(no subject)
Title: House Keeping: Make the Yuletide Gay (2/3)
Author: magie_05
Word Count: 3,743
Pairing: House/Wilson domestic
Rating/Warnings: PG-13ish this part
Summary: This is another installment in my random little series of fics that takes place after House and Wilson have decided to live together. This one is based on a lovely suggestion from 2801rosie: “How about their first holiday in their new house. Maybe with parents visiting.” Uh-oh. This means ‘original’ characters. It’s broken up because I’m not sure I could ask anyone to read all this in one sitting.
So this is Hell.
“…but I told her this was Miami, not Beijing, and she came up with a whole new design for the bedroom. After all that hassle, she didn’t even charge us extra for the den, isn’t that right, Gerald?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll call her when we get back, sweetie, and see if she can recommend someone in Princeton. The poor girl isn’t the best in the business, I’ll admit, but she should at least know someone for you boys - ”
“Uh, that’s okay, Mom, we’re not really in the market for a decorator - ”
“Oh, nonsense. You’ve been here nearly eighteen months; it’s time you made yourselves at home. Don’t you think it looks a little bare and Spartan in here? Greg, dear, wouldn’t you feel more at home with some nice new drapes, maybe some new furniture?”
House’s horror keeps him silent for a moment. “I’m pretty comfortable here the way it is. Most of the time.”
Wilson straightens up next to him and clears his throat. “Right. We’re…I guess we’re kind of…set in our ways,” chuckling nervously.
“‘Stelle, don’t pressure the kids, now,” Wilson’s dad pipes up from House’s armchair. “They’re busy; they don’t have time for that kind of thing.”
From the loveseat, Wilson’s mom tsks dismissively. “That’s exactly why you should let me call Alice when we get back, James. Just because you boys are busy is no reason to…”
And she’s off again. House has been sitting on the sofa with Wilson, trapped by a parent on either side of the room. He’s not sure which part is worse: the two of them being referred to as ‘you boys’ every few sentences, the Greg dears, the kiss on the cheek or the bone-crushing handshake he endured back at the airport. Then the predicted tour of the house, Estelle lauding over things like the place’s “flow” and the light fixtures, Wilson’s dad clapping his son on the back in a congratulatory sort of way.
“You boys were smart to buy when you did,” he says now, pulling House back into the conversation. “Probably got locked in to the lowest interest rate in twenty years.”
“Yes, sir,” Wilson says warmly, confirming House’s long-running suspicion that the guy was raised to be a suck-up, “we were really lucky.”
“Though you probably could have shopped around a little longer,” Gerald goes on. “This is a nice place, but it’s on the small side. Seems to me you could have found something roomier, or at least something a little closer to town.”
House thumps the cane softly against the floor. “Well, we had one or two restrictions.”
He sees Wilson scowling at him through the corner of his eye, but Gerald just grunts good-naturedly. “I hear you. I just hope you boys don’t get tired of the place. You know how quickly Jim can change his mind.”
See, that’s another thing. House is starting to see where Wilson got his sarcastic streak. It has been maybe two hours, and that’s at least the third vague, tongue-in-cheek reference to Wilson’s ‘sudden’ change, how he went from being their straight-laced, respectable son to shacking up with a man in this apparently subpar home.
House pulls back his lips in a small grin and, after a moment’s hesitation, throws an arm companionably over Wilson’s shoulders, ignoring the bushy, raised eyebrow it provokes. “We’re not going to get tired of it.”
Wilson may feel obligated to play the part of Good Son; he may impose whatever rules he wants to try and censor House’s personality. Let him take these soft little jabs at their relationship with nothing more than that vacant, stoic expression.
House has ways of fighting back. If Wilson wants to play normal, happy suburban couple, then that’s exactly what he’s going to get.
“Besides, you should have seen how many places we looked at before this one.” He sits back into the sofa cushions, dragging Wilson with him, pressing their sides together and settling his palm on Wilson’s chest. “It was a nightmare,” he says, imitating fond nostalgia. “You know how picky ‘Jim’ can be, am I right?”
Wilson is stock-still next to him, but his dad practically oozes paternal fondness, chuckling deeply. “You said it. Seems like he never knows what he wants, doesn’t it?”
Touché, old man. “Nah,” he starts sliding his palm up and down Wilson’s bicep and shoulder, as if they sit like this all the time. “He knows what he wants. Just took him a while to find it.”
House smirks, Gerald nods, Wilson has a quiet seizure and his mom studies her fingernails. If there is one thing he likes about creepy, familial small talk (and there is only one thing), it is this opportunity for nuance. No one can call him on his metaphorical bitchslap, since that would require Wilson’s dad to acknowledge that they had never been talking about his son’s quest for real estate.
He turns his head so that his lips just barely brush Wilson’s forehead. “Isn’t that right…” no way he’s calling Wilson ‘James’ for his parents’ benefit; not nearly embarrassing enough - “…pookie?”
What? So it was the only pet name he could think of on short notice.
Wilson laughs weakly and his ears turn red. He pats House on the chest in an indulgent sort of way and sits up (away from him), looking from parent to parent and giggling vaguely, trying to let everyone in on the joke.
Strangely, Mom and Dad don’t see the humor.
“Yeah…” Wilson trails off, his smile turning into some sort of grimace. “Hey, who wants coffee?”
He barely has time to register how inappropriately excited Wilson sounds at this prospect before he feels himself being tugged upward by the elbow.
Wilson smiles sweetly at him. “I could use a little help.”
House figures that if he dies, at least he’ll miss out on the Hanukkah rituals.
Too quickly, he’s watching Wilson set coffee mugs on a wooden tray with bruising force as he whispers harshly through the side of his mouth. “You’re not funny, House.”
“Aww, whatever do you mean, schnookums?”
“No more games. You’re making them-and me-uncomfortable.”
“I thought this was what you wanted, my little cuddlemuffin.”
He’s never going to get laid again, but the increasingly pronounced tick on Wilson’s face is almost worth it. “Would you stop it with the pet names?” He colors his request by adding a few of House’s more accurate sobriquets. “You could at least try to be sincere for five minutes. My parents haven’t done anything to you.”
Wilson’s dad started it. But, as usual in these situations, House has to be the grown-up. “And I haven’t done anything to them. Glad we talked.” He starts to walk away (thus ending the discussion) but is stopped by Wilson’s desperation.
“House.” He cuts off the only exit, swooping around to pin House loosely against the counter. “I know you’re pissed at me for not giving you more time to bitch before I told you they were coming. But they’re here now, so you’ve got two options: you can either make my life miserable for a week, meaning your life will be miserable for a considerable period of time after that. Or, you could keep your mind games and innuendo to yourself for a few days, and we can have a reasonably nice holiday.”
House snorts. Wilson doesn’t want reasonable. What he wants is a Lifetime movie.
“Besides,” he continues, whispering huskily below the sound of the coffee percolating so Mommy and Daddy can’t hear, “if you can imagine my reaction should things go wrong, just think about what I’m going to do to you if all goes well…”
He pulls back with a smug, suggestive glint in his eye, then goes right back to making coffee.
One does have to admire the man’s straight-faced duplicity.
House keeps his mouth shut and even grabs a box of those boring butter cookies as a peace offering, staring at Wilson’s ass as they descend back into Hell. Or the living room.
So he might have overplayed his first hand. No big deal.
He just needs a change of tactic.
Estelle’s dinner-table story about those Peruvian gardeners who stole her wheelbarrow is interrupted by House’s pager.
“Well, would you look at that,” he says cheerfully, pushing his plate away and slipping his pager out of his pocket to silence it. He looks around the table at three pairs of big brown eyes and shrugs sadly. “Guess I have to go in to work.”
Wilson grabs onto his bicep in a moment of mild panic. “Now? It’s Friday night. We’re in the middle of dinner.”
House gives a showy sigh. “People can’t help when they get sick.”
“Call them,” he demands, with a look that clearly means Wilson is onto him, eyes flashing a combination of plea and warning. “They might just need a quick consult.”
“It’s a 911.” House delivers the line in a disappointed tone, as if there is no place else he’d rather be right now than here listening to Tales of the Boring Elderly Couple. He unhooks the cane from the back of his chair and stands up, smiling apologetically. “Sorry to run out on you guys,” he says to Wilson’s parents, both of whom had stood up to see him out.
“That’s alright, son,” Wilson’s dad says, with such pronounced sincerity that he’s got to be faking it, “duty calls.”
House smiles a little more to close the deal, then turns to give Wilson a deliberately loud goodbye-kiss on the cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. “Be back soon,” he says softly, briefly rubbing the back of Wilson’s head.
Even though there is a symphony of anger and disbelief and suspicion playing in Wilson’s eyes, Mom and Dad seem to have bought it, averting their eyes to their dinner plates.
House is tempted to bow as he exits, stage left.
Maybe an hour later, asleep in his office chair with his headphones slipping off, problems and fake page forgotten, House forgets he’s supposed to be avoiding phone calls. “Yeah?”
“Hi, Greg,” Wilson says brightly, and House’s heart starts pumping out mercury. “I was just on the phone with Foreman about your case.”
Damn. Well. At least Wilson already forbade sex; House doesn’t have much more left to lose. “Come on. What choice did I have? One more story about their church friends and I was going to have to puke into your salad. What would your parents have said then? My puke's not kosher, you know."
“That’s fine. I was just getting a little worried.” His mom must be listening in, forcing Wilson to disguise his fury with this robotic, saccharine tone. Story of his life, always hiding who he really is so he won’t offend anyone. Pathetic.
But House doesn’t vocalize any of this. Yet. Wilson speaks over his bitter melancholy. “I take it you’re on your way back?”
House translates that as a veiled threat to his physical safety. “I’m actually on my way to Witness Protection. A week from now I’ll be whittling flutes in Amish country.”
“Okay, glad to hear it.” That nervous little chuckle sounds somewhat demonic in this context. “Could you stop by the store on your way home for some powdered sugar? Mom wants to make a special breakfast in the morning.”
“Don’t you mean ‘come back with the sugar or don’t come back at all?’”
The fake laugh again. “That’s right. And don’t worry: I’ll catch you up on all the stories you missed tonight.”
House would prefer the bodily harm. “Hey, it’s not my fault you’re trying to make us out to be the world’s gayest gay couple. You realize you’re not fooling anyone and there’s no way this is going to work, right?”
“Sounds good. See you in about thirty minutes or so?” Something in his deceptively light tone adds ‘or else.’
“God, you're a dick when you're not getting laid.”
“Okay, love you too. ‘Bye.”
House curses under his breath all the way to the grocery store.
After that first awkward night (Wilson not wanting to go to bed until he was sure his parents were asleep, like they wouldn’t know he’d be following House into the master bedroom), things seem to settle into that quiet, unacknowledged depression that always accompanies visiting relatives.
House doesn’t fake any more patients but is lucky enough to have one almost die two days into the visit, leaving him honestly occupied for the first night of Hanukkah. Wilson hasn’t strangled him in his sleep, though he has been leaving a parent-sized gap of cold air between them in bed.
House doesn’t surrender. He makes the decision to ignore further insults disguised as paternal advice, to keep his mouth shut when he catches a parent giving him a long, appraising stare. In the long run, he figures, alienating Wilson’s parents on the first holiday isn’t the best plan; he’s got years to do that. Besides, all he has to do is keep his mouth shut and his hands to himself for five more days and he’ll score major bonus points with Wilson…and they still haven’t christened Wilson’s new desk yet.
Thus, House is forced to take his revenge in more subtle ways.
He contents himself with Wilson’s hypocrisy. It’s easier to keep reminding himself that Wilson’s goody-two-shoes act is just a form of hospitality, something he’s done for years out of some misplaced sense of obligation. Whenever the family bonding threatens to smother him, House replaces it with a more comfortable mental image.
Mostly, he pictures Wilson naked.
“Oh, take a look at this one.” Wilson’s dad passes him a small, dog-eared photo from the aged album on Estelle’s lap. It shows a skinny, dark-haired, seventeen-year-old Wilson sporting an attempted mustache and staring at the floor. Next to him is a small, taffeta-encumbered girl with braces. “His first Prom. Dated this girl all through high school, didn’t you, son?”
Wilson mumbles something behind the hand that’s been pressed over his face since the album appeared.
“Sweet girl,” Estelle joins in. “Crazy about James, you know. Really helped him come out of his shell.”
Yeah, well, I finger-fucked him last weekend right here on this sofa, House thinks, and the urge to steal and destroy the parents’ cherished photographic evidence that Wilson wasn’t always a feygele fades quietly away.
So far, this approach has been working, even if it does leave him a little distracted; last night, during a half-hour long discussion about Wilson’s childhood eczema, he became so lost in his memory of almost-doing Wilson against the dining room wall that time that it took him several seconds to realize Estelle had asked him a question. “Uh…yeah. I guess he has been flaking a little.”
Regardless, House is impressed with his new technique. He can amuse himself while still appeasing Wilson’s sense of duty.
Yet the parents’ gestures of unease continue. House ‘forgot’ one of the rules on the third morning and stood around in the middle of the kitchen in pajama pants and a wrinkled shirt, his hair going in eight different directions as he ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch right out of the box. This episode got him a tidal wave of grooming ‘advice’ from Wilson’s mom, including a comment implying that his facial hair was responsible for ruining his whole appearance. (“But you’d look so handsome clean-shaven, dear!”)
The house is taking the brunt of the disapproval. Wilson’s parents seem to have transferred all their misgivings about their kid’s relationship into gentle remarks about the foundational integrity and closet space. Yesterday, House watched from the living room window as Gerald had Wilson outside in the cold, pointing a flashlight at a spot on the ground while his dad screwed around with the water main. (“I’ve got more water pressure than this place!”)
Worse still, he thinks Wilson’s parents are now actively trying to prevent them from physical contact.
There is a gene for passive-aggressiveness on the fifth chromosome, he’s sure, right between the ones for detached earlobes and moralizing. The smallest touch between the two of them gets a raised eyebrow from Mom or Dad; he thought they were going to seize when Wilson slid a handful of change into House’s coat pocket at the coffee shop. Forget comments. Something as simple as “your son thrashes around in his sleep like a beached whale” gets a cleared throat and a change of subject.
House thinks he’s got their angle figured out. It’s okay for Wilson to be gay as long it’s just in principle; that way Mr. and Mrs. Wilson get to tell all their Art Society friends how accepting and open-minded they are. Being gay in practice, however, is something else entirely.
House and Wilson are washing the dishes from dinner. Okay, well, Wilson is washing dishes; House is just grateful for this break from the parents. Wilson’s dad has revealed an unfortunate interest in horse racing, meaning all day long House has been coerced into bonding with him, spouting out jargon and ‘tricks of the trade,’ trying not to roll his eyes at Wilson’s encouraging little nods and smiles. Staring at Wilson’s ass as he leans over the sink makes for a nice change.
“Halfway there,” Wilson murmurs to him, picking up a dishtowel. “Think you can restrain the insanity for three more days?”
House leans back against the countertop. “Give me a little credit. I’ve been letting your dad bleed me for gambling tips all day; what more do you want?”
Wilson scrunches his eyebrows down at soapy water. “I know. You’ve been…great. Charming, even. I’m starting to wonder what you’re planning.”
House grins slightly, looking down at his own chest. “Gotta get the old man to like me so he’ll let me take you to the Prom,” he rumbles, leaning over to speak lowly into Wilson’s ear.
This evokes the first non-creepy smile in days. “I think it’s great you two found something to talk about. It was getting harder and harder to bridge the giant gap between your interests.”
He slides his palm over the back of Wilson’s neck. “It was impressive how you managed to work both fly fishing and osteogenesis imperfecta into the conversation last night.”
Wilson snorts. “Yeah, well.” He keeps his voice barely above a hoarse whisper, speaking to one of the Good dinner plates. “I just wanted you to know that I appreciate you making an effort…”
Oh, yeah. House knows that subtext.
He is already in the process of turning Wilson around, hands going to Wilson’s hips and staying there, pressing his own hips forward. “That so?” He can’t help but smirk a little at the coy grin on Wilson’s lips, suddenly inches away. “And this reward you mentioned…?”
Arms twine firmly around his shoulders, Wilson’s forehead pressing heavily into his. “Well. Let’s just say I had to take a few of your presents out of the living room last week.”
House grunts happily and takes a mouthful of Wilson’s neck, enjoying the soft bulge of khaki pressing against his fly, finally able to touch what he wants, taste what he wants, and he has no intention of wasting the opportunity.
He has just gotten Wilson’s mouth open, a soft play of lips against each other, swaying slowly as his free hand roams over Wilson’s ass -
“James.”
Wilson stiffens under his hands, and even House gets a short, instinctual flare of fear; the use the full first name is never a good sign. Wilson stumbles back several feet and wipes his mouth quickly. “Y-yeah, Dad?”
They are stared at for a moment, both fifteen years old again until Gerald finally speaks. “Go and help your mother for a moment. She’s trying to figure out that newfangled washing machine of yours.”
Wilson murmurs ‘yessir’ to the floor and slinks off, leaving House to face the music alone.
Gerald just smiles at him while House stares at a spot over his shoulder. The guy is a full head shorter than House, a mostly white comb-over barely covering up the beginnings of liver spots, yet House finds himself intimidated.
He chooses to blame the pent-up hormones. It’s a territorial thing.
Gerry keeps smiling, staring at House without blinking, the way Wilson does when he’s incredibly pissed off about something. The resemblance is frightening. House looks at the linoleum and casually wipes a spot of Wilson’s saliva off the corner of his mouth with the side of his thumb.
“So, Greg,” his voice is dementedly casual, as if he hasn’t just walked into every father’s worst nightmare, “why don't you explain these 'handicapped' races again?”
He finds himself being clapped on the shoulder and steered into the living room, where he is gently pushed down to the end of the couch, Wilson’s dad on the seat directly next to him, wielding an old racing form and the remote control.
And so when Wilson returns from the laundry room, his eyes on the floor, the tips of his ears blazing, he’s got no choice but to sit four feet away on the loveseat, sinking back into the cushions like he wants to disappear.
House is going to count this as an offensive strike.
What else could he call an evening spent getting elbowed good-naturedly every few minutes, being held against his will by an old-man barrier on his left side and occasional scowls of warning from his right? Apparently Daddy isn’t content critiquing the plumbing, ‘fixing’ the house as a proxy for fixing his son, so now it seems he is actually trying to chaperone his fortysomething-year-old kid in his own home, while the wife inflicts holiday-themed cable programming upon them all.
He was willing to let the tongue-in-cheek, house-related insults slide. He could even accept a week of meaningless small talk, so long as he could count on the eventual payoff. But being interrupted in the middle of copping a feel, confined to the sofa watching Jimmy Stewart stutter his way into the hearts of millions; having to see Wilson laugh off his parents’ subtle references to happier, less confusing, less gay holidays without even attempting to stick up for himself, for what makes him happy-
Whatever. Two days of keeping his mouth shut and watching Wilson schmooze the parents has taken its toll. He knows of only one sure way to get that look of repressed shame off of Wilson’s face.
Replace it with a look of repressed satisfaction.
part one | part two | part three
Author: magie_05
Word Count: 3,743
Pairing: House/Wilson domestic
Rating/Warnings: PG-13ish this part
Summary: This is another installment in my random little series of fics that takes place after House and Wilson have decided to live together. This one is based on a lovely suggestion from 2801rosie: “How about their first holiday in their new house. Maybe with parents visiting.” Uh-oh. This means ‘original’ characters. It’s broken up because I’m not sure I could ask anyone to read all this in one sitting.
So this is Hell.
“…but I told her this was Miami, not Beijing, and she came up with a whole new design for the bedroom. After all that hassle, she didn’t even charge us extra for the den, isn’t that right, Gerald?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll call her when we get back, sweetie, and see if she can recommend someone in Princeton. The poor girl isn’t the best in the business, I’ll admit, but she should at least know someone for you boys - ”
“Uh, that’s okay, Mom, we’re not really in the market for a decorator - ”
“Oh, nonsense. You’ve been here nearly eighteen months; it’s time you made yourselves at home. Don’t you think it looks a little bare and Spartan in here? Greg, dear, wouldn’t you feel more at home with some nice new drapes, maybe some new furniture?”
House’s horror keeps him silent for a moment. “I’m pretty comfortable here the way it is. Most of the time.”
Wilson straightens up next to him and clears his throat. “Right. We’re…I guess we’re kind of…set in our ways,” chuckling nervously.
“‘Stelle, don’t pressure the kids, now,” Wilson’s dad pipes up from House’s armchair. “They’re busy; they don’t have time for that kind of thing.”
From the loveseat, Wilson’s mom tsks dismissively. “That’s exactly why you should let me call Alice when we get back, James. Just because you boys are busy is no reason to…”
And she’s off again. House has been sitting on the sofa with Wilson, trapped by a parent on either side of the room. He’s not sure which part is worse: the two of them being referred to as ‘you boys’ every few sentences, the Greg dears, the kiss on the cheek or the bone-crushing handshake he endured back at the airport. Then the predicted tour of the house, Estelle lauding over things like the place’s “flow” and the light fixtures, Wilson’s dad clapping his son on the back in a congratulatory sort of way.
“You boys were smart to buy when you did,” he says now, pulling House back into the conversation. “Probably got locked in to the lowest interest rate in twenty years.”
“Yes, sir,” Wilson says warmly, confirming House’s long-running suspicion that the guy was raised to be a suck-up, “we were really lucky.”
“Though you probably could have shopped around a little longer,” Gerald goes on. “This is a nice place, but it’s on the small side. Seems to me you could have found something roomier, or at least something a little closer to town.”
House thumps the cane softly against the floor. “Well, we had one or two restrictions.”
He sees Wilson scowling at him through the corner of his eye, but Gerald just grunts good-naturedly. “I hear you. I just hope you boys don’t get tired of the place. You know how quickly Jim can change his mind.”
See, that’s another thing. House is starting to see where Wilson got his sarcastic streak. It has been maybe two hours, and that’s at least the third vague, tongue-in-cheek reference to Wilson’s ‘sudden’ change, how he went from being their straight-laced, respectable son to shacking up with a man in this apparently subpar home.
House pulls back his lips in a small grin and, after a moment’s hesitation, throws an arm companionably over Wilson’s shoulders, ignoring the bushy, raised eyebrow it provokes. “We’re not going to get tired of it.”
Wilson may feel obligated to play the part of Good Son; he may impose whatever rules he wants to try and censor House’s personality. Let him take these soft little jabs at their relationship with nothing more than that vacant, stoic expression.
House has ways of fighting back. If Wilson wants to play normal, happy suburban couple, then that’s exactly what he’s going to get.
“Besides, you should have seen how many places we looked at before this one.” He sits back into the sofa cushions, dragging Wilson with him, pressing their sides together and settling his palm on Wilson’s chest. “It was a nightmare,” he says, imitating fond nostalgia. “You know how picky ‘Jim’ can be, am I right?”
Wilson is stock-still next to him, but his dad practically oozes paternal fondness, chuckling deeply. “You said it. Seems like he never knows what he wants, doesn’t it?”
Touché, old man. “Nah,” he starts sliding his palm up and down Wilson’s bicep and shoulder, as if they sit like this all the time. “He knows what he wants. Just took him a while to find it.”
House smirks, Gerald nods, Wilson has a quiet seizure and his mom studies her fingernails. If there is one thing he likes about creepy, familial small talk (and there is only one thing), it is this opportunity for nuance. No one can call him on his metaphorical bitchslap, since that would require Wilson’s dad to acknowledge that they had never been talking about his son’s quest for real estate.
He turns his head so that his lips just barely brush Wilson’s forehead. “Isn’t that right…” no way he’s calling Wilson ‘James’ for his parents’ benefit; not nearly embarrassing enough - “…pookie?”
What? So it was the only pet name he could think of on short notice.
Wilson laughs weakly and his ears turn red. He pats House on the chest in an indulgent sort of way and sits up (away from him), looking from parent to parent and giggling vaguely, trying to let everyone in on the joke.
Strangely, Mom and Dad don’t see the humor.
“Yeah…” Wilson trails off, his smile turning into some sort of grimace. “Hey, who wants coffee?”
He barely has time to register how inappropriately excited Wilson sounds at this prospect before he feels himself being tugged upward by the elbow.
Wilson smiles sweetly at him. “I could use a little help.”
House figures that if he dies, at least he’ll miss out on the Hanukkah rituals.
Too quickly, he’s watching Wilson set coffee mugs on a wooden tray with bruising force as he whispers harshly through the side of his mouth. “You’re not funny, House.”
“Aww, whatever do you mean, schnookums?”
“No more games. You’re making them-and me-uncomfortable.”
“I thought this was what you wanted, my little cuddlemuffin.”
He’s never going to get laid again, but the increasingly pronounced tick on Wilson’s face is almost worth it. “Would you stop it with the pet names?” He colors his request by adding a few of House’s more accurate sobriquets. “You could at least try to be sincere for five minutes. My parents haven’t done anything to you.”
Wilson’s dad started it. But, as usual in these situations, House has to be the grown-up. “And I haven’t done anything to them. Glad we talked.” He starts to walk away (thus ending the discussion) but is stopped by Wilson’s desperation.
“House.” He cuts off the only exit, swooping around to pin House loosely against the counter. “I know you’re pissed at me for not giving you more time to bitch before I told you they were coming. But they’re here now, so you’ve got two options: you can either make my life miserable for a week, meaning your life will be miserable for a considerable period of time after that. Or, you could keep your mind games and innuendo to yourself for a few days, and we can have a reasonably nice holiday.”
House snorts. Wilson doesn’t want reasonable. What he wants is a Lifetime movie.
“Besides,” he continues, whispering huskily below the sound of the coffee percolating so Mommy and Daddy can’t hear, “if you can imagine my reaction should things go wrong, just think about what I’m going to do to you if all goes well…”
He pulls back with a smug, suggestive glint in his eye, then goes right back to making coffee.
One does have to admire the man’s straight-faced duplicity.
House keeps his mouth shut and even grabs a box of those boring butter cookies as a peace offering, staring at Wilson’s ass as they descend back into Hell. Or the living room.
So he might have overplayed his first hand. No big deal.
He just needs a change of tactic.
Estelle’s dinner-table story about those Peruvian gardeners who stole her wheelbarrow is interrupted by House’s pager.
“Well, would you look at that,” he says cheerfully, pushing his plate away and slipping his pager out of his pocket to silence it. He looks around the table at three pairs of big brown eyes and shrugs sadly. “Guess I have to go in to work.”
Wilson grabs onto his bicep in a moment of mild panic. “Now? It’s Friday night. We’re in the middle of dinner.”
House gives a showy sigh. “People can’t help when they get sick.”
“Call them,” he demands, with a look that clearly means Wilson is onto him, eyes flashing a combination of plea and warning. “They might just need a quick consult.”
“It’s a 911.” House delivers the line in a disappointed tone, as if there is no place else he’d rather be right now than here listening to Tales of the Boring Elderly Couple. He unhooks the cane from the back of his chair and stands up, smiling apologetically. “Sorry to run out on you guys,” he says to Wilson’s parents, both of whom had stood up to see him out.
“That’s alright, son,” Wilson’s dad says, with such pronounced sincerity that he’s got to be faking it, “duty calls.”
House smiles a little more to close the deal, then turns to give Wilson a deliberately loud goodbye-kiss on the cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. “Be back soon,” he says softly, briefly rubbing the back of Wilson’s head.
Even though there is a symphony of anger and disbelief and suspicion playing in Wilson’s eyes, Mom and Dad seem to have bought it, averting their eyes to their dinner plates.
House is tempted to bow as he exits, stage left.
Maybe an hour later, asleep in his office chair with his headphones slipping off, problems and fake page forgotten, House forgets he’s supposed to be avoiding phone calls. “Yeah?”
“Hi, Greg,” Wilson says brightly, and House’s heart starts pumping out mercury. “I was just on the phone with Foreman about your case.”
Damn. Well. At least Wilson already forbade sex; House doesn’t have much more left to lose. “Come on. What choice did I have? One more story about their church friends and I was going to have to puke into your salad. What would your parents have said then? My puke's not kosher, you know."
“That’s fine. I was just getting a little worried.” His mom must be listening in, forcing Wilson to disguise his fury with this robotic, saccharine tone. Story of his life, always hiding who he really is so he won’t offend anyone. Pathetic.
But House doesn’t vocalize any of this. Yet. Wilson speaks over his bitter melancholy. “I take it you’re on your way back?”
House translates that as a veiled threat to his physical safety. “I’m actually on my way to Witness Protection. A week from now I’ll be whittling flutes in Amish country.”
“Okay, glad to hear it.” That nervous little chuckle sounds somewhat demonic in this context. “Could you stop by the store on your way home for some powdered sugar? Mom wants to make a special breakfast in the morning.”
“Don’t you mean ‘come back with the sugar or don’t come back at all?’”
The fake laugh again. “That’s right. And don’t worry: I’ll catch you up on all the stories you missed tonight.”
House would prefer the bodily harm. “Hey, it’s not my fault you’re trying to make us out to be the world’s gayest gay couple. You realize you’re not fooling anyone and there’s no way this is going to work, right?”
“Sounds good. See you in about thirty minutes or so?” Something in his deceptively light tone adds ‘or else.’
“God, you're a dick when you're not getting laid.”
“Okay, love you too. ‘Bye.”
House curses under his breath all the way to the grocery store.
After that first awkward night (Wilson not wanting to go to bed until he was sure his parents were asleep, like they wouldn’t know he’d be following House into the master bedroom), things seem to settle into that quiet, unacknowledged depression that always accompanies visiting relatives.
House doesn’t fake any more patients but is lucky enough to have one almost die two days into the visit, leaving him honestly occupied for the first night of Hanukkah. Wilson hasn’t strangled him in his sleep, though he has been leaving a parent-sized gap of cold air between them in bed.
House doesn’t surrender. He makes the decision to ignore further insults disguised as paternal advice, to keep his mouth shut when he catches a parent giving him a long, appraising stare. In the long run, he figures, alienating Wilson’s parents on the first holiday isn’t the best plan; he’s got years to do that. Besides, all he has to do is keep his mouth shut and his hands to himself for five more days and he’ll score major bonus points with Wilson…and they still haven’t christened Wilson’s new desk yet.
Thus, House is forced to take his revenge in more subtle ways.
He contents himself with Wilson’s hypocrisy. It’s easier to keep reminding himself that Wilson’s goody-two-shoes act is just a form of hospitality, something he’s done for years out of some misplaced sense of obligation. Whenever the family bonding threatens to smother him, House replaces it with a more comfortable mental image.
Mostly, he pictures Wilson naked.
“Oh, take a look at this one.” Wilson’s dad passes him a small, dog-eared photo from the aged album on Estelle’s lap. It shows a skinny, dark-haired, seventeen-year-old Wilson sporting an attempted mustache and staring at the floor. Next to him is a small, taffeta-encumbered girl with braces. “His first Prom. Dated this girl all through high school, didn’t you, son?”
Wilson mumbles something behind the hand that’s been pressed over his face since the album appeared.
“Sweet girl,” Estelle joins in. “Crazy about James, you know. Really helped him come out of his shell.”
Yeah, well, I finger-fucked him last weekend right here on this sofa, House thinks, and the urge to steal and destroy the parents’ cherished photographic evidence that Wilson wasn’t always a feygele fades quietly away.
So far, this approach has been working, even if it does leave him a little distracted; last night, during a half-hour long discussion about Wilson’s childhood eczema, he became so lost in his memory of almost-doing Wilson against the dining room wall that time that it took him several seconds to realize Estelle had asked him a question. “Uh…yeah. I guess he has been flaking a little.”
Regardless, House is impressed with his new technique. He can amuse himself while still appeasing Wilson’s sense of duty.
Yet the parents’ gestures of unease continue. House ‘forgot’ one of the rules on the third morning and stood around in the middle of the kitchen in pajama pants and a wrinkled shirt, his hair going in eight different directions as he ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch right out of the box. This episode got him a tidal wave of grooming ‘advice’ from Wilson’s mom, including a comment implying that his facial hair was responsible for ruining his whole appearance. (“But you’d look so handsome clean-shaven, dear!”)
The house is taking the brunt of the disapproval. Wilson’s parents seem to have transferred all their misgivings about their kid’s relationship into gentle remarks about the foundational integrity and closet space. Yesterday, House watched from the living room window as Gerald had Wilson outside in the cold, pointing a flashlight at a spot on the ground while his dad screwed around with the water main. (“I’ve got more water pressure than this place!”)
Worse still, he thinks Wilson’s parents are now actively trying to prevent them from physical contact.
There is a gene for passive-aggressiveness on the fifth chromosome, he’s sure, right between the ones for detached earlobes and moralizing. The smallest touch between the two of them gets a raised eyebrow from Mom or Dad; he thought they were going to seize when Wilson slid a handful of change into House’s coat pocket at the coffee shop. Forget comments. Something as simple as “your son thrashes around in his sleep like a beached whale” gets a cleared throat and a change of subject.
House thinks he’s got their angle figured out. It’s okay for Wilson to be gay as long it’s just in principle; that way Mr. and Mrs. Wilson get to tell all their Art Society friends how accepting and open-minded they are. Being gay in practice, however, is something else entirely.
House and Wilson are washing the dishes from dinner. Okay, well, Wilson is washing dishes; House is just grateful for this break from the parents. Wilson’s dad has revealed an unfortunate interest in horse racing, meaning all day long House has been coerced into bonding with him, spouting out jargon and ‘tricks of the trade,’ trying not to roll his eyes at Wilson’s encouraging little nods and smiles. Staring at Wilson’s ass as he leans over the sink makes for a nice change.
“Halfway there,” Wilson murmurs to him, picking up a dishtowel. “Think you can restrain the insanity for three more days?”
House leans back against the countertop. “Give me a little credit. I’ve been letting your dad bleed me for gambling tips all day; what more do you want?”
Wilson scrunches his eyebrows down at soapy water. “I know. You’ve been…great. Charming, even. I’m starting to wonder what you’re planning.”
House grins slightly, looking down at his own chest. “Gotta get the old man to like me so he’ll let me take you to the Prom,” he rumbles, leaning over to speak lowly into Wilson’s ear.
This evokes the first non-creepy smile in days. “I think it’s great you two found something to talk about. It was getting harder and harder to bridge the giant gap between your interests.”
He slides his palm over the back of Wilson’s neck. “It was impressive how you managed to work both fly fishing and osteogenesis imperfecta into the conversation last night.”
Wilson snorts. “Yeah, well.” He keeps his voice barely above a hoarse whisper, speaking to one of the Good dinner plates. “I just wanted you to know that I appreciate you making an effort…”
Oh, yeah. House knows that subtext.
He is already in the process of turning Wilson around, hands going to Wilson’s hips and staying there, pressing his own hips forward. “That so?” He can’t help but smirk a little at the coy grin on Wilson’s lips, suddenly inches away. “And this reward you mentioned…?”
Arms twine firmly around his shoulders, Wilson’s forehead pressing heavily into his. “Well. Let’s just say I had to take a few of your presents out of the living room last week.”
House grunts happily and takes a mouthful of Wilson’s neck, enjoying the soft bulge of khaki pressing against his fly, finally able to touch what he wants, taste what he wants, and he has no intention of wasting the opportunity.
He has just gotten Wilson’s mouth open, a soft play of lips against each other, swaying slowly as his free hand roams over Wilson’s ass -
“James.”
Wilson stiffens under his hands, and even House gets a short, instinctual flare of fear; the use the full first name is never a good sign. Wilson stumbles back several feet and wipes his mouth quickly. “Y-yeah, Dad?”
They are stared at for a moment, both fifteen years old again until Gerald finally speaks. “Go and help your mother for a moment. She’s trying to figure out that newfangled washing machine of yours.”
Wilson murmurs ‘yessir’ to the floor and slinks off, leaving House to face the music alone.
Gerald just smiles at him while House stares at a spot over his shoulder. The guy is a full head shorter than House, a mostly white comb-over barely covering up the beginnings of liver spots, yet House finds himself intimidated.
He chooses to blame the pent-up hormones. It’s a territorial thing.
Gerry keeps smiling, staring at House without blinking, the way Wilson does when he’s incredibly pissed off about something. The resemblance is frightening. House looks at the linoleum and casually wipes a spot of Wilson’s saliva off the corner of his mouth with the side of his thumb.
“So, Greg,” his voice is dementedly casual, as if he hasn’t just walked into every father’s worst nightmare, “why don't you explain these 'handicapped' races again?”
He finds himself being clapped on the shoulder and steered into the living room, where he is gently pushed down to the end of the couch, Wilson’s dad on the seat directly next to him, wielding an old racing form and the remote control.
And so when Wilson returns from the laundry room, his eyes on the floor, the tips of his ears blazing, he’s got no choice but to sit four feet away on the loveseat, sinking back into the cushions like he wants to disappear.
House is going to count this as an offensive strike.
What else could he call an evening spent getting elbowed good-naturedly every few minutes, being held against his will by an old-man barrier on his left side and occasional scowls of warning from his right? Apparently Daddy isn’t content critiquing the plumbing, ‘fixing’ the house as a proxy for fixing his son, so now it seems he is actually trying to chaperone his fortysomething-year-old kid in his own home, while the wife inflicts holiday-themed cable programming upon them all.
He was willing to let the tongue-in-cheek, house-related insults slide. He could even accept a week of meaningless small talk, so long as he could count on the eventual payoff. But being interrupted in the middle of copping a feel, confined to the sofa watching Jimmy Stewart stutter his way into the hearts of millions; having to see Wilson laugh off his parents’ subtle references to happier, less confusing, less gay holidays without even attempting to stick up for himself, for what makes him happy-
Whatever. Two days of keeping his mouth shut and watching Wilson schmooze the parents has taken its toll. He knows of only one sure way to get that look of repressed shame off of Wilson’s face.
Replace it with a look of repressed satisfaction.
part one | part two | part three