time in two days, about his own patients. He thought about paperwork he needed to do. He needed to call his mother. He needed, really, to get back to the normal, happy world that he'd had before Karl Nathanson had shown up.
Wilson got out and toweled off, then found some clothes from House's bedroom that he could wear. House had moved to the far end of the couch, and Wilson sat on the other side, still rubbing a towel through his hair.
"So," House said. He waited for a moment, but Wilson didn't feel a need to make this any easier on him. He was curious, in a masochistic way, to see where House might go. "How was your day, dear?"
Wilson shot him what he hoped was a good, nasty look.
"Well, you're here," House said, "so I'm guessing I don't need to sleep with one eye open." Wilson concentrated on drying his hair. "What did he tell you, exactly?"
He let the towel drape around his shoulders. "Let's see if I've got it right. You two were lovers. For a while. Two years?"
House shifted. He looked very uncomfortable, and Wilson liked it. "Closer to three," he said.
Wilson nodded. "You broke up around the time that I started at Princeton and, according to him, I was part of the reason. He said he was jealous of the way you and I 'clicked.'"
House took a short breath. "You weren't the reason," he said.
"Oh no?"
"You were - a catalyst," he said, finally, his voice uneasy.
Wilson shook his head. "Ten years ago, Greg," he said.
They sat in silence, for a bit, and Wilson could almost feel House getting tenser beside him. Finally, Wilson said, "What else haven't you told me?"
"How can I even answer that?" House asked. "What exactly do you want?"
Wilson shrugged. "I want you to stop sabotaging my reality with your fucked up past." House snorted. "I want to know that I'm not going to get blindsided by stuff like this again."
"If I'd thought there was really a chance -"
"Oh, bullshit!" Wilson was surprised to be angry. He'd been pretty blank until now, but suddenly his face was hot and his ears were ringing. "You had all week to tell me. At any point when I was talking about Nathanson, you could have said, 'And by the way, we used to be lovers.'"
"I didn't think he was going to tell you," House said. He'd warmed into his usual tone of righteousness, which made Wilson want to throttle him. "I didn't think he wanted you - anyone - to know. I couldn't just out him."
"Of course not," Wilson said. "You can't even out yourself." He dropped his head into his hands, ran his fingers through his wet hair. "Christ, House, I've spent this whole time thinking you'd never even been with another man."
"I never said -"
"It was implied," Wilson argued. House looked at him blankly. "You asked for directions," he said pointedly, and House's cheeks flushed, just slightly.
"It was ten years ago," he said. "And contrary to popular belief, it's not just like riding a bike, or people would marry their bicycles."
Wilson was trying to come up with a response to that which didn't include angry, incoherent cursing when there was a knock on the door. House got up, after the second knock, and went to the door. Wilson heard him making the transaction with the deliveryman, and he tried to take a moment to focus his anger. What was he most angry about? That House had lied - omitted the truth - about his relationship with Nathanson? That was almost par for the course with House. He was a secretive bastard. So was it that he'd been with a man before? That rankled, yeah, but mostly in relation to Wilson's own assumptions: that it was a struggle with a new sexual identity that had been keeping House from letting things get serious between them.
House set the Chinese food on the coffee table, and Wilson looked up at him. "What are we doing?" he asked.
"Getting too much MSG in our diets?"
"Not what I meant," Wilson said. House sat on the couch again, a little closer than before. "What's going on, with us?"
House shrugged. "You need a label?"
"I need a fucking map," Wilson said. "I've spent all this time thinking you wanted to keep things casual because it's your first time with another man, that you were holding me off because you were quietly freaking out about your sexuality."
"When have I been quiet about anything?" House asked.
Wilson looked over and saw that House was trying to make a joke, but he couldn't handle it. "You're right," he said, standing up. "I should have realized."
"Wilson -"
"You let me believe it because you didn't want to tell me what's really going on." Wilson walked over and got his jacket. He dropped the towel onto the back of the armchair and didn't fold it. Let House deal with it for once. "You don't want things to get serious between us."
"Oh come on," House said, still sitting on the couch. He had his chopsticks in one hand. "We've been fucking for a year. What do you want, a medal? A ring?"
"No, House," Wilson said. "I want to move in."
He watched House's eyes widen; the color returned to his cheeks. "Uh, here?"
Wilson nodded. "With you," he said. "I'm sick of this going the way it is. I don't like casual. I like committed."
"Evidence to the contrary," House muttered.
"That's what I want," Wilson said. "Say yes."
House looked away. "No," he said.
The word took Wilson's breath away, even though he'd been expecting it. He concentrated on the floor. When he could speak again, he said, "OK. That's what I needed to know," and walked out.
Wilson bought a cappuccino on the way in the next morning and knew he'd need another before lunch. No one was waiting in his office.
He'd spent the night back at his own apartment. His shitty, tiny apartment, his supposed-to-be temporary apartment. He'd had a thing for House for years, absolutely years. Maybe not so long ago as Nathanson thought, but a very long time. When they'd finally, finally hooked up, in the summer the year before, that was really Wilson's thought on the whole thing: finally. Since then, he'd spent three or four nights a week at House's place - occasionally more - and he'd been very happy about it. There hadn't been much forward movement in their relationship - they hung out, they mocked, they fucked, they had dinner - but Wilson kept thinking it was only a matter of time. House was a logical person, and he would see, eventually, the logic of the two of them being together in a more serious relationship. Wilson had really believed he could wait him out.
It hadn't occurred to him, until the night before, that maybe it wasn't the situation; maybe it was him. Maybe House was never going to be ready to live with Wilson because he was never going to want to live with Wilson. The whole thing had probably been a game for him, a way of passing time. Something cheaper than hiring a hooker.
This kind of realization made paperwork sound good, made breaking bad news sound like a fucking day at the circus. When his assistant knocked on his office door and asked if he was ready for grand rounds, Wilson drained his cappuccino. "Bring it on," he said, and followed her out the door.
He didn't see House at all that day. It wasn't that hard to avoid him. Wilson had an entire department to run, after all, and a whole wing under his auspices. He did his paperwork sitting at the nurse's station instead of in his office. Generally, that wasn't ideal, because patients' families would stop to talk and everything would then take twice as long to complete, but now he was glad for the distractions. It was easy to give comfort, and it was also a little bit comforting to remember how good he was at his own job. Nathanson was right - he was doing good work here. They had a great set-up. Sloan-Kettering and M.D. Anderson could battle it out for number one, but Wilson's program had gained significant attention during his tenure. There were days when Wilson could see it all clearly, the future of the Princeton program laid out before him. He could see retiring from this job in twenty years with some real accomplishments behind him, moving PPTH into the top five. He could see retiring with some real recognition.
That was the kind of logic that had gotten him through his marriages and his divorces, through not having any kids, the idea that work could be his legacy. But with House - it was different. Wilson felt a little sick to his stomach just thinking about it, now, but things were different when he was around House. Around House, he saw a different role for himself. The James Wilson he liked most came out in House's presence, the one who could argue a moral point for hours and really, truly mean it, the one who existed for more than just his work, the James Wilson who was a person, a good person, first. It wasn't just that he acted as House's conscience; it was that being around House made him refine his own conscience. It made him a better person to be with House.
And then there was the fact that he loved the guy.
He'd been through this, though. He knew that loving someone wasn't enough; he'd seen that with his wives. He'd loved them all, maybe not in quite the same way but in an earnest, honest way, and it hadn't ever been enough. Not for them, not for him. Funny, that: it seemed he had learned a lesson somewhere along the way. He'd been the cheater in his first two marriages, the one who had given up first. In these last two long-term relationships, though - with Julie, and now with House - he was the leavee, the one being left. It made him want to send flowers to Christina and Megan, because fuck, fuck, this hurt.
And he had no one to talk to about any of it. Except, maybe, Karl Nathanson.
Wilson drove to Atlantic City the next morning on his own, resolutely not thinking about the last time he'd taken a trip that way. He drove directly to Nathanson's hotel, which had been Nathanson's suggestion when they'd talked the night before.
"Complimentary conference registration," Nathanson said when they met in the lobby. He handed Wilson a GLMA folded and a blank, plastic-encased nametag. "Have you eaten already? The buffet is pretty good."
Wilson took the tag from him. For a moment, he considered not writing in a name, or even just putting his last name only: Wilson was pretty generic, after all. But hell, he was here, and he was at least a little queer, so it was probably time he got used to it. He wrote "James Wilson - Princeton" on the tag and pinned it to his lapel. "Show me the way to the buffet," he said.
The conference was part meet-and-greet, part issue advocacy, as most conferences were. Wilson reviewed the schedule over breakfast, while Nathanson chatted with just about every doctor who walked past. "I come every year," Nathanson said, shrugging. "This is my seventh conference."
"Ah." Wilson set down the schedule and took a bite of his cereal, though his stomach felt a little unsteady. Probably the two cappuccinos on the drive over.
"And although I do think you're a social type," Nathanson said, "I don't think you're just here to hang out." His eyes narrowed, just slightly, and Wilson shrugged.
"I needed a break." He wasn't ready to get into his problems with House yet, particularly not over breakfast in a room full of other doctors.
Nathanson nodded, slowly, a nod that said he didn't believe Wilson but wasn't going to question him. "I have a pretty full day," he said, "but if you stick around, we can get a drink after my talk."
"I'd like that," Wilson said. A woman in a green suit tapped Nathanson on the shoulder, and Nathanson looked up at her and then back at Wilson. "Go ahead," Wilson said, smiling, "I've been to medical conferences before, I can find my way."
He did find his way, pretty easily, to a talk on caring for patients with Burkitt's Lymphoma, and then to a lecture on GLBT patient care. Along the way, he saw a few familiar names, but mostly kept to the back of the rooms. "First time?" a man asked him in line at the buffet.
"Yes," Wilson said, wondering how the man had guessed.
The man smiled. "I can't promise we'll all be gentle," he said, then laughed. "But we'll try."
It was just like any other conference, really. Wilson liked conferences. He liked being surrounded by the cool enthusiasm of his peers, liked looking around a room and knowing that they were all on similar pages. And here, of course, there was more than one page they shared, which was nice. It was like a sub-specialty conference. Wilson tried to relax and just listen, just hang out. He tried not to think about the fact that House would rather set himself on fire than attend this type of conference.
Nathanson spoke after dinner, in the main ballroom. His lecture was called "When The Closet Can Be Your Friend," and was discussing when it was appropriate for a doctor to share his sexual orientation with his patients. Nathanson seemed to be arguing that it was almost never relevant for a doctor to disclose the information within a professional setting, "but, this shouldn't keep us from behaving like human beings. Neither a heterosexual nor a homosexual doctor should be swapping weekend conquest stories with his patients; but where does the limit end? Should I keep my office clear of gay debris, or is it OK to display a picture of my partner by my computer? If I choose to hyphenate my name, does that mean I have to answer patients who ask why? At what point does privacy look like shame?"
Wilson swallowed hard. He knew the precise answer to that question. He'd been living it, and not even realizing it. He slipped out the back door of the ballroom and stood in the hallway, keeping his head low. He felt off-balance. All of his concerns and fears from the night before had come rushing back. He stepped away from the wall and walked back toward the lobby. On the way, he saw a bar, and instead of passing by, he went in and ordered a beer. The bartender glanced at his nametag, and Wilson felt vaguely ill. None of the people at this conference would like him very much if they knew about his three ex-wives, probably; and his current "proof" of being gay was sleeping with a man who probably would deny the whole thing if he was ever asked. Yet, to this guy, here he was, Dr. Gay.
The bartender set down his beer, and Wilson took sip immediately. "Gotta tell you," the bartender said, "you look like you could maybe use something stronger."
Wilson nodded. "Good idea," he said, pushing the beer back. It tasted too bitter, too much like House's place. "Got any bourbon?"
He knocked back two full glasses and had started on a third when a man sat at the barstool next to his. "Larry," he introduced himself. Wilson tapped his nametag, and noticed Larry had one that matched. NYU, it said below his name. "You have a specialty?" he asked.
"Oncology," Wilson said. "Yours?"
"ENT," he answered, signaling the bartender for a drink. "What he's having," he said, and the bartender nodded.
"Good choice," Wilson said, meaning his specialty. "Everyone's got an ear, nose, and throat. Not everyone has cancer."
Larry smiled. "I hadn't thought of it that way. You know Ryan Sommers, at Princeton?"
"Sure," Wilson said. The name was familiar, but he couldn't put a face to it. "Good doctor."
"Did my residency with him," Larry agreed.
The room was pretty full, Wilson realized, much more full than it had been when he'd come in. He glanced at his watch and realized he'd somehow drank right through Nathanson's speech. "Fuck," he said, shaking his head. "I missed dinner."
The bartender set Larry's drink down, and Larry handed him some money. "James, I can get you fed," he said, taking his drink in two fast swallows. He put his hand on Wilson's shoulder. "If you're interested."
Wilson was drunk, but not so drunk as to not understand what was happening. His mind flashed briefly through a litany of reactions: first panic; then an instinct to reject him - cheating! cheating!; then an angry little flare that said oh, revenge could be sweet; and finally, maybe this could be fun. He looked Larry up and down, really looked at him, took in his tan, muscular arms, his lean face and hungry eyes, his broad shoulders and very straight teeth. He was Wilson's type, actually. The whole world thought he was gay, he should at least get something out of it. Wilson took the last swallow of his drink and said, "Yeah, OK," and slid off the barstool. He'd made it about three feet with Larry when he realized he hadn't paid his tab, and turned around. Larry said he'd wait at the door, so Wilson wobbled back to the bar to settle up. After he'd paid and left a nice tip, Wilson started for the door - and Larry - and ran into Nathanson en route.
"Whoa, there," Nathanson said, his hands steady on Wilson's shoulders. He looked at Wilson for a moment, and Wilson couldn't help glancing over to where Larry was standing, looking a little surprised and pissed. Nathanson turned, too, and Wilson saw him glare at Larry; Larry disappeared almost instantly, and Wilson scowled.
"Hey," he protested, but Nathanson's grip had tightened.
"Not a good idea," Nathanson said. "Come on, I've got a better offer for you."
Wilson felt himself being steered to the elevator. He stopped on the way to throw out his name badge. No one needed to see him like this. As they rode up, Nathanson didn't touch him. Wilson rested his head against the side of the car. "I love him," he said, almost to himself, watching the metal wall fog with his breath.
"Yeah," Nathanson said, taking Wilson's arm over his shoulders, "I got that impression."
Wilson remembered being taken to Nathanson's suite, and he remembered sitting on the bed while Nathanson went to get him some water. He didn't remember exactly how he'd gotten under the blankets or lost his shoes, and when he woke up, he really didn't remember how House had ended up in the room.
But House was there, and he was yelling at Nathanson.
"Is this your revenge? You come up here and fuck everything up and fuck him in the process?"
"If that were true," Nathanson said, "why would I call you?"
Wilson pushed himself up and fought back a wave of dizziness. The bedside clock said it was morning, just past eight. Oh holy fuck, he thought, the day before coming back to him. He closed his eyes and waited for the room to stop spinning, letting House and Nathanson's argument become just a low rumble in his ears. No getting out of this, he thought, and he pushed himself off the bed and walked into the sitting room.
House was limping aggressively back and forth while Nathanson stood by the doorway. Nathanson's eyes flicked over to Wilson, and then back to House. "This is between you guys," he said. "Just don't get any blood on the carpet, OK?"
He slipped out before Wilson could say anything - thank you, or please don't leave me alone with him. Wilson was in his undershirt and pants, and he felt very rumpled and uncomfortable. He tried to pat down his hair. House stopped and turned to him. His eyes were wide and wild. "Don't you look well-rested," he said.
"Jesus," Wilson muttered. "I didn't sleep with him."
"But you would have!" House shouted. "Why else would you come here?"
Wilson put a hand out to steady himself on the doorframe. "Because I needed to talk to someone who'd been through your shit before," he said. "And why is it your business, anyway? Did I just imagine us breaking up?"
"We didn't 'break up,'" House said, actually using finger quotes.
"Yeah," Wilson said, raising his own hands. "Because we were never really 'together' in your mind." He rubbed his forehead. His brain had clearly had enough of this, and was trying to escape through his eyes. "Fuck. I can't do this with you, not yet. Go home, House, OK?"
He turned around, walked back into the bedroom and then to the bathroom. He splashed water on his face and tried to decide whether he should make himself throw up. His stomach felt wobbly, but not desperately so. Mostly, the pain was in his head.
When the door swung open, he didn't turn, just sighed. "Seriously," he said, surprised at the raw quality of his own voice. "Go home."
"This is because I don't want you to move in?" House asked. He limped in and leaned against the wall by the door. His cane made a funny squeak against the tiles as he fidgeted.
"Yeah," Wilson said. "In part. It's also because you've been lying to me. And because, you know, for once, in our entire history together, I asked you for something for myself, and you said no."
House snorted. "I say no to you all the time."
"Yeah," Wilson agreed. "But I've always thought it was because you couldn't say yes. I thought you were, I don't know, scared, emotionally stunted, unable." He turned around, leaned back against the sink. "It turns out, you are capable. You just don't want to be with me."
House looked down. Wilson could see his jaw working. Even now, closed up in this room that Wilson could easily fill with his rage, Wilson wanted to reach for him. He wanted, like always, to make things easier for House. He wanted to tell him it would be OK - but it wouldn't be, it couldn't be. He set his own jaw.
After a moment, House nodded, just slightly. "Yeah," he said. "OK."
Wilson stayed perfectly still. "OK," he echoed. He crossed his arms. The pounding in his head came in long waves. He'd take a shower, clear his head. Maybe he'd drive out of here, take a weekend trip. Maybe a day or two away from House would be enough to let him go into work as a human on Monday. House sighed, and looked up, and his eyes were sad and brilliantly blue. Maybe Wilson could get his office moved. To Florida. "Could you go, now?" he asked.
House nodded. He step-thumped out of the room and swung the door shut behind him. Wilson closed his eyes. OK, he thought. It's over. His stomach ached, and he lowered himself to the edge of the bathtub, pressed his hands to his abdomen and against his chest. Would it feel like this every time he watched House leave a room, from now on? He turned and pushed his head against the wall, and wondered how long he could stay there, in Karl Nathanson's bathroom.
The answer was an hour. Nathanson came back and pounded on the door, and Wilson made himself shower and get back into his clothes and put forth the best face he could. "Coffee?" Wilson asked, stepping into the sitting room.
Nathanson said, "I'll buy you breakfast."
They ate in the cafe on the first floor. Most of the conference attendees were stumbling out through the lobby, and a few waved at Nathanson as they passed. "They seem nice," Wilson said.
Nathanson shrugged. "They're like any group of doctors," he said. "We're an egomaniacal bunch."
"Some of us more than others."
Nathanson nodded. He had both hands around his coffee. "The thing is," he said, "he drove two hours just to yell at you."
"That's House," Wilson murmured into his own cup. "No distance too great if he gets to mess up someone's day at the end."
"You get him," Nathanson said. "I don't buy that this is all a shock to you. You went in with your eyes open."
"No," Wilson said. He looked up and met Nathanson's eyes, trying to let him know that this conversation was over. "I just thought I did."
Nathanson saw him off at the front door of the hotel. "Conference is in Miami next year," he said. "Think about it."
"I will," Wilson promised.
"Bring Greg."
Wilson laughed. "In a body bag, maybe."
He walked out to his car, at the edge of the parking lot, and stopped halfway there. A familiar Chrysler was parked just next to it. "You've got to be kidding me," he muttered. He rubbed his face with one hand. The wind was cold and coming in gusts, and he had to walk forward just for the break from it.
He tapped on House's window. No more feeling bad; he was angry. "Which part of go home did you not understand?"
House rolled the window down. "I have no idea what you just said."
"So what's new." Wilson set his bag on House's hood and leaned against the car. He watched House struggle out of the car and didn't try to help. "Why are you still here?"
"Needed a jump start," House said. Wilson stared at him until House looked down. "I drove all this way," he said.
"Yeah, me too," Wilson said. "Only I came here to get away from you."
"If you lived with me, that would be even more difficult."
Wilson scoffed. "Why, you're right. I'd never considered the fact that living together would mean I'd actually be closer to you. Wow, now that I see your point -"
"You've gotta understand," House said, and his tone was both exasperated and, maybe, a little desperate. "The last guy I lived with had to move halfway across the country when we broke up." He looked over at Wilson, just briefly. His eyes weren't moist or wide, but there was a tiny flicker of uncertainty there. "I'm too old to break in a new oncologist."
Wilson put his hand on the cold metal of the hood. "House," he said, "what are you saying?"
House shrugged. His breath came out in a puff of steam. "I'm saying whatever it is you want me to say."
"No. Say something."
"We can live together," he said. "You want to move in, that's fine. I'm a bed hog, I sometimes don't do laundry for weeks at a time, and I'm not taking the girly magazines out of the bathroom, but -"
"Wait," Wilson said. "What's changed? I don't - why are you saying this now?"
"You really didn't sleep with Nathanson?"
Wilson laughed. "He's involved with someone."
"So are you," House said, and Wilson felt a tiny flush of warmth at the words. "But that hasn't always meant something in the past."
"It would," Wilson said, carefully. "It does."
House nodded. He shuffled a single step forward, and looked at Wilson from underneath his cap. "Buy me breakfast," he said.
Wilson shook his head. He put his hand on House's biceps. Anyone looking might think he was steadying him, which was probably why House allowed it. They had never touched like this in public before. "I'm going to kiss you," Wilson said.
House nodded. "Do what you have to do."
Wilson leaned in, touched House's face with his right hand, and kissed him. House didn't touch him, but he was there, kissing back. Wilson pulled back, but only slightly. "I'm going to want more," he said.
"Yeah," House said. He glanced back at the hotel. "I figured."
"And that's - OK with you?"
House shrugged. "We'll fight," he said. "We're gonna fight all the time. But I'm a stubborn bastard, and you're tougher than you look. Usually."
"I'm way tougher than Nathanson," Wilson said.
House snorted. He ducked his head. For a moment, just a second, his hand pressed into Wilson's on the hood of the car. "So buy me breakfast and then we'll go home."
"OK," Wilson said. He stepped back, then tossed his bag into the backseat of House's car instead of his own. They'd have to drive home separately, but for the moment, Wilson wasn't moving any further away than he had to.