Perchance (PG)
Posted to house_wilson and housefic
Title: Perchance
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House-Wilson friendship
Rating: PG
Words: 3151
Summary: Bed: A piece of furniture for reclining and sleeping, typically consisting of a flat, rectangular frame and a mattress resting on springs.
Notes: Takes place near episode 3-4 (“Lines in the Sand”); no spoilers after that point. Thanks to daisylily for another outstanding beta, and to nightdog_barks and perspi for late night review.
There are several people in this world who hate Greg House, and at the moment James Wilson is one of them. Through a series of unfortunate events, he’s been at the hospital for twenty-six hours, and all he wants is to go home. It’s not really a home; it’s a barely furnished apartment, but it’s his, and it’s not here, and it has a bed. So that’s where he wants to be.
Except he can’t leave, because Greg House has his keys, and Greg House is nowhere to be found.
If he was thinking straight (was it mentioned that all twenty-six of those hours, plus the two before, were spent awake?), he’d realize that he could just take a damn cab home. In fact, given the state of his brain, a cab would be preferable to driving himself. He’s not thinking straight, though (thinking straight, that’s an odd phrase, and a whole ’nother conversation he needs to have with himself but this is not the time), and he wants House to reappear from whatever ether or alternate dimension he’s disappeared to and give him his goddamn keys.
When he writes that on the seventh sticky note he’s left in various places, he puts the dash in between the G and the D. He doesn’t do that all the time, but his mother does and somehow he’s channeling her now. You leave out the letter O because the paper you write on will inevitably be thrown away and it’s not right to destroy the name of the Almighty. Which seems like a strange thing - the guy’s omnipotent, for Pete’s sake. What’s it going to hurt Him to have His name ripped apart? But then Yahweh has a lot of rules, about cubits of altars, and unclean animals, and mixing of cloths. And that seventh commandment, that’s another one Wilson has had a problem following.
Lately, it seems the first one’s possibly getting broken as well, but really this is not the time to think about it because Wilson needs his keys. Home, he wants to go home, and never mind that he doesn’t have one; he’s got a place with a bed and that’s where he wants to go.
He tries the Clinic, exam rooms 1, 2, 3, and 4. No one’s hiding there except a teenager who doesn’t want to go back to geometry - better than calculus, kid - and Brenda hasn’t seen House all morning. He’s not due until two, Wilson knew that, but the portable gets its best reception in the Clinic.
He tries the roof and catches Chase with a lab tech, ho hum, but House is still gone, gone, gone. Does he have his yo-yo with him, wherever he is? That had been the excuse for appropriating Wilson’s keys two hours ago, the whine so plaintive: “It’s in your car; I need it.” A demand that Wilson go get it would surely have been next, so he had thrust the keys into House’s hands and moved on to the next crisis. Finally, finally, the crises are over (in remission) but House is nowhere to be found.
Wilson tries the cafeteria again, and every single department lounge - TiVo and flat panels and DVDs, oh my. He tries the movie theater. Now really, why in the hell does PPTH have a movie theater? What is the point; what is the purpose?
He must have mumbled that last part out loud, because a med student eagerly explains about new teaching techniques and surgery videos, and Wilson’s eyes have glazed before the med student draws her first breath. He nods a few times, hoping that it’s in the right places. Her face and posture show just how eager she is to please, and he wonders if he’d need to say four nice things to her or only three before she’d suck him off in a supply closet.
Oh, this is not good; he needs to go home right now. He nods politely again, and touches the student briefly on the arm, and gives her a smile that is meant to be reassuring, but obviously he’s too distracted to get it right because she looks at him like he’s, well, House.
It’s a long shot, but about the only place left, so he checks the lecture hall next. There are about fifty med students in there (fifty blowjobs under the right circumstances), and the World’s Best Dad is lecturing. No House and no keys.
He’s back to House’s office. No House. No Foreman, no Chase, no Cameron. His previous three stickies - desk, chair, monitor - are unmolested, unmoved. It’s dark and then light again (microsleep, his brain hands him), and his second grade teacher is shouting in his ear. She had big breasts - he and his friends called them something different, some silly and immature word, House probably has used it at some point but he can’t recall now - but now she’s using his father’s words. “James, pull it together. Focus on your goal and achieve it.”
Goal: Find House.
No, wait, that’s the means. He wants to find House so he can get his keys. So the goal is - no, keys aren’t the goal either. He wants his keys so he can get in his car so he can drive home so he can get in bed away from here so he can sleep undisturbed.
Goal: Undisturbed sleep.
Yes, that’s it, and then suddenly he’s reaching into House’s leather jacket for House’s keys and picking up the helmet and heading toward the garage. Down in the elevator, parking level 1, and the motorcycle’s right there.
It’s an insane vehicle. House is crazy to have it, crazy to ride it, but now that Wilson knows his true goal, he’s going to take this means to get it.
It takes him a minute to find the ignition, and another three minutes to remember what his older brother had taught him about motorcycles years ago. The choke and the clutch and the gear shifter.
It all comes back to him suddenly. He’s never liked motorcycles - too much potential to lose control - but when he was fourteen he’d loved his older brother desperately. Absorbing the lessons was a way to prove his love, and twenty-plus years later it’s all still embedded in his brain.
He revs the engine, remembering his brother’s pride, and wonders if House will be drawn by his baby’s purr. But no House arrives, so Wilson straps on the helmet and laughs. Crotch rocket, his father had said, and sneered. He had drawn a line and Wilson had put himself on the other side for the first time in his life.
Ten minutes later, and it’s good that the bike knows where to go, because Wilson hasn’t been paying attention. But the bike doesn’t want to take Wilson home; it wants to go to its own familiar haunt.
Even better, Wilson realizes, because his apartment keys are also on his key ring (forgotten: the duplicate on House’s ring). Back at the hospital. Thrown in a drawer by House, or tucked into House’s jeans. Probably in the front, that’s where House keeps his own keys. Tucked down deep in the right front pocket; Wilson could just reach out and slip his hand in - and oh, crap, he missed his turn.
Around and back again, Jeeves, and then he’s in front of House’s place. There’s supposed to be a handicapped spot on the street, but there isn’t. Screw it, the bike’s sat on the sidewalk outside the front door before; it can do it again.
Through the front door, two steps in the vestibule, through House’s door, and he’s in. It’s not the hospital and the relief is overwhelming. It’s not home, either - he tells himself again and again, it’s not home, it’s not home, it’s not home - but it’s not the hospital and there’s a bed. Right in front of him.
He gets his shoes off but that’s all, and his eyes are closed before his head hits the pillow.
***
At some point, he wakes up and takes his belt off. He scratches at the buckle imprint on his stomach and tries to go back to sleep.
His bladder’s got other ideas, so he stumbles to the bathroom and pisses. His pants fall to the floor (How? Did he misplace his ass at some point?), and as his piss tinkles merrily into the toilet, he considers whether he should pull them back up. It’d be a little strange to sleep in House’s bed in just his underwear but on the other hand, it’ll cost him a couple of seconds in the race to return to slumber if he has to put the damn pants back on.
He slips under the covers this time, and pulls a pillow to his chest. His pants and dress shirt are huddled on the bathroom floor.
***
The ring of the phone is vaguely familiar, but it’s not his cell. Or House’s, which has the exact same ring. It’s not his home phone - although that’s not exactly a familiar ring, seeing as how he’s heard it only three times.
It doesn’t matter, he’s awake anyway, and the noise won’t go away until he picks up the phone. He fumbles around on the nightstand, hoping to avoid opening his eyes, and luckily his hand hits a hard smooth curve that must be the receiver.
“Lo,” is all he manages to get out as he presses the receiver against his ear.
“Still sleeping?” purrs a low voice.
“Not now, but I was before the phone rang,” he replies, and curses himself for being too literal, too boxed in.
House laughs at him, and he wonders if House is reading his thoughts again.
“Where are you?” Wilson asks.
“Between your sheets.” The image flashes, clear and visceral, surprising Wilson. He wipes it away as House continues, “You’re a greedy bastard, taking my entire bed, and completely dead to any poking and prodding to get you out. So I took over your bed as a retaliatory move. Nice mattress but your bedding sucks. Your income’s in the top one percentile; quit shopping at Target.”
Wilson sighs. ”My mother bought me those sheets.”
“Well, then, why is she shopping at Target? Come on, Jimmy, you’ve got to share the wealth with your family.”
“My gross income may be high, but between the alimony and this guy I’m supporting on the side, the net’s rather meager.”
“Are you calling me a kept man? I’m not getting nearly enough jewelry if that’s the case.”
“Oh, darling, I’ll stop by Tiffany’s tomorrow. Emeralds or rubies?”
“Colored stones make you look cheap, my grandmother always warned me. Go for the ice.”
Wilson rolls onto his back and looks up toward the ceiling. The room is dark. “Do you happen to have the time?”
House laughs again. ”Am I your kept man, or am I a stranger on the street? Funny how you reach for the formal phrasing when you’re woken from sleep.”
House pauses and the silence is companionable. Wilson gets a whiff of deja vu. He’s done this before, talked while in bed to someone in a different bed, and that prior experience was pleasant, too. It takes him a minute but then he remembers: Jenny Levine, his girlfriend from camp the year he was fifteen. They’d been counselors together, and then she’d gone home, three states away. A few letters exchanged, and then one night she’d called him. They’d talked for hours (no one bothered him to use the line because his parents had gone out dancing, his younger brother was too little to have much of a social life, and his older brother had been… busy), and when it was time for bed they’d both just climbed in and kept talking. He’d been on the verge of asking her what she was wearing when she told him she had a new boyfriend. ”Jimmy, I’m sorry,” she had whispered, and then hung up the phone. He had laughed and laughed, because he had two new girlfriends, and one left over from the prior school year, so what did that matter?
“It’s about ten-thirty,” House finally says.
That explains the dark, but raises a new question: “What are you doing in bed?”
“Well, talking to you on the phone. I’ve got one hand holding the receiver; my other hand is on my -”
“I mean, ten-thirty is early for you.” There’s no one to see, but Wilson rolls his eyes anyway.
“It’s been a long day. I spent hours wandering the hospital, looking for you to give you back your keys.” Rustling; House is changing positions.
“No, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. I did have a promising looking patient, though. Turned out to be plasmodium vivax malaria, boring. We had it diagnosed by one o’clock. Then Cuddy and Brenda cornered me, and I had to do charting the rest of the day. They really shouldn’t be allowed to gang up on a guy. That Brenda’s a harsh chaperone, too. I should send her with you on your next several dates - keep you from getting sucked into marriage number four too quickly.”
Wilson smiles, and flexes his toes idly. He wants to say he’ll never get married again - he wants to say it and he wants to mean it - but lately he’s been trying to confine his lies to House to the big ones.
“Brenda’s kind of foxy,” Wilson teases. ”Maybe she’d like to be the next Mrs. Wilson.”
“Bite your tongue. Besides, I’m not sure she bats on the right team for that - I think she has a thing for Cuddy.”
“Everyone has a thing for Cuddy. Me. You.”
“I do not!” House retorts indignantly.
“You so do. As does Cameron, and Foreman -”
“Foreman?” House sounds genuinely surprised.
Foreman’s attraction to Cuddy is really about power, but that brings up unpleasant memories of Foreman’s abortive coup, so Wilson blows it off with, “There’s no passion like administration passion.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m bored. Your apartment’s boring.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.” It takes nothing out of Wilson to confess that. His place is… impersonal. Maybe he should move, but the next box is not likely to be any better.
“Your car is boring too,” House continues. ”Volvo, Jesus. I’m surprised you haven’t fallen asleep and driven off the road, it’s so boring. I couldn’t stand it one second longer, so I left it over there and drove the bike here.”
“Yeah, you hinted you had been here earlier.” Wilson shifts and changes the phone to his other ear.
“About two and a half hours, stomping around, eating dinner, watching TV, and eventually packing a bag for my forced eviction.” House is drinking something. Wilson hopes it’s water but knows it’s probably not.
“I really wouldn’t wake up?”
“What’s that they say about ‘show, don’t tell’? Turn on the light and look at your left side, at about your fifth rib.”
It takes Wilson a moment to find the lamp. The light is startling in the darkness of House’s bedroom. Lifting up his undershirt, Wilson checks out his side.
“Jesus, House!” The bruise is purpling and about four centimeters - suspiciously close to the size of the tip of House’s cane. How had he slept through that?
“You were definitely down for the count. I even did the mirror under the nose trick a few times, just to confirm you wouldn’t be causing me to wear a stupid-ass tie.”
“You’d wear a tie to my funeral? I’m touched.” Wilson probes the bruise gently one last time and then switches off the light.
“Well, I’ve got to look good. Your cousin Emily is hot, and I hear bereavement sex is awesome.” If House isn’t smirking, Wilson will eat his hat. Smug bastard.
“On that note, I think I’ll go,” Wilson replies, trying to keep petulance out of his voice.
“If you’re going to start thinking about Hot Cousin Emily, go in the bathroom. I’m the only one allowed to stain my sheets.”
Petulance morphs to exasperation, and Wilson gives up trying to contain it.
“First, she’s my cousin. By blood. Second, please tell me these sheets have been washed recently.”
“Recently enough. Beggars, or rather, greedy conked-out bastards can’t be choosers. Hey, make me pancakes when you come over in the morning.”
Oy. ”What makes you think I’m coming there in the morning?”
“You got puked on twice yesterday, so you have no extra clothes at work. You probably won’t even shower at my place, because I threw out your mousse when you moved out.”
“I don’t use mousse!”
“Uh huh.”
Not that it matters, but: ”It’s pomade.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake; that’s worse. Who are you, Hercule Poirot?”
Wilson is still trying to come up with a retort - it’s been a while since he’s read Agatha Christie - when House continues, “This is boring. I’m going to sleep.” Rustling again, and Wilson imagines House rolling carefully onto his side.
“I’m not sleepy anymore -”
“Unsurprising, Rip Van Winkle.”
“So I think I’ll go tickle the ivories for a while.” Ha!
“You wouldn’t dare,” House breathes.
“Oh, come on, I do a mean Big Chief Indian.” Wilson is smiling ear to ear; he’s got House now.
“That pounding piece of crap you beat out at the bar one night? Stay the hell away from my piano.”
“Hot Cross Buns, too.”
“If you make me get out of this bed and haul my ass over there to protect my piano, I will flay you alive.”
Sounds through the line tell Wilson that House is moving around, agitated. He really does want House to get a good night’s sleep, so it’s time to reel it in.
“Kidding, kidding. Your piano’s virtue is safe. I actually am still tired. And since I apparently have to follow baker’s hours tomorrow morning to satisfy your gastronomic urges, I should go back to sleep while I can.”
“Smart man.”
As the silence lingers, Wilson’s eyelids grow heavy again. The sound of House’s breathing through the phone is strangely peaceful.
His arm slips and he accidentally knocks himself with the receiver. ”House? Are you still on the line?”
“Mm hm.” House’s breathing is deep and even.
“So hang up already.”
“You hang up.” Slow and still.
“You hang up.”
“No, you hang up.” Still slow, with amusement layered underneath.
“You called; you hang up.” Wilson turns onto his side, curling slightly, and tucks the phone in closer to his ear.
“I’m wondering if I’m supposed to be the girl in this exchange,” House replies. ”Because I don’t think I have the energy to giggle.”
Wilson chuckles, eyes closed. ”Shut up and go to sleep. I’ll be there in the morning.”
“Goodnight, loverboy.” The phone clicks and the line is dead before Wilson can respond.
“Goodnight, baby,” he breathes into the air, and then falls back into dreamland.
Title: Perchance
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House-Wilson friendship
Rating: PG
Words: 3151
Summary: Bed: A piece of furniture for reclining and sleeping, typically consisting of a flat, rectangular frame and a mattress resting on springs.
Notes: Takes place near episode 3-4 (“Lines in the Sand”); no spoilers after that point. Thanks to daisylily for another outstanding beta, and to nightdog_barks and perspi for late night review.
There are several people in this world who hate Greg House, and at the moment James Wilson is one of them. Through a series of unfortunate events, he’s been at the hospital for twenty-six hours, and all he wants is to go home. It’s not really a home; it’s a barely furnished apartment, but it’s his, and it’s not here, and it has a bed. So that’s where he wants to be.
Except he can’t leave, because Greg House has his keys, and Greg House is nowhere to be found.
If he was thinking straight (was it mentioned that all twenty-six of those hours, plus the two before, were spent awake?), he’d realize that he could just take a damn cab home. In fact, given the state of his brain, a cab would be preferable to driving himself. He’s not thinking straight, though (thinking straight, that’s an odd phrase, and a whole ’nother conversation he needs to have with himself but this is not the time), and he wants House to reappear from whatever ether or alternate dimension he’s disappeared to and give him his goddamn keys.
When he writes that on the seventh sticky note he’s left in various places, he puts the dash in between the G and the D. He doesn’t do that all the time, but his mother does and somehow he’s channeling her now. You leave out the letter O because the paper you write on will inevitably be thrown away and it’s not right to destroy the name of the Almighty. Which seems like a strange thing - the guy’s omnipotent, for Pete’s sake. What’s it going to hurt Him to have His name ripped apart? But then Yahweh has a lot of rules, about cubits of altars, and unclean animals, and mixing of cloths. And that seventh commandment, that’s another one Wilson has had a problem following.
Lately, it seems the first one’s possibly getting broken as well, but really this is not the time to think about it because Wilson needs his keys. Home, he wants to go home, and never mind that he doesn’t have one; he’s got a place with a bed and that’s where he wants to go.
He tries the Clinic, exam rooms 1, 2, 3, and 4. No one’s hiding there except a teenager who doesn’t want to go back to geometry - better than calculus, kid - and Brenda hasn’t seen House all morning. He’s not due until two, Wilson knew that, but the portable gets its best reception in the Clinic.
He tries the roof and catches Chase with a lab tech, ho hum, but House is still gone, gone, gone. Does he have his yo-yo with him, wherever he is? That had been the excuse for appropriating Wilson’s keys two hours ago, the whine so plaintive: “It’s in your car; I need it.” A demand that Wilson go get it would surely have been next, so he had thrust the keys into House’s hands and moved on to the next crisis. Finally, finally, the crises are over (in remission) but House is nowhere to be found.
Wilson tries the cafeteria again, and every single department lounge - TiVo and flat panels and DVDs, oh my. He tries the movie theater. Now really, why in the hell does PPTH have a movie theater? What is the point; what is the purpose?
He must have mumbled that last part out loud, because a med student eagerly explains about new teaching techniques and surgery videos, and Wilson’s eyes have glazed before the med student draws her first breath. He nods a few times, hoping that it’s in the right places. Her face and posture show just how eager she is to please, and he wonders if he’d need to say four nice things to her or only three before she’d suck him off in a supply closet.
Oh, this is not good; he needs to go home right now. He nods politely again, and touches the student briefly on the arm, and gives her a smile that is meant to be reassuring, but obviously he’s too distracted to get it right because she looks at him like he’s, well, House.
It’s a long shot, but about the only place left, so he checks the lecture hall next. There are about fifty med students in there (fifty blowjobs under the right circumstances), and the World’s Best Dad is lecturing. No House and no keys.
He’s back to House’s office. No House. No Foreman, no Chase, no Cameron. His previous three stickies - desk, chair, monitor - are unmolested, unmoved. It’s dark and then light again (microsleep, his brain hands him), and his second grade teacher is shouting in his ear. She had big breasts - he and his friends called them something different, some silly and immature word, House probably has used it at some point but he can’t recall now - but now she’s using his father’s words. “James, pull it together. Focus on your goal and achieve it.”
Goal: Find House.
No, wait, that’s the means. He wants to find House so he can get his keys. So the goal is - no, keys aren’t the goal either. He wants his keys so he can get in his car so he can drive home so he can get in bed away from here so he can sleep undisturbed.
Goal: Undisturbed sleep.
Yes, that’s it, and then suddenly he’s reaching into House’s leather jacket for House’s keys and picking up the helmet and heading toward the garage. Down in the elevator, parking level 1, and the motorcycle’s right there.
It’s an insane vehicle. House is crazy to have it, crazy to ride it, but now that Wilson knows his true goal, he’s going to take this means to get it.
It takes him a minute to find the ignition, and another three minutes to remember what his older brother had taught him about motorcycles years ago. The choke and the clutch and the gear shifter.
It all comes back to him suddenly. He’s never liked motorcycles - too much potential to lose control - but when he was fourteen he’d loved his older brother desperately. Absorbing the lessons was a way to prove his love, and twenty-plus years later it’s all still embedded in his brain.
He revs the engine, remembering his brother’s pride, and wonders if House will be drawn by his baby’s purr. But no House arrives, so Wilson straps on the helmet and laughs. Crotch rocket, his father had said, and sneered. He had drawn a line and Wilson had put himself on the other side for the first time in his life.
Ten minutes later, and it’s good that the bike knows where to go, because Wilson hasn’t been paying attention. But the bike doesn’t want to take Wilson home; it wants to go to its own familiar haunt.
Even better, Wilson realizes, because his apartment keys are also on his key ring (forgotten: the duplicate on House’s ring). Back at the hospital. Thrown in a drawer by House, or tucked into House’s jeans. Probably in the front, that’s where House keeps his own keys. Tucked down deep in the right front pocket; Wilson could just reach out and slip his hand in - and oh, crap, he missed his turn.
Around and back again, Jeeves, and then he’s in front of House’s place. There’s supposed to be a handicapped spot on the street, but there isn’t. Screw it, the bike’s sat on the sidewalk outside the front door before; it can do it again.
Through the front door, two steps in the vestibule, through House’s door, and he’s in. It’s not the hospital and the relief is overwhelming. It’s not home, either - he tells himself again and again, it’s not home, it’s not home, it’s not home - but it’s not the hospital and there’s a bed. Right in front of him.
He gets his shoes off but that’s all, and his eyes are closed before his head hits the pillow.
***
At some point, he wakes up and takes his belt off. He scratches at the buckle imprint on his stomach and tries to go back to sleep.
His bladder’s got other ideas, so he stumbles to the bathroom and pisses. His pants fall to the floor (How? Did he misplace his ass at some point?), and as his piss tinkles merrily into the toilet, he considers whether he should pull them back up. It’d be a little strange to sleep in House’s bed in just his underwear but on the other hand, it’ll cost him a couple of seconds in the race to return to slumber if he has to put the damn pants back on.
He slips under the covers this time, and pulls a pillow to his chest. His pants and dress shirt are huddled on the bathroom floor.
***
The ring of the phone is vaguely familiar, but it’s not his cell. Or House’s, which has the exact same ring. It’s not his home phone - although that’s not exactly a familiar ring, seeing as how he’s heard it only three times.
It doesn’t matter, he’s awake anyway, and the noise won’t go away until he picks up the phone. He fumbles around on the nightstand, hoping to avoid opening his eyes, and luckily his hand hits a hard smooth curve that must be the receiver.
“Lo,” is all he manages to get out as he presses the receiver against his ear.
“Still sleeping?” purrs a low voice.
“Not now, but I was before the phone rang,” he replies, and curses himself for being too literal, too boxed in.
House laughs at him, and he wonders if House is reading his thoughts again.
“Where are you?” Wilson asks.
“Between your sheets.” The image flashes, clear and visceral, surprising Wilson. He wipes it away as House continues, “You’re a greedy bastard, taking my entire bed, and completely dead to any poking and prodding to get you out. So I took over your bed as a retaliatory move. Nice mattress but your bedding sucks. Your income’s in the top one percentile; quit shopping at Target.”
Wilson sighs. ”My mother bought me those sheets.”
“Well, then, why is she shopping at Target? Come on, Jimmy, you’ve got to share the wealth with your family.”
“My gross income may be high, but between the alimony and this guy I’m supporting on the side, the net’s rather meager.”
“Are you calling me a kept man? I’m not getting nearly enough jewelry if that’s the case.”
“Oh, darling, I’ll stop by Tiffany’s tomorrow. Emeralds or rubies?”
“Colored stones make you look cheap, my grandmother always warned me. Go for the ice.”
Wilson rolls onto his back and looks up toward the ceiling. The room is dark. “Do you happen to have the time?”
House laughs again. ”Am I your kept man, or am I a stranger on the street? Funny how you reach for the formal phrasing when you’re woken from sleep.”
House pauses and the silence is companionable. Wilson gets a whiff of deja vu. He’s done this before, talked while in bed to someone in a different bed, and that prior experience was pleasant, too. It takes him a minute but then he remembers: Jenny Levine, his girlfriend from camp the year he was fifteen. They’d been counselors together, and then she’d gone home, three states away. A few letters exchanged, and then one night she’d called him. They’d talked for hours (no one bothered him to use the line because his parents had gone out dancing, his younger brother was too little to have much of a social life, and his older brother had been… busy), and when it was time for bed they’d both just climbed in and kept talking. He’d been on the verge of asking her what she was wearing when she told him she had a new boyfriend. ”Jimmy, I’m sorry,” she had whispered, and then hung up the phone. He had laughed and laughed, because he had two new girlfriends, and one left over from the prior school year, so what did that matter?
“It’s about ten-thirty,” House finally says.
That explains the dark, but raises a new question: “What are you doing in bed?”
“Well, talking to you on the phone. I’ve got one hand holding the receiver; my other hand is on my -”
“I mean, ten-thirty is early for you.” There’s no one to see, but Wilson rolls his eyes anyway.
“It’s been a long day. I spent hours wandering the hospital, looking for you to give you back your keys.” Rustling; House is changing positions.
“No, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. I did have a promising looking patient, though. Turned out to be plasmodium vivax malaria, boring. We had it diagnosed by one o’clock. Then Cuddy and Brenda cornered me, and I had to do charting the rest of the day. They really shouldn’t be allowed to gang up on a guy. That Brenda’s a harsh chaperone, too. I should send her with you on your next several dates - keep you from getting sucked into marriage number four too quickly.”
Wilson smiles, and flexes his toes idly. He wants to say he’ll never get married again - he wants to say it and he wants to mean it - but lately he’s been trying to confine his lies to House to the big ones.
“Brenda’s kind of foxy,” Wilson teases. ”Maybe she’d like to be the next Mrs. Wilson.”
“Bite your tongue. Besides, I’m not sure she bats on the right team for that - I think she has a thing for Cuddy.”
“Everyone has a thing for Cuddy. Me. You.”
“I do not!” House retorts indignantly.
“You so do. As does Cameron, and Foreman -”
“Foreman?” House sounds genuinely surprised.
Foreman’s attraction to Cuddy is really about power, but that brings up unpleasant memories of Foreman’s abortive coup, so Wilson blows it off with, “There’s no passion like administration passion.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m bored. Your apartment’s boring.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.” It takes nothing out of Wilson to confess that. His place is… impersonal. Maybe he should move, but the next box is not likely to be any better.
“Your car is boring too,” House continues. ”Volvo, Jesus. I’m surprised you haven’t fallen asleep and driven off the road, it’s so boring. I couldn’t stand it one second longer, so I left it over there and drove the bike here.”
“Yeah, you hinted you had been here earlier.” Wilson shifts and changes the phone to his other ear.
“About two and a half hours, stomping around, eating dinner, watching TV, and eventually packing a bag for my forced eviction.” House is drinking something. Wilson hopes it’s water but knows it’s probably not.
“I really wouldn’t wake up?”
“What’s that they say about ‘show, don’t tell’? Turn on the light and look at your left side, at about your fifth rib.”
It takes Wilson a moment to find the lamp. The light is startling in the darkness of House’s bedroom. Lifting up his undershirt, Wilson checks out his side.
“Jesus, House!” The bruise is purpling and about four centimeters - suspiciously close to the size of the tip of House’s cane. How had he slept through that?
“You were definitely down for the count. I even did the mirror under the nose trick a few times, just to confirm you wouldn’t be causing me to wear a stupid-ass tie.”
“You’d wear a tie to my funeral? I’m touched.” Wilson probes the bruise gently one last time and then switches off the light.
“Well, I’ve got to look good. Your cousin Emily is hot, and I hear bereavement sex is awesome.” If House isn’t smirking, Wilson will eat his hat. Smug bastard.
“On that note, I think I’ll go,” Wilson replies, trying to keep petulance out of his voice.
“If you’re going to start thinking about Hot Cousin Emily, go in the bathroom. I’m the only one allowed to stain my sheets.”
Petulance morphs to exasperation, and Wilson gives up trying to contain it.
“First, she’s my cousin. By blood. Second, please tell me these sheets have been washed recently.”
“Recently enough. Beggars, or rather, greedy conked-out bastards can’t be choosers. Hey, make me pancakes when you come over in the morning.”
Oy. ”What makes you think I’m coming there in the morning?”
“You got puked on twice yesterday, so you have no extra clothes at work. You probably won’t even shower at my place, because I threw out your mousse when you moved out.”
“I don’t use mousse!”
“Uh huh.”
Not that it matters, but: ”It’s pomade.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake; that’s worse. Who are you, Hercule Poirot?”
Wilson is still trying to come up with a retort - it’s been a while since he’s read Agatha Christie - when House continues, “This is boring. I’m going to sleep.” Rustling again, and Wilson imagines House rolling carefully onto his side.
“I’m not sleepy anymore -”
“Unsurprising, Rip Van Winkle.”
“So I think I’ll go tickle the ivories for a while.” Ha!
“You wouldn’t dare,” House breathes.
“Oh, come on, I do a mean Big Chief Indian.” Wilson is smiling ear to ear; he’s got House now.
“That pounding piece of crap you beat out at the bar one night? Stay the hell away from my piano.”
“Hot Cross Buns, too.”
“If you make me get out of this bed and haul my ass over there to protect my piano, I will flay you alive.”
Sounds through the line tell Wilson that House is moving around, agitated. He really does want House to get a good night’s sleep, so it’s time to reel it in.
“Kidding, kidding. Your piano’s virtue is safe. I actually am still tired. And since I apparently have to follow baker’s hours tomorrow morning to satisfy your gastronomic urges, I should go back to sleep while I can.”
“Smart man.”
As the silence lingers, Wilson’s eyelids grow heavy again. The sound of House’s breathing through the phone is strangely peaceful.
His arm slips and he accidentally knocks himself with the receiver. ”House? Are you still on the line?”
“Mm hm.” House’s breathing is deep and even.
“So hang up already.”
“You hang up.” Slow and still.
“You hang up.”
“No, you hang up.” Still slow, with amusement layered underneath.
“You called; you hang up.” Wilson turns onto his side, curling slightly, and tucks the phone in closer to his ear.
“I’m wondering if I’m supposed to be the girl in this exchange,” House replies. ”Because I don’t think I have the energy to giggle.”
Wilson chuckles, eyes closed. ”Shut up and go to sleep. I’ll be there in the morning.”
“Goodnight, loverboy.” The phone clicks and the line is dead before Wilson can respond.
“Goodnight, baby,” he breathes into the air, and then falls back into dreamland.