Fic: Decameron part 9, Cam/H one-sided, H/W
Fic: Decameron, part 9
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: Cam/H one-sided, H/W
Rating: Mature
A/N: Nine down, one to go! I know I keep saying this (and it's probably sounding insincere by now), but the comments and reviews have been so great. Much love. : )
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DAY NINE
It’s late. You haven’t slept well or often for the past few days, and it’s creeping up on your heavy eyelids. House and Wilson spent the last-you glance at the clock-nearly three hours watching sports. Wilson was jotting down notes on what was apparently a scorecard while House observed him reproachfully. Apparently, scorecards are something akin to patients’ charts.
You start to think this night is pointless. Their conversation has been brief and self-analyzed. You can tell Wilson is inspecting words before he even says them, and House rarely says anything at all. You know it might be nothing; it’s just another boring weekend, and judging by House’s occasional curses, the team he is rooting for is losing 7-0.
Or it could be the rift over the Vicodin.
That one little detail gives you the strength to sit through the rest of the night. Something still might happen.
* * *
Your neck is beginning to complain about its uncomfortable position on the loveseat you used before. You’ve slipped off your heels and have them resting in your lap, ankles dangling over the opposite arm rest. You must have dozed off sometime in between, because when you wake up, the television is off and the other two have wandered into the hallway.
Blinking, you sit up and try to straighten your vision. Wilson is fingering the bottom of House’s shirt, rubbing and tugging at it as their mouths exchange pecking kisses. It looks nearly innocent, inexpert. Maybe they don’t even kiss that often.
“Wilson,” you can just barely hear House whisper, and immediately you shiver as his fingers glide up Wilson’s jaw, around his ear, digressing into his hair. The other relents without a word. He opens his mouth almost gently and lets House continue, this time in control.
They shift further down the hall, and you hesitatingly rise to your bare feet. You’re intimidated by their height compared to yours; this isn’t like watching a man and woman together, where you can experience it vicariously through a female’s perspective. There is no viewpoint you can take with this; there are only rough edges and solid tones, their similarities skewing the picture.
But it’s…affectionate. Aggressive, yes, and more forceful than you’d be comfortable with, but…
You glance away momentarily as Wilson moans, House sliding an open palm up under his shirt.
The front door waits behind you, compelling you to at least consider it as an option. You don’t really want to stay. You don’t have to. More than anything, watching this is weird and uncouth, and the rising guilt isn’t easy to suppress.
But the look on House’s face is strangely calming. He is not hurting now. He’s exposed and human, so bereft of pain. And the way Wilson’s fingers decorate his waist with venerating touches…
Your eyes, stinging slightly, flutter as you hug your arms close.
Wilson walks him back into the bedroom, but you can’t make yourself follow. You remain in the doorway conversing with mute shadows.
House has barely sat on the edge of the bed before Wilson has leaned down to him, one knee between his legs and the other safely positioned on the left side. For not believing that House is in pain, he’s being incredibly sensitive to the thigh of concern. Wilson trails biting kisses across his neck, nuzzling at a certain spot just below his ear, until House’s head lolls back and a smile flickers to his face, awash in the half-light.
“Jimmy,” he murmurs, “no fair.”
“You want me to stop?” Wilson says, something he clearly has no intention of doing. His words muffle and run together.
“I want you to-” House inhales sharply as Wilson’s hands digress lower, and you avert your eyes.
There’s a flurry of motion on the peripheral of your vision. House pushes Wilson away, forcing his arms down by his sides. He presses his forehead to Wilson’s, voice suddenly, gruffly low.
“I want to you to beg.”
Confusion comes across Wilson’s face. You wonder if the request is strange-a part of you suspects House would be more controlling than he’s shown already.
“House, why-?”
“Like I did.” Wilson shifts uncomfortably as House leans in, mouth possessively close without contact. “For the damn drugs.”
Wilson looks defensive. “I didn’t-House-“ He turns abruptly apologetic as House grips his arm hard, giving the inside of his thigh a quick, rough stroke with the other.
“I was worried-”
“I didn’t ask for an explanation, did I?” House snaps. Wilson almost whimpers, shaking his head. “Then do it.”
“House…” Wilson gazes at him helplessly. He shrugs, mouth parted and absent of words.
“Do it.”
He vainly searches House’s face, dropping to his neck after a moment. His eyes close resignedly. You almost feel embarrassed for him. “Please.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Please. House.” Wilson’s stiff and strained, unsure of words. “Please.”
“Is that all you can say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
House seizes his face between his hands. Wilson presses his own hands overtop, their fingers settling between one another’s like an open fan.
“Don’t take care of me,” House says tightly. “Help me…help myself.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
Then House’s lips are on his again.
Their mouths mold for a minute, forming new creations in ruddy, teeth-nipped colors and half-expressed moans. House has managed to slip the other’s shirt from his shoulders and onto the floor, where it folds like heated wax, but by then Wilson has evaded him again. He ducks below House’s jawline-you notice with an ineffable rush-slowly pressing his lips to the scar on House’s neck.
“Don’t,” House tells him quietly. He pulls back, but Wilson captures him by the nape and holds him close, sighing, burrowing his nose against the mark near-death left upon him. He whispers something low into House’s ear. You can’t catch it, but it isn’t meant for you anyway.
House quiets after a pause, accepting Wilson’s attention with no further demands.
You can feel the blood practically singing your skin as Wilson strips him of his clothes, barely interrupting their kisses. There’s a spot on the floor you reference for modesty. A shiver mingles with the heat diffusing across your face, and while this certainly isn’t even close to being a turn-on for you, it’s oddly, hauntingly, attractive.
You steal a tentative glance at them on the bed again, finding the smooth, pale expanse of Wilson’s back turned toward you and his grayish, murky pants slipping low off his waist. House runs a hand under the elastic of his boxers and you turn quickly, having the impulse to pull your knees up to your chest, like you did as an eight-year-old secretly watching late-night fright movies.
It’s not watching this that scares you. It’s how you feel about it.
Wilson drapes himself low over House, who is now spread flat on his back. Wilson’s body falls and rises rhythmically as he glances kisses and touches across his chest. You shift slightly, trying to block anything too revealing now that the floor is clothed in shirts and pants. A subtle rise in the blankets, which have been inadvertently kicked up into a pile at the end of the bed, shields your view well enough. Providing that they don’t move much.
House pulls his head up with some difficulty, wincing into the hallway light streaming in through the doorway. You self-consciously step back into the shadows.
“Shouldn’t we get that light?” House murmurs.
“I want to see you,” Wilson replies. He kisses his forehead, then the bridge of his nose, and then his lips again.
You wonder if House is thinking about his leg, or his neck, or the stitches on his abdomen-all the weighted wounds that only add to age-when he says dryly, “I’d rather not see me.”
Wilson chuckles at the flippant comment. “Well, you wouldn’t be able to see me then, either.”
“Never said I wanted to.” You watch as House cajoles him into another gasping kiss, and you wonder if Wilson can feel House's smile curling against his own mouth.
* * *
You can’t watch anymore. You just can’t. Hands trembling, you move back into the hallway, pacing back and forth to the unavoidable rhythm of the bedroom’s sounds. You can’t even think; an inarticulate chasm stretches across your mind.
Fingering the heliotrope in your hand, you decide there is only one thing you can clearly think of, only one that you have clearly learned. When House says “Jimmy”-you’ve heard it murmured, groaned several times-it’s only an intimate tease, a prodding joke. When House comes, he calls out “Wilson.”
* * *
Only waking up do you realize you had fallen asleep again. The living room is still deceptively dusky, morning not yet breaking, but the plumbing rushes within the walls. Someone’s in the shower already.
Rubbing at your eyes and checking instinctively for the necklace-yes, still there-you slip back to the bedroom. You’ll take one last look before you leave. And then you don’t know what you’ll do.
House still sleeps, now alone, in the bed. His eyelids seem to ripple intermittently, still lost in the self-created world of REM. One arm has been tossed across the empty side while the other drapes across his exposed chest. From his torso down, the concealing sheets give you permission to go closer.
Quietly, you crawl in beside him and the mattress creaks an acknowledged greeting. The open spot is still warm from Wilson’s sleeping body, but the loathing fades. You let it drip like dry and crackled paint from you, sinking as stones and anchors into the sheets.
You breathe again.
There’s the zest shampoo-foreign to House; it must belong to Wilson-faintly within the covers, and a lingering smell of aftershave and speedstick and something musky mixing with sweat. You can feel it melding into you, fusing to you. So this is what Wilson sees.
You noiselessly turn on your side and rest your chin against House’s shoulder, counting unnoticeable birthmarks and falling into the shadowed contours of his collarbone. It’s risky. It’s too late to care. Without giving it any further thought, you rest a hand on his pulsing chest, brushing your smoothly shaped nails against his hand and fingers.
You hold him like a mother cradles her stillborn child, one she has loved without ever knowing.
* * *
Wilson comes out minutes later after the hairdryer has silenced. He still looks slightly wet, but somehow his professional shirt and tie give him the appearance of inexplicable order. You have no motivation to move from the bed. So you stay.
Running his hand momentarily through his floppy hair, Wilson wanders over, his feet quiet on the floor so as not to disturb House without warning. You stare at him from waist-level. He’s like a stranger, an abstract painting that’s up for all interpretations.
Wilson, you realize, is no better than you. In fact, he’s worse, because-unlike you-he has gotten the chance to try and fix House. And he’s failed. Twice. You wonder what it would have been like: you here with House and Wilson watching from a distance like he is now. He would have done the same as you, you’re certain.
“House.” Wilson grabs his briefcase from the corner of the room, rooting through for something. After a moment, he comes near and crouches along the side of the bed, running his fingers along House’s arm to get his attention. Inadvertently, his touch falls upon your hand as well. You feel the goosebumps rising on your skin, and you glance up at him, eyes wide yet inexpressive.
Wilson’s gaze doesn’t stray from House’s face. “Hey. House. I’m going to work, all right?”
House gurgles something in response. He’ll be late like any other day. When he shifts, you scoot a bit to the other side so your body never directly touches his, but you don’t move your hand from his chest. Your russet hair musses against the pillow, spreading like a dark halo.
“House.”
There’s a rattle of something achingly familiar, and you lift your head silently. Wilson lifts what he took from his briefcase. Vicodin.
“Here. I’ll leave it on the dresser, all right?”
It takes you a moment to realize House has slowly stirred to consciousness. He breathes through his nose for a few seconds before opening his mouth, lips swollen and dry and voice sounding not much better.
“When did you…?”
“Yesterday. I was thinking about what you said, and Cameron… Cameron talked to me yesterday. On the way home.”
Your shiver swells to a burning in your chest, and even you don’t know if it’s good or bad.
House locks eyes with Wilson before wandering back to the drugs on the dresser, just as he promised. He nods and turns away, leaving you to deal with the disappointment in Wilson’s face.
You look between them both, unable to tell who’s in more pain. At least you’ve never pretended you weren’t.
Wilson murmurs a concluding “okay,” then leans close to kiss House cheek. You can hear House’s stubble bristling against Wilson’s lips. As if an extension of them both, you give House’s hand a gentle squeeze.
Half-asleep, he must attribute the touch to Wilson because he squeezes back. Closing your eyes, you slip out of bed and follow Wilson to the door.
tbc... http://nakannalee.livejournal.com/12055.html