House Keeping
Title: House Keeping: ‘One-Stop Shopping’ and 'Screwed'
Author: magie_05
Word Count: About 3,000 altogether
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating/Warnings: R
Summary: The first two in a series of short fics about House and Wilson after they have decided to move in together, in no particular order and with various lengths and ratings. Basically: self-indulgent fluff that I shall churn out here on my LJ with varying levels of frequency and questionable degrees of skill. :)
One-Stop Shopping
Wilson sips his Starbucks, chooses a cantaloupe, and nestles it into his bright red shopping cart alongside paperclips and video games and fish food.
He guesses that’s America for you.
Still, capitalistic nightmare or no, these mega-mart chain stores have recently saved Wilson’s life. Allowing his life to coalesce with House’s has seriously upset his routine. When he was single, a quick once-a-week stop at the grocery store was enough to get by; no point cooking elaborate meals for one. Once a month or so, he’d take a drive downtown for life’s other essentials: clothing and haircuts and books, all in different buildings, of course. Personally, he never got why places like Wal-Mart and Target were so popular, so seemingly indispensible to so many people. Something about being able to put raw chicken and underwear and motor oil in the same basket just didn’t sit well with Wilson.
Of course, that way of thinking was from a simpler time. One in which he didn’t live with House.
“Stock-piling for the apocalypse?”
Basically, it’s easier to let House get all the shopping-related chaos out of his system in one place.
Wilson settles two packages of salmon steaks into the cart and reorganizes a little, to make room for potatoes and peanut butter and paper towels. “No. Funnily enough, I don’t enjoy spending an hour in here every three days; this stuff is going to have to last at least two weeks.”
House gets this look on his face like he’s going to devour everything edible in the cart in three days just out of spite. “You are so getting off on this homemaker thing.”
Wilson feels the back of his neck turn red. “I’m not sitting around knitting you sweaters.” He is not ‘the girl.’ Just because he does all the shopping and cooking and cleaning. Not like he enjoys it, really. It’s just that if he doesn’t do the household drudgery, it won’t get done, and he doesn’t want to go back to living like a frat boy. “If you’ve got complaints about my trying to ensure we eat something other than sliced cheese and condensed soup, you could always stay at home.”
House huffs. “And let you bring back hummus and tofu burgers? Not a chance.”
Wilson just glares at him, defiantly placing a pack of Romaine lettuce in the basket.
It gives him a nice break when House gets bored and disappears intermittently, leaving him to contemplate the relative benefits of a new dishwashing detergent in peace. Of course, he has to keep his ears open for loud crashes or clean-up requests, in case House has found something to amuse himself. But on a typical shopping trip, he’s at the very least guaranteed to have to deal with House periodically showing up with an armful of preservatives and artificial colorings.
“These,” he demands, as Lucky Charms, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, some artery-clogging frozen burritos, and, inexplicably, a can of marshmallow cream land directly on top of the two loaves of (very meticulously chosen) bread.
“No.” Wilson spends the next ten minutes replacing the junk with Cheerios, frozen yogurt, flour tortillas, and regular fat-free marshmallows.
“This.” Twenty minutes later, he’s staring at toilet paper as House limps up behind him, dumping boxes of Twinkies and Swiss Rolls over Wilson’s shoulder and into the basket, along with some Spaghetti-Os and a giant bag of chips.
This time Wilson sighs. It’s really not safe to show any kind of weakness in these moments. But he does not want to walk up and down the same aisles again. He grabs the boxes of Little Debbie’s. “Just one.”
House scowls and violently chooses the Twinkies, tossing them into the cart and stalking off again.
Wilson just rolls his eyes and goes back to his toilet paper.
He’s moved on to bath products when House stalks up to him again, grabbing the bottle of shampoo out of Wilson’s hand. “Not this one,” he says mockingly.
“What’s the matter, House? Did they kick you off the X-Box demo again?” He grabs the bottle out of House’s hand.
“Hey, you get your vetoes, I get mine. And I don’t want your head smelling like...” he grabs Wilson’s wrist, holds the bottle closer and squints, “pomegranate mango?” He looks up. “Seriously?”
Wilson’s neck gets warm. “It’s…moisturizing.”
“It’s crap. You’re not buying this.”
He tries not to grin at the look of concentration on House’s face as he attacks the shelf of hair care products, clicking open bottles at random and inhaling their contents with a disconcerting level of focus. “Here, this is it.”
Black plastic falls into the cart, and Wilson decides not to mention that this particular brand is one he has long since retired, or that, coincidentally, House’s choice of shampoo happens to be the exact brand Wilson was using the first time House fell asleep with his face buried in brown hair.
Although, he suspects House is possessed of similar memories, if he’s correctly interpreting the glint in House’s eyes and the tiny smirk on his lips. “Can’t we go home now?”
He can’t stop the grin this time. That soft whine to House’s voice, the cartful of junk food and video games. All he needs now is a carton of juice boxes and it’ll look like he’s buying for a four-year-old. “Don’t worry, champ; we’ll be home in time for cookies and Teletubbies.”
“Role-playing, Jimmy? What is this, over-worked, sex-starved suburban mom? Kinky,” House shifts his weight, his cane squeaking slightly on gleaming linoleum.
Wilson’s grin falters. “Why don’t you go and wait in the snack bar? I hear they have Icees.” And chairs.
He watches House’s features change as he battles temptation: stay and annoy Wilson or go sit with a 32-ounce cup of sugar and ice and annoy a snack bar full of total strangers.
His lips twitch in decision. “Don’t forget Pop-Tarts,” he mumbles, and Wilson watches him limp off, disappearing among red carts and middle-aged women.
He’s perfectly aware the whole thing is ridiculous. The tiny smile on his face as he watches House leave, drawing a raised eyebrow from a passing employee. House’s childlike and incredibly annoying behavior shouldn’t be so damn endearing. Barely a year ago he’d convinced himself being with House was some far-off insanity he’d do better to ignore. Now they’re living together. Shopping together. Going home later and having dinner together, watching TV or reading together, lying in bed together. Right now, he’s backtracking into the store’s food area to get House’s nutritionally worthless Pop-Tarts.
Ridiculous.
He only wishes he were naïve enough to believe things can be this…normal…for long. They’ve only been officially living together for four months. Surely the bottom will fall out eventually. Their relationship was never functional; adding another level was just asking for disaster. There have been days over the years when Wilson wanted nothing more than to strangle him, plead with him, walk away from him. These last ten months haven’t changed any of that. Actually, the bad days are worse now, harder to overlook. Harder to pretend House’s need to run away from the world isn’t really a need to run away from Wilson.
He consults his list one last time, paused in the home décor aisle. Bread, eggs, tuna fish. Toothpaste…tomatoes…House’s video games (their names scribbled in the margin)…aspirin. Milk (both regular and 2% since House claims to be incapable of drinking ‘milk water’). Of course, somehow Wilson always ends up buying way more than he planned every time he comes in here, his cart filled practically to the top with a few books, some new plastic containers for his lunches and some hooks to hang in the foyer and a couple dark t-shirts House had made fun of but would later steal.
It’s all thrown together in a plastic cart, organized chaos, his stuff-his life-mixed with House’s. It might look odd to passers-by: tarragon next to spray cheese, merlot propped up against a huge bottle of cheap, teeth-rotting soda. It’s odd, and contradictory, and it makes Wilson grin to himself. It may be strange, but it fits, it works…it’s right-
A small hunk of colorful plastic gets shoved in front of his nose. Let’s go, Rangers! a blue-masked ninja-type action figure declares.
His eyes follow the path from the toy in front of his face, over his shoulder, up House’s arm to the smirk on his face. “Listen to the man,” he says, rattling the Power Ranger in its plastic carton, “he knows what he’s talking about.”
There’s a blue tinge on House’s lips and tongue, presumably from a blue raspberry-flavored frozen drink.
It doesn’t even occur to Wilson to look over his shoulder before he leans in and brushes their lips together. House’s are still cold.
It’s brief, but far too intimate for a crowded family store with the sounds of kids in a neighboring aisle. He pulls back, but just barely, close enough to share House’s breath for several seconds. When House opens his eyes, Wilson can tell he’s trying not to smile. “Does that mean you’re ready to go home?”
He looks at House standing next to him. He thinks about what can-and probably will-go wrong if things keep going this way. He remembers all the years of dysfunction, exchanges of pain, all the new ways they now have to hurt each other. He thinks about what it means to finally be home.
“Yeah,” he says finally, “I’m ready.”
Screwed
Now this is just getting silly.
Alright, fine, so House isn’t really the model for self-control, at least not in your conventional ways: like not getting drunk before 8 p.m. or not putting things in Foreman’s food or not making lewd and insincere sexual advances toward that Salvation Army woman who hangs around the cancer kids. House has accepted his weaknesses in these areas; he’s a realist, after all.
But, come on. This has got to be some kind of joke.
He should not be getting this turned on by Wilson doing housework.
Someone’s spiking his coffee with Viagra. Or he’s got a tumor on his hypothalamus that’s making him interpret everything as a sexual cue. Those are really his only two options. Wilson changing a fucking light bulb is not supposed to be this hot, and Christ, it’s only been two hours since he poked Wilson in the thigh with his penis by way of ‘good morning’ and subsequently came down Wilson’s throat.
And yet, he’s fidgeting on the sofa watching Wilson stretch toward the high ceiling, one hand white-knuckled on the handle of a wobbly stepladder. That green t-shirt is riding up while his worn jeans are slipping down, revealing a line of pale abdomen, the tip of his navel and that dark line of hair leading south. House sticks his tongue between his lips in place of running them all over those soft curves, watching Wilson’s skin flush under his kisses. He wants to taste clean sweat and him, slide his hands up Wilson’s sides, slip his tongue below the waistband of Wilson’s boxers and feel him squirm…
“You’re being a real big help, here.”
His sneak peek of Wilson’s stomach is rudely cut off, as Wilson’s arms drop abruptly to his sides. House frowns his displeasure. “Stepladders are actually more beneficial to people who can, you know, climb on them.”
Wilson makes that disapproving, silently chastising face which is not supposed to be sexy, damn it. “Just get over here and hold this thing before it topples over and I wind up with a face-full of broken glass,” he says testily, brandishing the light bulb (one of those stupid, spiraled, energy-saving ones, naturally).
House decides to make a show of it; maybe if he grimaces convincingly enough as he pulls himself off their new suede sofa, he can at least garner the pity vote. “You were the one who raved about these high ceilings. Getting tired of living in a cathedral?”
He sighs in an aggravated sort of way. “We’re getting a real ladder.”
Of course, in truth, they both know how lucky they were to have found this place. Big enough, acres away from the nearest neighbor. Tall ceilings and wide windows. One-story. In good shape for its age, only a few odds and ends to repair and paint and decorate.
Things, of course, Wilson shall never get around to, if House has anything to do with it.
He hooks his cane onto the mantle behind him, freeing both hands to grasp the handle of the stepladder, a look of exaggerated annoyance on his face. “Geez. How many doctors does it take to screw in a-”
“Just…don’t even say it,” Wilson says flatly, while one hand slides to House’s shoulder for balance. “And hold still.”
Not a problem, as House is pretty much exactly where he wants to be: nose inches from Wilson’s crotch as he ascends the ladder. He indulges in a tiny grin at the view. Wilson can’t see him anyway.
His torso is stretched to its limit, knees straight and locked as he fiddles with that decorative froofy glass bowl covering up the light fixture. See, this is why moving in together made perfect sense. Wilson’s crotch has never been so conveniently located.
He leans in until his mouth is inches from Wilson’s fly. “This is boring,” he says slowly, making sure his breath gets absorbed into Wilson’s jeans.
No noticeable reaction. “Well, it’s not exactly riveting for me either, but it has to be done.” Wilson looks down suddenly. “Are you holding the ladder?”
House stills the wandering hand that had been making its way slowly up Wilson’s thigh. “Relax.” He considers mentioning that Wilson’s maybe four feet off the ground and that a fall from this height probably wouldn’t kill him and that his fear of so-called heights probably results from the man watching Vertigo too many damn times. Of course, none of these options is likely to get him into Wilson’s worn, snug jeans anytime soon. He goes for the safer response. “I’m not gonna let you fall.”
Judging by the way Wilson’s eyes soften a little as he pulls them back to the light fixture, that statement was just sentimental enough to work.
Emboldened by his success, House leans in a little closer, bending his head down slightly, this time letting his lips brush against Wilson’s jeans as he speaks, mostly so Wilson can feel the vibrations. “I could think of at least seventeen things we could do right now, all which I guarantee will be more interesting than the home improvement.”
“I’m…sure you can,” Wilson says bravely, but he can’t hide the way his voice breaks and the almost imperceptible forward push of his hips. “But we’ve really got a lot of work to do this weekend. Still need to pick a color for the foyer. I’m thinking that tan color is too dark…”
He keeps rambling like some hellish version of Martha Stewart, so House tunes him out to preserve his budding erection. He can see straight up Wilson’s loose-fitting shirt at this angle, eyes traveling up that thin line of hair up towards Wilson’s navel, over faintly defined abs, just barely able to make out his nipples. Good lord. So not fair, that he’s got all this in front of him, warmth under his hands, under his lips, that scent in his nostrils and Wilson’s up there talking about window treatments or some shit. “…that one you picked out looked remarkably like vomit.”
“Hey,” he murmurs softly, straightening up so his lips can brush bare skin, “vomit color can be important.”
He thinks Wilson’s chest is moving out a little more on each exhale. “House. Cut that out,” he breathes.
“You know,” he kisses a line over Wilson’s waistband, sucking random patches of skin, “there are some color schemes I wanted to discuss with you. Mostly in the bedroom.”
Wilson lets out a breathless chuckle. “If I had known home decorating got you this worked up-”
Truth is, it makes him want to staple his own eyes shut so he can avoid being asked for his opinion, but there’s something about the way Wilson talks about it, the way it matters to him, the way he looks with paint in his hair. What it means that this place is slowly blending into home, their stuff and lives all in one place after so many years of missed chances...
Fortunately, his thoughts are cut off before he can get too freaked out by them. “Hmm,” Wilson remarks, hands in House’s hair, newly repaired light turned on and shining over his head, goosebumps breaking out under House's lips. “I’m not going to get a thing done today, am I?”
Really, House begs to differ, as barely ten minutes later he’s lying on his stomach between Wilson’s legs, eyes pointed upward so he can watch that brown hair fall against the new cherry headboard, smirking to himself when Wilson finishes something spectacular.
As a result of his second orgasm before lunch, House is too relaxed to complain when Wilson settles naked against him, brow furrowed as he contemplates a stack of paint swatches in his lap.
Author: magie_05
Word Count: About 3,000 altogether
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating/Warnings: R
Summary: The first two in a series of short fics about House and Wilson after they have decided to move in together, in no particular order and with various lengths and ratings. Basically: self-indulgent fluff that I shall churn out here on my LJ with varying levels of frequency and questionable degrees of skill. :)
One-Stop Shopping
Wilson sips his Starbucks, chooses a cantaloupe, and nestles it into his bright red shopping cart alongside paperclips and video games and fish food.
He guesses that’s America for you.
Still, capitalistic nightmare or no, these mega-mart chain stores have recently saved Wilson’s life. Allowing his life to coalesce with House’s has seriously upset his routine. When he was single, a quick once-a-week stop at the grocery store was enough to get by; no point cooking elaborate meals for one. Once a month or so, he’d take a drive downtown for life’s other essentials: clothing and haircuts and books, all in different buildings, of course. Personally, he never got why places like Wal-Mart and Target were so popular, so seemingly indispensible to so many people. Something about being able to put raw chicken and underwear and motor oil in the same basket just didn’t sit well with Wilson.
Of course, that way of thinking was from a simpler time. One in which he didn’t live with House.
“Stock-piling for the apocalypse?”
Basically, it’s easier to let House get all the shopping-related chaos out of his system in one place.
Wilson settles two packages of salmon steaks into the cart and reorganizes a little, to make room for potatoes and peanut butter and paper towels. “No. Funnily enough, I don’t enjoy spending an hour in here every three days; this stuff is going to have to last at least two weeks.”
House gets this look on his face like he’s going to devour everything edible in the cart in three days just out of spite. “You are so getting off on this homemaker thing.”
Wilson feels the back of his neck turn red. “I’m not sitting around knitting you sweaters.” He is not ‘the girl.’ Just because he does all the shopping and cooking and cleaning. Not like he enjoys it, really. It’s just that if he doesn’t do the household drudgery, it won’t get done, and he doesn’t want to go back to living like a frat boy. “If you’ve got complaints about my trying to ensure we eat something other than sliced cheese and condensed soup, you could always stay at home.”
House huffs. “And let you bring back hummus and tofu burgers? Not a chance.”
Wilson just glares at him, defiantly placing a pack of Romaine lettuce in the basket.
It gives him a nice break when House gets bored and disappears intermittently, leaving him to contemplate the relative benefits of a new dishwashing detergent in peace. Of course, he has to keep his ears open for loud crashes or clean-up requests, in case House has found something to amuse himself. But on a typical shopping trip, he’s at the very least guaranteed to have to deal with House periodically showing up with an armful of preservatives and artificial colorings.
“These,” he demands, as Lucky Charms, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, some artery-clogging frozen burritos, and, inexplicably, a can of marshmallow cream land directly on top of the two loaves of (very meticulously chosen) bread.
“No.” Wilson spends the next ten minutes replacing the junk with Cheerios, frozen yogurt, flour tortillas, and regular fat-free marshmallows.
“This.” Twenty minutes later, he’s staring at toilet paper as House limps up behind him, dumping boxes of Twinkies and Swiss Rolls over Wilson’s shoulder and into the basket, along with some Spaghetti-Os and a giant bag of chips.
This time Wilson sighs. It’s really not safe to show any kind of weakness in these moments. But he does not want to walk up and down the same aisles again. He grabs the boxes of Little Debbie’s. “Just one.”
House scowls and violently chooses the Twinkies, tossing them into the cart and stalking off again.
Wilson just rolls his eyes and goes back to his toilet paper.
He’s moved on to bath products when House stalks up to him again, grabbing the bottle of shampoo out of Wilson’s hand. “Not this one,” he says mockingly.
“What’s the matter, House? Did they kick you off the X-Box demo again?” He grabs the bottle out of House’s hand.
“Hey, you get your vetoes, I get mine. And I don’t want your head smelling like...” he grabs Wilson’s wrist, holds the bottle closer and squints, “pomegranate mango?” He looks up. “Seriously?”
Wilson’s neck gets warm. “It’s…moisturizing.”
“It’s crap. You’re not buying this.”
He tries not to grin at the look of concentration on House’s face as he attacks the shelf of hair care products, clicking open bottles at random and inhaling their contents with a disconcerting level of focus. “Here, this is it.”
Black plastic falls into the cart, and Wilson decides not to mention that this particular brand is one he has long since retired, or that, coincidentally, House’s choice of shampoo happens to be the exact brand Wilson was using the first time House fell asleep with his face buried in brown hair.
Although, he suspects House is possessed of similar memories, if he’s correctly interpreting the glint in House’s eyes and the tiny smirk on his lips. “Can’t we go home now?”
He can’t stop the grin this time. That soft whine to House’s voice, the cartful of junk food and video games. All he needs now is a carton of juice boxes and it’ll look like he’s buying for a four-year-old. “Don’t worry, champ; we’ll be home in time for cookies and Teletubbies.”
“Role-playing, Jimmy? What is this, over-worked, sex-starved suburban mom? Kinky,” House shifts his weight, his cane squeaking slightly on gleaming linoleum.
Wilson’s grin falters. “Why don’t you go and wait in the snack bar? I hear they have Icees.” And chairs.
He watches House’s features change as he battles temptation: stay and annoy Wilson or go sit with a 32-ounce cup of sugar and ice and annoy a snack bar full of total strangers.
His lips twitch in decision. “Don’t forget Pop-Tarts,” he mumbles, and Wilson watches him limp off, disappearing among red carts and middle-aged women.
He’s perfectly aware the whole thing is ridiculous. The tiny smile on his face as he watches House leave, drawing a raised eyebrow from a passing employee. House’s childlike and incredibly annoying behavior shouldn’t be so damn endearing. Barely a year ago he’d convinced himself being with House was some far-off insanity he’d do better to ignore. Now they’re living together. Shopping together. Going home later and having dinner together, watching TV or reading together, lying in bed together. Right now, he’s backtracking into the store’s food area to get House’s nutritionally worthless Pop-Tarts.
Ridiculous.
He only wishes he were naïve enough to believe things can be this…normal…for long. They’ve only been officially living together for four months. Surely the bottom will fall out eventually. Their relationship was never functional; adding another level was just asking for disaster. There have been days over the years when Wilson wanted nothing more than to strangle him, plead with him, walk away from him. These last ten months haven’t changed any of that. Actually, the bad days are worse now, harder to overlook. Harder to pretend House’s need to run away from the world isn’t really a need to run away from Wilson.
He consults his list one last time, paused in the home décor aisle. Bread, eggs, tuna fish. Toothpaste…tomatoes…House’s video games (their names scribbled in the margin)…aspirin. Milk (both regular and 2% since House claims to be incapable of drinking ‘milk water’). Of course, somehow Wilson always ends up buying way more than he planned every time he comes in here, his cart filled practically to the top with a few books, some new plastic containers for his lunches and some hooks to hang in the foyer and a couple dark t-shirts House had made fun of but would later steal.
It’s all thrown together in a plastic cart, organized chaos, his stuff-his life-mixed with House’s. It might look odd to passers-by: tarragon next to spray cheese, merlot propped up against a huge bottle of cheap, teeth-rotting soda. It’s odd, and contradictory, and it makes Wilson grin to himself. It may be strange, but it fits, it works…it’s right-
A small hunk of colorful plastic gets shoved in front of his nose. Let’s go, Rangers! a blue-masked ninja-type action figure declares.
His eyes follow the path from the toy in front of his face, over his shoulder, up House’s arm to the smirk on his face. “Listen to the man,” he says, rattling the Power Ranger in its plastic carton, “he knows what he’s talking about.”
There’s a blue tinge on House’s lips and tongue, presumably from a blue raspberry-flavored frozen drink.
It doesn’t even occur to Wilson to look over his shoulder before he leans in and brushes their lips together. House’s are still cold.
It’s brief, but far too intimate for a crowded family store with the sounds of kids in a neighboring aisle. He pulls back, but just barely, close enough to share House’s breath for several seconds. When House opens his eyes, Wilson can tell he’s trying not to smile. “Does that mean you’re ready to go home?”
He looks at House standing next to him. He thinks about what can-and probably will-go wrong if things keep going this way. He remembers all the years of dysfunction, exchanges of pain, all the new ways they now have to hurt each other. He thinks about what it means to finally be home.
“Yeah,” he says finally, “I’m ready.”
Screwed
Now this is just getting silly.
Alright, fine, so House isn’t really the model for self-control, at least not in your conventional ways: like not getting drunk before 8 p.m. or not putting things in Foreman’s food or not making lewd and insincere sexual advances toward that Salvation Army woman who hangs around the cancer kids. House has accepted his weaknesses in these areas; he’s a realist, after all.
But, come on. This has got to be some kind of joke.
He should not be getting this turned on by Wilson doing housework.
Someone’s spiking his coffee with Viagra. Or he’s got a tumor on his hypothalamus that’s making him interpret everything as a sexual cue. Those are really his only two options. Wilson changing a fucking light bulb is not supposed to be this hot, and Christ, it’s only been two hours since he poked Wilson in the thigh with his penis by way of ‘good morning’ and subsequently came down Wilson’s throat.
And yet, he’s fidgeting on the sofa watching Wilson stretch toward the high ceiling, one hand white-knuckled on the handle of a wobbly stepladder. That green t-shirt is riding up while his worn jeans are slipping down, revealing a line of pale abdomen, the tip of his navel and that dark line of hair leading south. House sticks his tongue between his lips in place of running them all over those soft curves, watching Wilson’s skin flush under his kisses. He wants to taste clean sweat and him, slide his hands up Wilson’s sides, slip his tongue below the waistband of Wilson’s boxers and feel him squirm…
“You’re being a real big help, here.”
His sneak peek of Wilson’s stomach is rudely cut off, as Wilson’s arms drop abruptly to his sides. House frowns his displeasure. “Stepladders are actually more beneficial to people who can, you know, climb on them.”
Wilson makes that disapproving, silently chastising face which is not supposed to be sexy, damn it. “Just get over here and hold this thing before it topples over and I wind up with a face-full of broken glass,” he says testily, brandishing the light bulb (one of those stupid, spiraled, energy-saving ones, naturally).
House decides to make a show of it; maybe if he grimaces convincingly enough as he pulls himself off their new suede sofa, he can at least garner the pity vote. “You were the one who raved about these high ceilings. Getting tired of living in a cathedral?”
He sighs in an aggravated sort of way. “We’re getting a real ladder.”
Of course, in truth, they both know how lucky they were to have found this place. Big enough, acres away from the nearest neighbor. Tall ceilings and wide windows. One-story. In good shape for its age, only a few odds and ends to repair and paint and decorate.
Things, of course, Wilson shall never get around to, if House has anything to do with it.
He hooks his cane onto the mantle behind him, freeing both hands to grasp the handle of the stepladder, a look of exaggerated annoyance on his face. “Geez. How many doctors does it take to screw in a-”
“Just…don’t even say it,” Wilson says flatly, while one hand slides to House’s shoulder for balance. “And hold still.”
Not a problem, as House is pretty much exactly where he wants to be: nose inches from Wilson’s crotch as he ascends the ladder. He indulges in a tiny grin at the view. Wilson can’t see him anyway.
His torso is stretched to its limit, knees straight and locked as he fiddles with that decorative froofy glass bowl covering up the light fixture. See, this is why moving in together made perfect sense. Wilson’s crotch has never been so conveniently located.
He leans in until his mouth is inches from Wilson’s fly. “This is boring,” he says slowly, making sure his breath gets absorbed into Wilson’s jeans.
No noticeable reaction. “Well, it’s not exactly riveting for me either, but it has to be done.” Wilson looks down suddenly. “Are you holding the ladder?”
House stills the wandering hand that had been making its way slowly up Wilson’s thigh. “Relax.” He considers mentioning that Wilson’s maybe four feet off the ground and that a fall from this height probably wouldn’t kill him and that his fear of so-called heights probably results from the man watching Vertigo too many damn times. Of course, none of these options is likely to get him into Wilson’s worn, snug jeans anytime soon. He goes for the safer response. “I’m not gonna let you fall.”
Judging by the way Wilson’s eyes soften a little as he pulls them back to the light fixture, that statement was just sentimental enough to work.
Emboldened by his success, House leans in a little closer, bending his head down slightly, this time letting his lips brush against Wilson’s jeans as he speaks, mostly so Wilson can feel the vibrations. “I could think of at least seventeen things we could do right now, all which I guarantee will be more interesting than the home improvement.”
“I’m…sure you can,” Wilson says bravely, but he can’t hide the way his voice breaks and the almost imperceptible forward push of his hips. “But we’ve really got a lot of work to do this weekend. Still need to pick a color for the foyer. I’m thinking that tan color is too dark…”
He keeps rambling like some hellish version of Martha Stewart, so House tunes him out to preserve his budding erection. He can see straight up Wilson’s loose-fitting shirt at this angle, eyes traveling up that thin line of hair up towards Wilson’s navel, over faintly defined abs, just barely able to make out his nipples. Good lord. So not fair, that he’s got all this in front of him, warmth under his hands, under his lips, that scent in his nostrils and Wilson’s up there talking about window treatments or some shit. “…that one you picked out looked remarkably like vomit.”
“Hey,” he murmurs softly, straightening up so his lips can brush bare skin, “vomit color can be important.”
He thinks Wilson’s chest is moving out a little more on each exhale. “House. Cut that out,” he breathes.
“You know,” he kisses a line over Wilson’s waistband, sucking random patches of skin, “there are some color schemes I wanted to discuss with you. Mostly in the bedroom.”
Wilson lets out a breathless chuckle. “If I had known home decorating got you this worked up-”
Truth is, it makes him want to staple his own eyes shut so he can avoid being asked for his opinion, but there’s something about the way Wilson talks about it, the way it matters to him, the way he looks with paint in his hair. What it means that this place is slowly blending into home, their stuff and lives all in one place after so many years of missed chances...
Fortunately, his thoughts are cut off before he can get too freaked out by them. “Hmm,” Wilson remarks, hands in House’s hair, newly repaired light turned on and shining over his head, goosebumps breaking out under House's lips. “I’m not going to get a thing done today, am I?”
Really, House begs to differ, as barely ten minutes later he’s lying on his stomach between Wilson’s legs, eyes pointed upward so he can watch that brown hair fall against the new cherry headboard, smirking to himself when Wilson finishes something spectacular.
As a result of his second orgasm before lunch, House is too relaxed to complain when Wilson settles naked against him, brow furrowed as he contemplates a stack of paint swatches in his lap.