With Benefits

[stenveny]

Title: With Benefits
Pairing: None explicit. Hints of House/Dominika, stronger hints of House/Wilson.
Characters: House, Dominika, Wilson.
Rating: Teen
Warning: spoiler for "Man of the House"
Summary: Based on an idea that taiga13 at house_wilson had about a scene in “Man of the House.” Wilson tries to rescue House and Dominika’s green card

Comments

[stenveny]

Well, Henry can be a neanderthal -- he's judging House/Wilson or House/Dominika on the basis of what keeps the peace, and what he himself would like, not on the basis of what's sustainable. Cuddy, however, would not be Cuddy (nor would she have been half as interesting to House) if she were a female version of Wilson. Dominika is pretending to be, in this fic, and House prefers the real Wilson to her.

The principal feature of my reaction to season 8 is relief -- I am so glad the torturously grim, unromantic, unsexy, relationship is over -- but in "getting back to basics" Shore and Co had to drop a lot of stuff that fanfic does not. For instance, there's a dearth of fic exploring how Wilson must have mourned House during the period between "Moving On" and "Transplant." I suspect, from the way he dealt with Amber's death in canon, that there was some anger and blame blended in with his grief and his worry, and that Cuddy would have been (somewhat unfairly) the recipient of some of that. She should have expected as much, I suppose -- Wilson will always, always, take House's side, when there is a side to choose, sometimes even at the expense of choosing Wilson's side by drawing boundaries -- but, damn, it's hard to not feel empathy for her, reaching out to her one remaining friend with takeout after she herself has been attacked, and getting the door slammed in her face.