H/W fic: "Hit the Cripple" (2/3)
Author: Fiorediloto
Part: 2/3
Rating: R, I'd say not more
Spoilers: Season two
Disclaimers: Huh... don't own them but the words are all mine, mine, mine.
Feedback: Would you really do this for me? *sparkling eyes*
Thanks: To nakannalee for beta-ing, correcting, editing, anything else. I'd like to marry her, but the cruel Ocean keeps us apart.
Old episodes. Did you miss anything?
Prologue and Chapter 1
[2] Body (500 points)
As far as Wilson could remember, House’s kitchen table had never been used for the meals. It was large and quite comfortable, but it was most frequently used as a place to throw random junk. If House managed to find any fools interested in losing their money, it could also become a game table for his poker nights.
Like Stacy, Wilson would carry the dinner directly into the bedroom, not to tire House. There should have been a tray somewhere.
Like House, Wilson would prepare the dishes and carry everything with beer into the living room, to have dinner on the couch with the TV on.
But since he wasn’t Stacy or House - and he always thanked God for that - he’d do things his way.
So he freed the table from the last, frighteningly high layer of homeless things, spread a table cloth with a gravy stain and set the table.
House stepped in the kitchen - and despite his leg and the fact he needed to lean on the walls to walk, his expression looked like absolutely resolute.
«Almost ready,» Wilson advised him, mixing the spaghetti with the precooked sauce.
«Huh. No flowered apron?» mumbled House, limping to the nearest chair. It was one of the two places Wilson had set for dinner; strategically, to be honest.
«You set that on fire four years ago,» he replied, turning over the pasta and hoping the precooked crap could mix a little better than this.
«It was when you tried to start the barbecue?»
«Yeah, I tried - and then you set me on fire.»
«You were the one standing too close to the barbecue.»
«You put a corner of my apron into the fire. While I had it on.» He lifted his eyes, suddenly angry. «Hey! What did you want to do? Kill me?»
House grinned. «It did nothing for your looks. I’ve always told you stripes are flattering.»
Wilson let his glance fall on his own tie. Striped, indeed. He wondered why he hadn’t taken it off yet; just habit, probably. «Well, that was the only apron you had at your place and I didn’t want to sacrifice a shirt for your sake.»
«I'd told you to cook shirtless, you know.»
«Oh, yeah. James, the last of Mohicans,» murmured Wilson to himself, so distractedly that the smothered sound behind him caught him by surprise. It was a laugh, he found turning back. House was laughing.
Wilson joined him almost immediately, automatically. It was a sound - he found - he missed more than he had let himself to think. For this reason, when it evaporated in an embarrassed silence, he tried to substitute it with new, useless words.
«Your leg?»
«Attached to the rest.»
Wilson nodded, again and suddenly conscious of the Vicodin in his jeans pocket. He made the dishes, intentionally handing the smaller one to House.
House raised his eyes, looking at him with a mix of perplexity, annoyance and mortal menace. Wilson exchanged the dishes with a smile.
They ate silently. Wilson ignored the tremble of the fork in House’s right hand, and the times it fell and clinked against the plate when House let it go to rub his leg.
House didn’t make observations about his cooking. The spaghetti wasn’t that bad, but suddenly Wilson needed to hear that they were overcooked and unseasoned - that it looked like a cow had spit on them, that a monkey with an atrophic arm could manage to do better. Just to know he liked them. Just to know that everything had, if not the substance, at least the appearance of normality.
«Good?» he asked at a moment, looking at House’s still half-full plate.
«Mm,» was the best answer he could get.
The phone’s ring interfered overbearingly in their not-conversation.
Wilson sighed and tried to rise from his chair, but House ordered, without raising his eyes from the plate: «Stay.»
Wilson thought that House was about to go and answer in place of him. «I’m going.»
«Stay,» House repeated, more slowly.
When it was clear that none of them would go and answer, Wilson relaxed on his chair. He tried one last time, his conscience tugging at him: «It could be important.»
«Don’t worry, Rose won’t leave you by phone.»
«Rachel… she and I don’t…»
«Of course you don’t,» House said. «You two are the epitome of married bliss.»
«It’s just... a bad time. It’ll pass.»
House raised his eyes, while the phone kept ringing. «Why don’t you go home, then?»
«We should answer the phone. She’ll worry.»
House looked at him, waiting for an answer.
‘Cause I can’t leave you alone, idiot. Wilson sighed. «She went to her friend’s house for a few days.»
«She won’t come back.»
«Of course she will.»
«No. That’s enough for her.» House leaned his hands on the table, trying to rise. The phone gave another last, briefer ring, and shut up before the voicemail switched on. «Don’t worry, my nurse. I’m just going to the couch,» House advised Wilson, noticing he was rising too.
«You weren’t talking about Rachel,» murmured Wilson, watching House limp toward the living room.
«Ah, is that her name?» replied House.
Wilson cleared the table and did the dishes, while the voices on TV took the place of the silence as a background for their non-existent conversation. Eventually, various water drops and a soap splash had joined the sacred sweat of Gregory House on Wilson’s shirt.
«I’m going home,» he said, showing his head inside the room.
House didn’t raise his eyes, but to Wilson his hand looked like become stiff around the remote control.
«I’m gonna take some clothes, the toothbrush, something so,» specified Wilson. «Fifteen minutes, I guess.»
«Mm,» replied House, channel-surfing.
Wilson emitted a vaguely dejected sigh. «Please, try not to kill yourself while I’m not here. I’d like to be present at the event.»
«Dirty conscience, Jimmy?»
«Totally clean.»
«Give me those fucking pills and you’ll not have to worry of anything.»
«I’ve a better idea. Why don’t you stop thinking about your leg?»
«I can’t. I think alternately about all my organs, you know, not to make them feel lonely.» He half-closed his eyelids. «Oh, hello, spleen. How are you?»
«So we’re okay, since your leg is a limb and not an organ.» Wilson took off his coat from the clothing rack and went and grabbed his bag from the couch. «I’m almost sure I left it closed,» he remarked.
«Almost? You’re getting old.»
«House…» Wilson shook his head. Why did leaving the apartment seem such a bad idea? «At least, try not to choke on your saliva,» he murmured, before shutting the door behind him.
After years of experience, Wilson knew that House was exponentially more dangerous in company than alone. Because, when he was alone, his exhibitionism trailed off, the lack of a public drained his verve, the boredom weakened his enthusiasm. However, the worst things Gregory House had done, he had done alone, preparing the next comical sketch.
If there was something he liked, it was annoying people; if there was a way he liked annoying people, it was premeditatedly; and if there was a favourite victim of him, well, that was exactly Wilson.
So Wilson collected his stuff as fast as he could, changed his clothes and threw his still knotted tie to the clothing rack: everything to limit the action time of that crazy man in detox.
He opened House’s door sixteen minutes and twenty-four seconds after he had left, with a light panting.
He found him exactly where he had left him, on the couch, focused on his surfing with the most innocent expression ever.
«Before I switch on the light,» said Wilson, leaning a finger on the button, «have you opened the stoves to make this house explode with the two of us inside?»
He didn’t receive an answer.
«If you did, you’ll have me on your conscience,» he declared before switching on the light. Fortunately, no mortal explosion followed.
Wilson came closer to the couch. The TV channels were running with metronomic precision. «Hey?»
House didn’t turn. Leaning a hand upon his shoulder, Wilson felt how contracted were his muscles. «House…?»
A light sweat layer beaded his forehead.
«I need that Vicodin,» House said, with a low voice. «… please,» he added, in a pant.
Wilson withdrew his hand. «Tomorrow at six in the morning,» he repeated, trying to sound inexpressive. «Why don’t you go to bed?»
«Please, Wilson.» House turned back, directing to him a face genuinely pained. Wilson felt himself falter.
«House… you have to respect a schedule. You can’t drug yourself with that stuff.»
«You have no idea how painful it is.»
Neither do you, thought Wilson, lowering his eyes. «If you don’t need anything, I’ll go and shower.»
«I need those fucking pills!»
Wilson put the bag with his belongings near to the couch and took out the bathrobe, an old shirt and his pyjama pants. «The only thing you need is stop thinking about those pills and that leg,» he said. «Tomorrow I’m gonna ask Cuddy if she has any unsolvable case to give you. At least you’ll keep your mind busy.»
House grabbed the remote control so hard in his hand that the plastic creaked. Wilson reached out to snatch it - but House blocked Wilson’s wrist with his left hand.
«I’m not thinking up anything,» hissed House, pulling him closer, so resolutely that Wilson had to let his stuff fall on the couch to keep his balance against the backrest.
«What…»
House pulled Wilson’s hand on his thigh, until Wilson’s hesitant fingers touched the light fabric of his pyjamas. House forced him still. Beneath the fabric, Wilson felt the irregular surface of the scar and the muscles around, exactly as his sight had informed his fingers when he had seen him - spied on him- in the tub. And it was the contrary now, but the same feeling.
Wilson raised his eyes, meeting House’s ones. «I know it’s painful,» he murmured. «But I can’t… Let me go.»
«Give me the pills.»
«No.»
The grip tightened until it became stifling. Wilson felt his fingers tingling, his wrist’s bones rebelling to the constriction. He didn’t lower his eyes.
«I’m not gonna give you them, House. If you wanna let off steam, you’re gonna have to be content with my right hand. I need the left.»
When House released him, Wilson thought that the bruise was going to remain for a long while.
The shower had a good effect on him.
Wilson had locked the door, not for mistrust, but actually, yes, for total mistrust in House and the Vicodin bottle Wilson had left in his jeans’ pocket.
Going to the bathroom, he had noticed a sequence of things that were out of place, which had described pretty well the itinerary of his friend looking for the pills - last but not least, a kitchen cabinet he remembered perfectly closed.
He hadn’t difficulty in believing his leg was hurting, after that nice journey all around the apartment.
Below his fingers, Wilson had felt the muscles all around the scar contracting and relaxing, responding to his touch, as like a nervous tide unable to rest - to surrender - and find, at least for a moment, a little peace.
If House had done it to make him feel guilty…
Wilson pushed the shower handle, watching the remaining water dripping away from his body.
If he had done it to make him feel guilty, he had succeeded.
The light in the bedroom was on. It was the little lamp on the bedside table, not very bright.
Wilson appeared on the doorway with a towel on his wet hair and the dirty clothes on his arm. House was lying on his back, above the sheets, an arm resting across his eyes. «Good night, House.»
«Where are you going?»
«Sleeping.»
«Where?»
Wilson wrinkled his forehead. «Unless you have a guest room you kept hidden to me until now - and in this case I really think I’ll backstab you - the answer is ‘on your couch’.»
House moved his arm aside. «You can’t.»
«And why?»
«It’s dirty.»
Wilson half closed his eyes, perplexed. «It was clean until an hour ago.»
«And now it’s not anymore. The dog.»
«House, you don’t have a dog.»
«The neighbours’ dog.»
«The neighbours’ dog,» repeated Wilson. «The deaf guy who lives opposite or the old crazy woman with ten cats?»
«The second. I believe it wanted to change homes, poor pet.»
«House…»
«If I were you I’d settle for this version, ‘cause reality is always worse.»
Wilson sighed, rubbing distractedly the towel on his hair. «And now? I have to sleep on the floor or can I arrange a couple of sheets on the table?»
«Sleep here,» said House.
«Here?»
House’s hand slipped on the free half of the bed. «If you don’t kick under the sheets.»
«No, no, wait. Where’s the trick?»
«No trick.»
«If it’s a way to get those pills…»
«Do you keep them in your pants?» replied House, disgusted.
Wilson shook his head, throwing the clothes on a chair near to the empty half of the bed. He knew that taking off the pills now was an error, but he was tired to dodge House’s assaults.
He probably just wanted company. He had slept for five years with another person beside him and now he was alone. Wilson still remembered that feeling of loss during those first nights after the break with Sarah.
He sat on the edge of the bed, hearing a light creak when the mattress bent under his weight. He leaned the bottle on the floor, near to the bedside table. «You should cover yourself,» he remarked, glancing at House.
«Are you always this maternal or do I wake up your hidden instincts?»
«Actually, if you don’t take the sheets out of beneath your back I can’t cover myself either.»
House snorted and put his left foot against the mattress, barely rising, as much as he needed to free the sheets and let Wilson help him.
When they both were settled, House reached out to switch off the lamp and the room collapsed into the darkness.
Some moments of silence.
«House?»
«Mm?» grunted the other one.
«It’s just…» Wilson breathed out and in, hesitantly, «… I’m sorry.»
He waited for an answer for nearly a minute, feeling the seconds dripping into his head like a broken faucet; then he murmured a weak “Good night” and turned his face toward the pillow. Woman smell, he noticed, vaguely.
He nearly winced when House’s fingers invaded his own space under the sheets and touched his left wrist, before just brushing, then stroking it in a slow massage - caressing the bruise that tomorrow would be covered by Wilson’s watch. When the fingers stopped on the pulsing vein, Wilson held his breathe.
Me too.
Then House’s hand slipped away, and both of them turned on their sides.
When he woke up, there wasn’t any twittering of birds or alarm clock’s ring, and James Wilson’s eyelids seemed strangely not very cooperative. He was an early riser, he had never had problems in awaking at the right hour, and he often switched the alarm off even before it rang.
But this time, stretching his hand toward the bedside table, he didn’t find any button to press. When, at the third attempt, he managed to open his eyes, he noticed that it was still night - and that it wasn’t his bed.
Somewhere next to him, someone was moaning. A series of brief and erratic wheezes, followed by a long contracted moan, smothered against the pillow. Turning, Wilson saw House’s body shrunken on his side around the bad leg, his hands clenching his thigh, the sheets twisted on his side. He was turned toward the edge of the bed.
«House,» he called him. «House, what’s wrong?»
House didn’t reply, unless a throaty moan similar to a wounded animal could be defined an answer. The right hand was rubbing the thigh so hard that Wilson wondered if he wasn’t amplifying the pain, instead of easing it.
He took House’s hand in his, to stop him, and House clutched his fingers in a desperate impulse.
«Calm down,» murmured Wilson, moving away House’s hand and resting it on his stomach. «Calm down.» He moved his own hand back to the thigh, gently. Through the light cotton fabric he could feel House’s warmth and, by reflection, his own. He moved the hand in a slow circle upon the scar, not because he thought it could easy House’s pain, but to give him the illusion it could.
With an infinite slowness, House relaxed under his touch. He sighed, and Wilson sighed with him and leaned his forehead against his shoulder. «Thank God,» he murmured. «Better?»
Instead of answering, House leaned a hand upon Wilson’s and squeezed it, not with the desperate fury of a moment before nor with the wild rage of the evening, but in a firm and warm hold that Wilson didn’t avoid.
«She’ll come back,» whispered Wilson. «They’ll come back.»
House moved his hand and Wilson’s slowly upon his thigh, with an erratic movement that after some seconds evened with a certain fluency, and let Wilson unconsciously relax while he humoured him. Anything, he thought without thinking, to help him to feel better.
Their bodies almost adhered each other, even if Wilson couldn’t remember when they came so closer. His cheek was pressing against House’s shoulder attempting to steal a look at House’s face, and his left elbow, which he was leaning on, tingled with silent pain.
He thought he had found the exact moment in which something had changed - a warning flash lighted up in his mind. House’s hand changed the angle on his, then it dragged it upward, crossing the border of the scar’s familiar circle. Upward and inward. Wilson held his breathe and folded his spread fingers, offering a little resistance that House overcame without fighting.
Sometimes it could happen the brain read the pain signals as like pleasure.
«House…»
Or maybe he just needed to take his mind off things, and Wilson thought as he stopped hindering him, better this way than hurting himself.
He heard House turning slowly, gliding on his back, and suddenly they found themselves looking in each other’s eyes. To Wilson, it was an adrenalin rush which had nothing to do with friendship, pity or selfless help. When House brought Wilson’s hand to the top of his pyjama pants and then withdrew, Wilson let it slip under the waistband without thinking.
He thought that it wasn’t that strange - that House was sick, that he needed to distract his mind, that - funny - Wilson had been the one who told him to think about something else. He kept telling himself that there was nothing strange, until he leaned his cheek against House’s collarbone and he felt House placing an arm around his shoulders.
He’d lost a lot of weight. He had never been fat, but now his t-shirt dangled desolately from his chest, and the pants’ waistband could easily slip from his scrawny hips. His collarbone jutted out as a desk corner against Wilson’s cheek.
Wilson squeezed it gently and House sighed noisily, moving his right hand in a slow caress on Wilson’s back.
Maybe until then Wilson could have told himself that there was nothing strange - he could have even believed that it was moral duty and friendship. But then a shiver followed House’s fingers’ path on his spine, and Wilson found himself with his face deepened in the groove of House’s neck and his lips instantly searching for that sensitive spot close to House’s ear.
House breathed out, bending his head on the other side to leave him more room. His hand grabbed Wilson’s shirt and pulled it up to uncover his back, to touch it, to draw invisible paths on it, while the shivers multiplied and Wilson asked himself what the hell am I doing, House, what the hell are we doing.
Talking would be as admitting there was some awareness of what was happening. So Wilson kept his thoughts for himself and just moved closer to House, stroking him harder.
Wilson listened without speaking to the clothes’ and sheets’ rustle when House turned to him, lifted Wilson’s face with his free hand, and caressed his lips with his thumb.
It started as slow and maudlin as a first date. While they were kissing, Wilson felt House’s same hand running along his body, grabbing the abandoned sheets between them and covering them both. Then it descended again along Wilson’s abdomen, lifted his shirt and moved away his pyjama pants.
Wilson waited to feel surprised but didn’t. They’d come so close that by now they rubbed against each other, their hands running with knuckles into knuckles, attempting to find a perfect joint in the fluent symmetry of their bodies - and an evident pant in the way their kiss was breaking into thousand of little, breathless fights.
They eventually caught their breath, leaning against one another, Wilson with his cheek on House’s shoulder, his hand still where he had left it - House with half his body stuck under him, motionlessly.
When Wilson raised his eyes to look at him, House freed the clean hand and writhed badly to grab a Kleenex box out of the drawer and throw it on the bed.
Anything it had been, Wilson felt that was the only right moment to talk about it, and at the same time he didn’t want to say a word. He cleaned himself silently, reducing the dirty Kleenex to a paper ball which he threw hopelessly toward the bin. He didn’t check if he had hit the bull’s eye.
House had turned on his side, and Wilson appealed to all his self-control to move his body in the opposite direction, lean his cheek on the pillow and close his eyes again.
«Good night,» he whispered, not really aware of it, and the silence shattered all around him like a balloon pricked by a pin.
House grunted an answer; but maybe, and more likely, it had been just Wilson’s imagination.
Chapter 3 and Epilogue
Part: 2/3
Rating: R, I'd say not more
Spoilers: Season two
Disclaimers: Huh... don't own them but the words are all mine, mine, mine.
Feedback: Would you really do this for me? *sparkling eyes*
Thanks: To nakannalee for beta-ing, correcting, editing, anything else. I'd like to marry her, but the cruel Ocean keeps us apart.
Old episodes. Did you miss anything?
Prologue and Chapter 1
[2] Body (500 points)
As far as Wilson could remember, House’s kitchen table had never been used for the meals. It was large and quite comfortable, but it was most frequently used as a place to throw random junk. If House managed to find any fools interested in losing their money, it could also become a game table for his poker nights.
Like Stacy, Wilson would carry the dinner directly into the bedroom, not to tire House. There should have been a tray somewhere.
Like House, Wilson would prepare the dishes and carry everything with beer into the living room, to have dinner on the couch with the TV on.
But since he wasn’t Stacy or House - and he always thanked God for that - he’d do things his way.
So he freed the table from the last, frighteningly high layer of homeless things, spread a table cloth with a gravy stain and set the table.
House stepped in the kitchen - and despite his leg and the fact he needed to lean on the walls to walk, his expression looked like absolutely resolute.
«Almost ready,» Wilson advised him, mixing the spaghetti with the precooked sauce.
«Huh. No flowered apron?» mumbled House, limping to the nearest chair. It was one of the two places Wilson had set for dinner; strategically, to be honest.
«You set that on fire four years ago,» he replied, turning over the pasta and hoping the precooked crap could mix a little better than this.
«It was when you tried to start the barbecue?»
«Yeah, I tried - and then you set me on fire.»
«You were the one standing too close to the barbecue.»
«You put a corner of my apron into the fire. While I had it on.» He lifted his eyes, suddenly angry. «Hey! What did you want to do? Kill me?»
House grinned. «It did nothing for your looks. I’ve always told you stripes are flattering.»
Wilson let his glance fall on his own tie. Striped, indeed. He wondered why he hadn’t taken it off yet; just habit, probably. «Well, that was the only apron you had at your place and I didn’t want to sacrifice a shirt for your sake.»
«I'd told you to cook shirtless, you know.»
«Oh, yeah. James, the last of Mohicans,» murmured Wilson to himself, so distractedly that the smothered sound behind him caught him by surprise. It was a laugh, he found turning back. House was laughing.
Wilson joined him almost immediately, automatically. It was a sound - he found - he missed more than he had let himself to think. For this reason, when it evaporated in an embarrassed silence, he tried to substitute it with new, useless words.
«Your leg?»
«Attached to the rest.»
Wilson nodded, again and suddenly conscious of the Vicodin in his jeans pocket. He made the dishes, intentionally handing the smaller one to House.
House raised his eyes, looking at him with a mix of perplexity, annoyance and mortal menace. Wilson exchanged the dishes with a smile.
They ate silently. Wilson ignored the tremble of the fork in House’s right hand, and the times it fell and clinked against the plate when House let it go to rub his leg.
House didn’t make observations about his cooking. The spaghetti wasn’t that bad, but suddenly Wilson needed to hear that they were overcooked and unseasoned - that it looked like a cow had spit on them, that a monkey with an atrophic arm could manage to do better. Just to know he liked them. Just to know that everything had, if not the substance, at least the appearance of normality.
«Good?» he asked at a moment, looking at House’s still half-full plate.
«Mm,» was the best answer he could get.
The phone’s ring interfered overbearingly in their not-conversation.
Wilson sighed and tried to rise from his chair, but House ordered, without raising his eyes from the plate: «Stay.»
Wilson thought that House was about to go and answer in place of him. «I’m going.»
«Stay,» House repeated, more slowly.
When it was clear that none of them would go and answer, Wilson relaxed on his chair. He tried one last time, his conscience tugging at him: «It could be important.»
«Don’t worry, Rose won’t leave you by phone.»
«Rachel… she and I don’t…»
«Of course you don’t,» House said. «You two are the epitome of married bliss.»
«It’s just... a bad time. It’ll pass.»
House raised his eyes, while the phone kept ringing. «Why don’t you go home, then?»
«We should answer the phone. She’ll worry.»
House looked at him, waiting for an answer.
‘Cause I can’t leave you alone, idiot. Wilson sighed. «She went to her friend’s house for a few days.»
«She won’t come back.»
«Of course she will.»
«No. That’s enough for her.» House leaned his hands on the table, trying to rise. The phone gave another last, briefer ring, and shut up before the voicemail switched on. «Don’t worry, my nurse. I’m just going to the couch,» House advised Wilson, noticing he was rising too.
«You weren’t talking about Rachel,» murmured Wilson, watching House limp toward the living room.
«Ah, is that her name?» replied House.
Wilson cleared the table and did the dishes, while the voices on TV took the place of the silence as a background for their non-existent conversation. Eventually, various water drops and a soap splash had joined the sacred sweat of Gregory House on Wilson’s shirt.
«I’m going home,» he said, showing his head inside the room.
House didn’t raise his eyes, but to Wilson his hand looked like become stiff around the remote control.
«I’m gonna take some clothes, the toothbrush, something so,» specified Wilson. «Fifteen minutes, I guess.»
«Mm,» replied House, channel-surfing.
Wilson emitted a vaguely dejected sigh. «Please, try not to kill yourself while I’m not here. I’d like to be present at the event.»
«Dirty conscience, Jimmy?»
«Totally clean.»
«Give me those fucking pills and you’ll not have to worry of anything.»
«I’ve a better idea. Why don’t you stop thinking about your leg?»
«I can’t. I think alternately about all my organs, you know, not to make them feel lonely.» He half-closed his eyelids. «Oh, hello, spleen. How are you?»
«So we’re okay, since your leg is a limb and not an organ.» Wilson took off his coat from the clothing rack and went and grabbed his bag from the couch. «I’m almost sure I left it closed,» he remarked.
«Almost? You’re getting old.»
«House…» Wilson shook his head. Why did leaving the apartment seem such a bad idea? «At least, try not to choke on your saliva,» he murmured, before shutting the door behind him.
After years of experience, Wilson knew that House was exponentially more dangerous in company than alone. Because, when he was alone, his exhibitionism trailed off, the lack of a public drained his verve, the boredom weakened his enthusiasm. However, the worst things Gregory House had done, he had done alone, preparing the next comical sketch.
If there was something he liked, it was annoying people; if there was a way he liked annoying people, it was premeditatedly; and if there was a favourite victim of him, well, that was exactly Wilson.
So Wilson collected his stuff as fast as he could, changed his clothes and threw his still knotted tie to the clothing rack: everything to limit the action time of that crazy man in detox.
He opened House’s door sixteen minutes and twenty-four seconds after he had left, with a light panting.
He found him exactly where he had left him, on the couch, focused on his surfing with the most innocent expression ever.
«Before I switch on the light,» said Wilson, leaning a finger on the button, «have you opened the stoves to make this house explode with the two of us inside?»
He didn’t receive an answer.
«If you did, you’ll have me on your conscience,» he declared before switching on the light. Fortunately, no mortal explosion followed.
Wilson came closer to the couch. The TV channels were running with metronomic precision. «Hey?»
House didn’t turn. Leaning a hand upon his shoulder, Wilson felt how contracted were his muscles. «House…?»
A light sweat layer beaded his forehead.
«I need that Vicodin,» House said, with a low voice. «… please,» he added, in a pant.
Wilson withdrew his hand. «Tomorrow at six in the morning,» he repeated, trying to sound inexpressive. «Why don’t you go to bed?»
«Please, Wilson.» House turned back, directing to him a face genuinely pained. Wilson felt himself falter.
«House… you have to respect a schedule. You can’t drug yourself with that stuff.»
«You have no idea how painful it is.»
Neither do you, thought Wilson, lowering his eyes. «If you don’t need anything, I’ll go and shower.»
«I need those fucking pills!»
Wilson put the bag with his belongings near to the couch and took out the bathrobe, an old shirt and his pyjama pants. «The only thing you need is stop thinking about those pills and that leg,» he said. «Tomorrow I’m gonna ask Cuddy if she has any unsolvable case to give you. At least you’ll keep your mind busy.»
House grabbed the remote control so hard in his hand that the plastic creaked. Wilson reached out to snatch it - but House blocked Wilson’s wrist with his left hand.
«I’m not thinking up anything,» hissed House, pulling him closer, so resolutely that Wilson had to let his stuff fall on the couch to keep his balance against the backrest.
«What…»
House pulled Wilson’s hand on his thigh, until Wilson’s hesitant fingers touched the light fabric of his pyjamas. House forced him still. Beneath the fabric, Wilson felt the irregular surface of the scar and the muscles around, exactly as his sight had informed his fingers when he had seen him - spied on him- in the tub. And it was the contrary now, but the same feeling.
Wilson raised his eyes, meeting House’s ones. «I know it’s painful,» he murmured. «But I can’t… Let me go.»
«Give me the pills.»
«No.»
The grip tightened until it became stifling. Wilson felt his fingers tingling, his wrist’s bones rebelling to the constriction. He didn’t lower his eyes.
«I’m not gonna give you them, House. If you wanna let off steam, you’re gonna have to be content with my right hand. I need the left.»
When House released him, Wilson thought that the bruise was going to remain for a long while.
The shower had a good effect on him.
Wilson had locked the door, not for mistrust, but actually, yes, for total mistrust in House and the Vicodin bottle Wilson had left in his jeans’ pocket.
Going to the bathroom, he had noticed a sequence of things that were out of place, which had described pretty well the itinerary of his friend looking for the pills - last but not least, a kitchen cabinet he remembered perfectly closed.
He hadn’t difficulty in believing his leg was hurting, after that nice journey all around the apartment.
Below his fingers, Wilson had felt the muscles all around the scar contracting and relaxing, responding to his touch, as like a nervous tide unable to rest - to surrender - and find, at least for a moment, a little peace.
If House had done it to make him feel guilty…
Wilson pushed the shower handle, watching the remaining water dripping away from his body.
If he had done it to make him feel guilty, he had succeeded.
The light in the bedroom was on. It was the little lamp on the bedside table, not very bright.
Wilson appeared on the doorway with a towel on his wet hair and the dirty clothes on his arm. House was lying on his back, above the sheets, an arm resting across his eyes. «Good night, House.»
«Where are you going?»
«Sleeping.»
«Where?»
Wilson wrinkled his forehead. «Unless you have a guest room you kept hidden to me until now - and in this case I really think I’ll backstab you - the answer is ‘on your couch’.»
House moved his arm aside. «You can’t.»
«And why?»
«It’s dirty.»
Wilson half closed his eyes, perplexed. «It was clean until an hour ago.»
«And now it’s not anymore. The dog.»
«House, you don’t have a dog.»
«The neighbours’ dog.»
«The neighbours’ dog,» repeated Wilson. «The deaf guy who lives opposite or the old crazy woman with ten cats?»
«The second. I believe it wanted to change homes, poor pet.»
«House…»
«If I were you I’d settle for this version, ‘cause reality is always worse.»
Wilson sighed, rubbing distractedly the towel on his hair. «And now? I have to sleep on the floor or can I arrange a couple of sheets on the table?»
«Sleep here,» said House.
«Here?»
House’s hand slipped on the free half of the bed. «If you don’t kick under the sheets.»
«No, no, wait. Where’s the trick?»
«No trick.»
«If it’s a way to get those pills…»
«Do you keep them in your pants?» replied House, disgusted.
Wilson shook his head, throwing the clothes on a chair near to the empty half of the bed. He knew that taking off the pills now was an error, but he was tired to dodge House’s assaults.
He probably just wanted company. He had slept for five years with another person beside him and now he was alone. Wilson still remembered that feeling of loss during those first nights after the break with Sarah.
He sat on the edge of the bed, hearing a light creak when the mattress bent under his weight. He leaned the bottle on the floor, near to the bedside table. «You should cover yourself,» he remarked, glancing at House.
«Are you always this maternal or do I wake up your hidden instincts?»
«Actually, if you don’t take the sheets out of beneath your back I can’t cover myself either.»
House snorted and put his left foot against the mattress, barely rising, as much as he needed to free the sheets and let Wilson help him.
When they both were settled, House reached out to switch off the lamp and the room collapsed into the darkness.
Some moments of silence.
«House?»
«Mm?» grunted the other one.
«It’s just…» Wilson breathed out and in, hesitantly, «… I’m sorry.»
He waited for an answer for nearly a minute, feeling the seconds dripping into his head like a broken faucet; then he murmured a weak “Good night” and turned his face toward the pillow. Woman smell, he noticed, vaguely.
He nearly winced when House’s fingers invaded his own space under the sheets and touched his left wrist, before just brushing, then stroking it in a slow massage - caressing the bruise that tomorrow would be covered by Wilson’s watch. When the fingers stopped on the pulsing vein, Wilson held his breathe.
Me too.
Then House’s hand slipped away, and both of them turned on their sides.
When he woke up, there wasn’t any twittering of birds or alarm clock’s ring, and James Wilson’s eyelids seemed strangely not very cooperative. He was an early riser, he had never had problems in awaking at the right hour, and he often switched the alarm off even before it rang.
But this time, stretching his hand toward the bedside table, he didn’t find any button to press. When, at the third attempt, he managed to open his eyes, he noticed that it was still night - and that it wasn’t his bed.
Somewhere next to him, someone was moaning. A series of brief and erratic wheezes, followed by a long contracted moan, smothered against the pillow. Turning, Wilson saw House’s body shrunken on his side around the bad leg, his hands clenching his thigh, the sheets twisted on his side. He was turned toward the edge of the bed.
«House,» he called him. «House, what’s wrong?»
House didn’t reply, unless a throaty moan similar to a wounded animal could be defined an answer. The right hand was rubbing the thigh so hard that Wilson wondered if he wasn’t amplifying the pain, instead of easing it.
He took House’s hand in his, to stop him, and House clutched his fingers in a desperate impulse.
«Calm down,» murmured Wilson, moving away House’s hand and resting it on his stomach. «Calm down.» He moved his own hand back to the thigh, gently. Through the light cotton fabric he could feel House’s warmth and, by reflection, his own. He moved the hand in a slow circle upon the scar, not because he thought it could easy House’s pain, but to give him the illusion it could.
With an infinite slowness, House relaxed under his touch. He sighed, and Wilson sighed with him and leaned his forehead against his shoulder. «Thank God,» he murmured. «Better?»
Instead of answering, House leaned a hand upon Wilson’s and squeezed it, not with the desperate fury of a moment before nor with the wild rage of the evening, but in a firm and warm hold that Wilson didn’t avoid.
«She’ll come back,» whispered Wilson. «They’ll come back.»
House moved his hand and Wilson’s slowly upon his thigh, with an erratic movement that after some seconds evened with a certain fluency, and let Wilson unconsciously relax while he humoured him. Anything, he thought without thinking, to help him to feel better.
Their bodies almost adhered each other, even if Wilson couldn’t remember when they came so closer. His cheek was pressing against House’s shoulder attempting to steal a look at House’s face, and his left elbow, which he was leaning on, tingled with silent pain.
He thought he had found the exact moment in which something had changed - a warning flash lighted up in his mind. House’s hand changed the angle on his, then it dragged it upward, crossing the border of the scar’s familiar circle. Upward and inward. Wilson held his breathe and folded his spread fingers, offering a little resistance that House overcame without fighting.
Sometimes it could happen the brain read the pain signals as like pleasure.
«House…»
Or maybe he just needed to take his mind off things, and Wilson thought as he stopped hindering him, better this way than hurting himself.
He heard House turning slowly, gliding on his back, and suddenly they found themselves looking in each other’s eyes. To Wilson, it was an adrenalin rush which had nothing to do with friendship, pity or selfless help. When House brought Wilson’s hand to the top of his pyjama pants and then withdrew, Wilson let it slip under the waistband without thinking.
He thought that it wasn’t that strange - that House was sick, that he needed to distract his mind, that - funny - Wilson had been the one who told him to think about something else. He kept telling himself that there was nothing strange, until he leaned his cheek against House’s collarbone and he felt House placing an arm around his shoulders.
He’d lost a lot of weight. He had never been fat, but now his t-shirt dangled desolately from his chest, and the pants’ waistband could easily slip from his scrawny hips. His collarbone jutted out as a desk corner against Wilson’s cheek.
Wilson squeezed it gently and House sighed noisily, moving his right hand in a slow caress on Wilson’s back.
Maybe until then Wilson could have told himself that there was nothing strange - he could have even believed that it was moral duty and friendship. But then a shiver followed House’s fingers’ path on his spine, and Wilson found himself with his face deepened in the groove of House’s neck and his lips instantly searching for that sensitive spot close to House’s ear.
House breathed out, bending his head on the other side to leave him more room. His hand grabbed Wilson’s shirt and pulled it up to uncover his back, to touch it, to draw invisible paths on it, while the shivers multiplied and Wilson asked himself what the hell am I doing, House, what the hell are we doing.
Talking would be as admitting there was some awareness of what was happening. So Wilson kept his thoughts for himself and just moved closer to House, stroking him harder.
Wilson listened without speaking to the clothes’ and sheets’ rustle when House turned to him, lifted Wilson’s face with his free hand, and caressed his lips with his thumb.
It started as slow and maudlin as a first date. While they were kissing, Wilson felt House’s same hand running along his body, grabbing the abandoned sheets between them and covering them both. Then it descended again along Wilson’s abdomen, lifted his shirt and moved away his pyjama pants.
Wilson waited to feel surprised but didn’t. They’d come so close that by now they rubbed against each other, their hands running with knuckles into knuckles, attempting to find a perfect joint in the fluent symmetry of their bodies - and an evident pant in the way their kiss was breaking into thousand of little, breathless fights.
They eventually caught their breath, leaning against one another, Wilson with his cheek on House’s shoulder, his hand still where he had left it - House with half his body stuck under him, motionlessly.
When Wilson raised his eyes to look at him, House freed the clean hand and writhed badly to grab a Kleenex box out of the drawer and throw it on the bed.
Anything it had been, Wilson felt that was the only right moment to talk about it, and at the same time he didn’t want to say a word. He cleaned himself silently, reducing the dirty Kleenex to a paper ball which he threw hopelessly toward the bin. He didn’t check if he had hit the bull’s eye.
House had turned on his side, and Wilson appealed to all his self-control to move his body in the opposite direction, lean his cheek on the pillow and close his eyes again.
«Good night,» he whispered, not really aware of it, and the silence shattered all around him like a balloon pricked by a pin.
House grunted an answer; but maybe, and more likely, it had been just Wilson’s imagination.
Chapter 3 and Epilogue