(no subject)
Title: For Every Closed Door (9/?)
Fandom: House MD/Dead Like Me crossover
Author: Starling
Rating: R overall
Characters/pairings: House/Wilson.
Warnings: Afterlife!Fic. Thus, by necessity, also a death!fic, but not depressing.
Summary: "Operation "Weasel My Way Back Into Wilson's Life Without Losing Brain Function, And Maybe Investigate Seducing Him As Well" was well underway."
Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own, write for, or produce either of these fabulous shows. I'm just a geek with too much time on her hands.
A/N: Sorry for taking so long to write this. I somehow decided it would be a good idea to work six days straight, while at the same time, trying to move house.
A/N 2: Oops. Forgot to mention that the song House plays ("My Life" by Phil Ochs) is the same one that Wilson read at the end of his last interlude. Sorry for being obscure.
Unbeta'd. All mistakes are mine.
Concrit feedback gives me warm fuzzies.
x-posted to housefic and house_wilson.
-No contact with people from your previous life.
-Why not?
-Well, because as far as they’re concerned, you’re dead!
From "Dead Like Me" episode 1x1
"You-" the other doctor began to say.
House's train of thought would have broken the sound barrier if its speed had been measured.
Oh fuck. He recognizes me. Argue my way out of it? Shit, can't, might lose my memory or something again. Not good. He looks like crap. Sleep deprivation. Is he still on the couch or has he moved to my bed? Wilson in my bed... Oh, shut up! Need a distraction. Explosion across the street would be good. Need to get out of here. Wonder if he's still smoking. In my bed...
Realizing that his brain was going to be of absolutely no help in this situation, House's feet began to turn him and propel him in the general direction of away. About three seconds had elapsed from the time he walked into his best friend.
"You were that- hey!" Having a much better reaction time than House would have given him credit for, Wilson reached out and grabbed House's shoulder, effectively halting any escape.
He was caught. Thankfully, his brain had stopped spinning its wheels and actually gained some of its traction back.
"Yes," House said, turning back to face the other man and cutting off whatever Wilson had been about to say. "I am that guy that showed up at House's apartment. I thought it was a good idea at the time. Apparently I was mistaken and I'm very sorry. Now let go of my shoulder or I'll be forced to do something neither of us will like."
In House's mind, Wilson would just scoff, Like what? And then House would do something ridiculous, like singing Paula Abdul at the top of his lungs. And then Wilson would do that thing where he was cringing and laughing at the same time, and the entire situation would be defused.
In this stupid version of reality, unfortunately, Wilson didn't play the part he should have. Instead he quickly let go of House's shoulder, and then said stiffly, "I'm sorry. I just wanted to apologize."
Then he turned and started walking away. House could have screamed. Why the hell couldn't Wilson recognize him? He had before, at the funeral, so why not now that he actually had a body?
Because all Wilson could see was the surface. He didn't see House standing there. He saw some stranger, an average white guy with a non-descript face who had been wearing his dead best friend's T-shirt the last time they met. To him, House was dead. Wilson had buried him. And there was nothing House could do or say to convince him otherwise.
But... what if House didn't try to convince him?
An entire plan came full formed into his head before Wilson had gone three steps in the opposite direction.
"Wait up!" House called.
Wilson turned around, an odd look on his face. It lay somewhere between hope and suspicion.
"I'm sorry; I shouldn't have just shown up like that. I was..." Drunk? Stoned? Brain damaged? "I was a little drunk."
One eyebrow went up, just as he'd thought it would.
"Okay, I was very drunk."
The eyebrow went back down, and there was the ghost of a smile at Wilson's lips, there for a second and then gone. A good sign. House stepped forward, putting a hand out.
"I'm Mika Tesla. I'm an old friend of House's. We knew each other from Michigan."
Wilson looked at the hand suspiciously for a moment, as if it might turn into a snake or something if he touched it. Finally, he put his hand in House's; the grip was firm and cool, even if the brown eyes were distrusting.
"James Wilson," he said. "But you knew that."
House was confused for a moment, then remembered calling Wilson's name when he'd gone to the apartment. "House told me about you," he said. "In an email. A while ago."
This was one of the most surreal conversations he had ever had.
"If you don't mind my asking," Wilson said, "how did you get that shirt of his? The one with the octopus..." He made a vague gesture, as if the actual idea were too distasteful to actually put into words.
House laughed, mostly to give himself a second to think of a decent cover story.
"The one I was wearing was mine," he said. "That was my band in college. I gave House one of our shirts around the same time. He was the one that thought of the name On Your Knees, Asshole." House rolled his eyes, remembering. That story was actually true. He hadn't thought they'd be so stupid as to actually accept it, much less put it on a T-shirt. College students had no shame. "I had no idea he actually kept it," House added with a small shrug.
Wilson looked a little skeptical, but then nodded.
House allowed himself a silent, internal victory cheer. Operation "Weasel My Way Back Into Wilson's Life Without Losing Brain Function, And Maybe Investigate Seducing Him As Well" was well underway. He'd have to think of a better mission name, though.
The hypothesis was that there was no rule saying he couldn't be in contact with the people from his old life. Just that they couldn't know his true identity, or what his function in mortal society was. Thus, so long as he wasn't House, he could still be friends with Wilson. It would be the best of both worlds. Or at least, the best he could get, so long as the fascist Powers That Were could mess with his brain with impunity.
It had taken him forty-eight years, three near deaths and one actual death, but he was finally learning the value of a necessary compromise.
Keeping this in mind, he said the five words that nobody would ever expect to leave Gregory House's mouth.
"Can I buy you lunch?" House asked.
****
It had been a while since House had tried to be charming, entertaining, and kind. Especially to Wilson.
Maybe that was an oversimplification. House knew he had charm. He just didn't choose to use it very often. It was easier to wear people down through sustained agitation than to subtly manipulate them. And House did think of himself as entertaining, just not conventionally so. At least, he wasn't boring like 99.9% of the population was.
Kindness, on the other hand, was just something he didn't do. People who were always kind and considerate to others inspired a sort of annoyed bafflement in him. He couldn't accept true altruism as anything other than a myth, right up there with Santa Claus and the Immaculate Conception.
But that was Gregory House. He was currently busy being Mika Tesla, who was a nice guy with an unfortunate name, and was entirely capable of being kind, sympathetic, and charming. It was sort of exhausting.
It was a fine line to walk; he had to be unlike himself enough to not arouse any suspicions on Wilson's part, not to mention avoid the wrath of the Powers That Be. But he also had to be enough like himself to both keep Wilson's interest and to be able to pass as someone he, House, would have been friends with in college.
That made no sense. Nonetheless, it seemed to be working. All his synapses seemed to be in working order, and he and Wilson had already drunk a cup of coffee each at the mostly empty cafe they'd stopped in.
House had come up with his new identity's history on the walk to the cafe, trying to keep it interesting and engaging, but still plausible. Mika Tesla had dropped out of University of Michigan in his second year, due to the deaths of both his parents (he was playing on Wilson's attraction to tragedy, here). He'd spent a couple years drifting, playing music, working odd jobs, and writing. He'd been living in France for the last year, before coming back to the States (Wilson had talked about going to Paris when he was an undergrad, and how much he'd wanted to go back at some point). Now, he was living off of a modest trust fund from a dead uncle. He'd moved to Princeton to work on his new book.
It was very surreal, being talked to by his best friend as though he were a stranger. There was an unaccustomed distance between them that had to be worked around. Despite that, they had fallen into easy, if impersonal, conversation. It was almost working too well. It was as though Wilson knew this was an elaborate game, but was playing along.
House, bringing back a second coffee for himself, wondered if maybe this was true, on some level.
Sitting back down, he saw Wilson staring off into a corner of the room. An upright piano sat unused in a small alcove away from the main seating area.
"Do you play?" Wilson asked, nodding towards the instrument. House hesitated. Would it be giving too much away to say yes? Would he sit down at the keys and find himself unable to remember a single tune?
Fuck it. He wanted to play. He'd been without a piano for too long. And he'd already told Wilson that Mika Tesla was a musician, so it wasn't too unlikely.
House nodded to Wilson, and then went and sat down at the bench. He heard Wilson follow him, settling at the table closest to the piano. House shook his hands out a few times, then placed them on the keys, pressing out a C sharp to see if it was in tune. It was.
He sighed in relief as his hands started moving, the music flowing smoothly from his fingers. He started off with a simple tune to warm up, one he'd learned how to play when he was in his twenties.
After a moment, Wilson spoke quietly. "What song is that?"
"A Phil Ochs song, called 'My Life.'" House went back and forth for a moment, considering telling Wilson more. He couldn't recall ever talking about the singer with Wilson before, so he thought it was safe.
"The first song I ever learned of his was called 'I Ain't Marchin' Anymore.' I did it mostly to piss off my dad, who thought Phil Ochs was a communist and a fag. His words, not mine," House clarified.
He looked back to see Wilson's reaction, but the expression on the other man's face was enough to make him stop playing. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, and House suddenly wondered if he'd fucked up big time.
"Wilson?" he said.
"That song you were playing," he said. "What are the lyrics? Can you sing them?"
Shit. Something was up. Had he let something slip? There was no reason Wilson would know this song. House didn't play it much, and though Wilson's musical tastes were somewhat eclectic, they didn't extend to obscure folk artists from the sixties with political chips on their shoulders. And anyway, the Asshole Powers That Were would have stopped him if he'd been about to give something away.
"I'm not much of a singer," House said, turning back to the keys.
"I don't care," Wilson said, an unfamiliar demanding tone in his words. "Just speak them, then."
House tried to think of a reason not to, but couldn't. If they'd still been House and Wilson, he'd have just blown the other man off without bothering to give a reason. Doing that as Mika Tesla, however, would endanger the tenuous trust Wilson was starting to give him. Operation Weasel (as he'd started thinking of it) demanded certain concessions on his part.
Damn it. He'd just have to seek some kind of petty revenge for this later, once he'd firmly reestablished himself in Wilson's life.
He started playing the song again, and after a moment, reluctantly sang the first verse. When he stopped, Wilson impatiently motioned him to go on. Plotting extensive future revenge against the other man, House mentally gritted his teeth and continued.
"My life is now a myth to me; like the drifter, with his laughter in the dawn..."
When he got to the end, he turned back to Wilson with a "Happy now?" expression and a sarcastic remark at the ready, only to find the other man staring at him with something like fright.
"Wilson? What is it?" Hell, he knew his singing wasn't great, but it had never inspired horror in somebody before.
Wilson didn't answer. Instead, he stood up, grabbed his coat, and fled the bar.
House cursed and ran after him.
Wilson was standing outside the door, leaning forward as he lit a cigarette. House watched, fascinated. House had never even suspected Wilson of smoking before he saw him do it at the funeral. That the other man had kept it a secret for so long was an accomplishment in itself. And since then, he'd found the image a hard one to get out of his head; the way Wilson held the cigarette in the first two fingers of his hands, thumb toying with the filter, and how he exhaled the clouds of smoke in quick rushes.
"Are you okay?" House asked.
Wilson nodded, but flicked the ash hard off the tip of Marlboro.
"Liar," House said, trying to make the words sound kind instead of accusatory.
Wilson shrugged, still not saying anything. The walls were back up around him, House realized.
"Got an extra smoke?" House asked, after a moment. Bonding over a shared bad habit. House had perfected this one as a teen.
Wilson held out the pack to him. House extracted one and stuck it in his mouth, silently asking for a light. Wilson pulled out a green disposable Bic. Rather than hand it to him, like House had expected, the other man leaned forward, cupping his hands around the thin paper tube, and lit House's cigarette.
"I didn't think you were a smoker," House said, taking his first drag. He hadn't smoked since rehab this winter, and had to quell a cough.
Wilson shrugged, replacing the lighter back in his pocket. "I'm not, really. Haven't smoked regularly since I was an undergrad. Started again after House..." he trailed off. "I felt justified in taking up an old bad habit."
House smirked. "I know how that is," he said, taking another drag.
"I was in love with him," Wilson suddenly blurted.
House choked on a lungful of smoke.
Wilson looked over at him, more guardedly bemused than concerned. "Sorry. Too much information?"
It was. House had already known, but to hear the words from the horse's mouth, so to speak, was more shocking than he'd prepared himself for.
He shook his head at Wilson, and said in between hacking coughs, "Just surprised."
"Didn't think I swung that way?" Wilson said, a slight edge in his voice.
"No. Didn't think anybody was that much of a masochist."
Wilson shrugged and smiled briefly, exhaling a stream of smoke through his nose.
"Masochism was kind of a cornerstone of our friendship," he said.
House caught himself nodding as he cleared the last of the smoke from his lungs. It was probably true.
"Never did anything about it," Wilson continued. "Never said anything. I don't think he ever suspected. I'm not sure whether I should regret it now or not, considering everything that's happened."
Wilson took a final drag off his cigarette before stubbing it out in the ashtray next to the cafe's entrance. "I should get going," he said.
House let his cigarette fall onto the sidewalk, grinding it underneath his foot and steeling himself for Stage Two of Operation Weasel.
"Can I..." he trailed off, swallowing thickly as the words got caught in his throat. Why the hell was he so nervous? House cleared his throat, hoping Wilson would see his discomfort as charming rather than desperate. "Would you be interested in getting together again sometime? Dinner or something? Maybe a drink?"
Smooth. He hoped the words had sounded only half as moronic to Wilson as they did to his own ears. Mika Tesla obviously didn't have much experience in hitting on men.
Wilson gave him a long look, which House forced himself to return fearlessly.
"Yeah," Wilson said. "I'd like that."
Because Mika Tesla was a mature adult, he only allowed a small grin to grace his mouth as Wilson handed over his card and told him to call him. And because House had the emotional maturity of a seven year old, he pumped a fist in the air and whisper-shouted "Boo yah!" as soon as Wilson was out of hearing range.
His moment of triumph was short lived, because as soon as he turned around, he found himself staring into the enraged face of another Reaper.
"What the FUCK do you think you're doing!" Ada shouted.
Fandom: House MD/Dead Like Me crossover
Author: Starling
Rating: R overall
Characters/pairings: House/Wilson.
Warnings: Afterlife!Fic. Thus, by necessity, also a death!fic, but not depressing.
Summary: "Operation "Weasel My Way Back Into Wilson's Life Without Losing Brain Function, And Maybe Investigate Seducing Him As Well" was well underway."
Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own, write for, or produce either of these fabulous shows. I'm just a geek with too much time on her hands.
A/N: Sorry for taking so long to write this. I somehow decided it would be a good idea to work six days straight, while at the same time, trying to move house.
A/N 2: Oops. Forgot to mention that the song House plays ("My Life" by Phil Ochs) is the same one that Wilson read at the end of his last interlude. Sorry for being obscure.
Unbeta'd. All mistakes are mine.
Concrit feedback gives me warm fuzzies.
x-posted to housefic and house_wilson.
-No contact with people from your previous life.
-Why not?
-Well, because as far as they’re concerned, you’re dead!
From "Dead Like Me" episode 1x1
"You-" the other doctor began to say.
House's train of thought would have broken the sound barrier if its speed had been measured.
Oh fuck. He recognizes me. Argue my way out of it? Shit, can't, might lose my memory or something again. Not good. He looks like crap. Sleep deprivation. Is he still on the couch or has he moved to my bed? Wilson in my bed... Oh, shut up! Need a distraction. Explosion across the street would be good. Need to get out of here. Wonder if he's still smoking. In my bed...
Realizing that his brain was going to be of absolutely no help in this situation, House's feet began to turn him and propel him in the general direction of away. About three seconds had elapsed from the time he walked into his best friend.
"You were that- hey!" Having a much better reaction time than House would have given him credit for, Wilson reached out and grabbed House's shoulder, effectively halting any escape.
He was caught. Thankfully, his brain had stopped spinning its wheels and actually gained some of its traction back.
"Yes," House said, turning back to face the other man and cutting off whatever Wilson had been about to say. "I am that guy that showed up at House's apartment. I thought it was a good idea at the time. Apparently I was mistaken and I'm very sorry. Now let go of my shoulder or I'll be forced to do something neither of us will like."
In House's mind, Wilson would just scoff, Like what? And then House would do something ridiculous, like singing Paula Abdul at the top of his lungs. And then Wilson would do that thing where he was cringing and laughing at the same time, and the entire situation would be defused.
In this stupid version of reality, unfortunately, Wilson didn't play the part he should have. Instead he quickly let go of House's shoulder, and then said stiffly, "I'm sorry. I just wanted to apologize."
Then he turned and started walking away. House could have screamed. Why the hell couldn't Wilson recognize him? He had before, at the funeral, so why not now that he actually had a body?
Because all Wilson could see was the surface. He didn't see House standing there. He saw some stranger, an average white guy with a non-descript face who had been wearing his dead best friend's T-shirt the last time they met. To him, House was dead. Wilson had buried him. And there was nothing House could do or say to convince him otherwise.
But... what if House didn't try to convince him?
An entire plan came full formed into his head before Wilson had gone three steps in the opposite direction.
"Wait up!" House called.
Wilson turned around, an odd look on his face. It lay somewhere between hope and suspicion.
"I'm sorry; I shouldn't have just shown up like that. I was..." Drunk? Stoned? Brain damaged? "I was a little drunk."
One eyebrow went up, just as he'd thought it would.
"Okay, I was very drunk."
The eyebrow went back down, and there was the ghost of a smile at Wilson's lips, there for a second and then gone. A good sign. House stepped forward, putting a hand out.
"I'm Mika Tesla. I'm an old friend of House's. We knew each other from Michigan."
Wilson looked at the hand suspiciously for a moment, as if it might turn into a snake or something if he touched it. Finally, he put his hand in House's; the grip was firm and cool, even if the brown eyes were distrusting.
"James Wilson," he said. "But you knew that."
House was confused for a moment, then remembered calling Wilson's name when he'd gone to the apartment. "House told me about you," he said. "In an email. A while ago."
This was one of the most surreal conversations he had ever had.
"If you don't mind my asking," Wilson said, "how did you get that shirt of his? The one with the octopus..." He made a vague gesture, as if the actual idea were too distasteful to actually put into words.
House laughed, mostly to give himself a second to think of a decent cover story.
"The one I was wearing was mine," he said. "That was my band in college. I gave House one of our shirts around the same time. He was the one that thought of the name On Your Knees, Asshole." House rolled his eyes, remembering. That story was actually true. He hadn't thought they'd be so stupid as to actually accept it, much less put it on a T-shirt. College students had no shame. "I had no idea he actually kept it," House added with a small shrug.
Wilson looked a little skeptical, but then nodded.
House allowed himself a silent, internal victory cheer. Operation "Weasel My Way Back Into Wilson's Life Without Losing Brain Function, And Maybe Investigate Seducing Him As Well" was well underway. He'd have to think of a better mission name, though.
The hypothesis was that there was no rule saying he couldn't be in contact with the people from his old life. Just that they couldn't know his true identity, or what his function in mortal society was. Thus, so long as he wasn't House, he could still be friends with Wilson. It would be the best of both worlds. Or at least, the best he could get, so long as the fascist Powers That Were could mess with his brain with impunity.
It had taken him forty-eight years, three near deaths and one actual death, but he was finally learning the value of a necessary compromise.
Keeping this in mind, he said the five words that nobody would ever expect to leave Gregory House's mouth.
"Can I buy you lunch?" House asked.
****
It had been a while since House had tried to be charming, entertaining, and kind. Especially to Wilson.
Maybe that was an oversimplification. House knew he had charm. He just didn't choose to use it very often. It was easier to wear people down through sustained agitation than to subtly manipulate them. And House did think of himself as entertaining, just not conventionally so. At least, he wasn't boring like 99.9% of the population was.
Kindness, on the other hand, was just something he didn't do. People who were always kind and considerate to others inspired a sort of annoyed bafflement in him. He couldn't accept true altruism as anything other than a myth, right up there with Santa Claus and the Immaculate Conception.
But that was Gregory House. He was currently busy being Mika Tesla, who was a nice guy with an unfortunate name, and was entirely capable of being kind, sympathetic, and charming. It was sort of exhausting.
It was a fine line to walk; he had to be unlike himself enough to not arouse any suspicions on Wilson's part, not to mention avoid the wrath of the Powers That Be. But he also had to be enough like himself to both keep Wilson's interest and to be able to pass as someone he, House, would have been friends with in college.
That made no sense. Nonetheless, it seemed to be working. All his synapses seemed to be in working order, and he and Wilson had already drunk a cup of coffee each at the mostly empty cafe they'd stopped in.
House had come up with his new identity's history on the walk to the cafe, trying to keep it interesting and engaging, but still plausible. Mika Tesla had dropped out of University of Michigan in his second year, due to the deaths of both his parents (he was playing on Wilson's attraction to tragedy, here). He'd spent a couple years drifting, playing music, working odd jobs, and writing. He'd been living in France for the last year, before coming back to the States (Wilson had talked about going to Paris when he was an undergrad, and how much he'd wanted to go back at some point). Now, he was living off of a modest trust fund from a dead uncle. He'd moved to Princeton to work on his new book.
It was very surreal, being talked to by his best friend as though he were a stranger. There was an unaccustomed distance between them that had to be worked around. Despite that, they had fallen into easy, if impersonal, conversation. It was almost working too well. It was as though Wilson knew this was an elaborate game, but was playing along.
House, bringing back a second coffee for himself, wondered if maybe this was true, on some level.
Sitting back down, he saw Wilson staring off into a corner of the room. An upright piano sat unused in a small alcove away from the main seating area.
"Do you play?" Wilson asked, nodding towards the instrument. House hesitated. Would it be giving too much away to say yes? Would he sit down at the keys and find himself unable to remember a single tune?
Fuck it. He wanted to play. He'd been without a piano for too long. And he'd already told Wilson that Mika Tesla was a musician, so it wasn't too unlikely.
House nodded to Wilson, and then went and sat down at the bench. He heard Wilson follow him, settling at the table closest to the piano. House shook his hands out a few times, then placed them on the keys, pressing out a C sharp to see if it was in tune. It was.
He sighed in relief as his hands started moving, the music flowing smoothly from his fingers. He started off with a simple tune to warm up, one he'd learned how to play when he was in his twenties.
After a moment, Wilson spoke quietly. "What song is that?"
"A Phil Ochs song, called 'My Life.'" House went back and forth for a moment, considering telling Wilson more. He couldn't recall ever talking about the singer with Wilson before, so he thought it was safe.
"The first song I ever learned of his was called 'I Ain't Marchin' Anymore.' I did it mostly to piss off my dad, who thought Phil Ochs was a communist and a fag. His words, not mine," House clarified.
He looked back to see Wilson's reaction, but the expression on the other man's face was enough to make him stop playing. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, and House suddenly wondered if he'd fucked up big time.
"Wilson?" he said.
"That song you were playing," he said. "What are the lyrics? Can you sing them?"
Shit. Something was up. Had he let something slip? There was no reason Wilson would know this song. House didn't play it much, and though Wilson's musical tastes were somewhat eclectic, they didn't extend to obscure folk artists from the sixties with political chips on their shoulders. And anyway, the Asshole Powers That Were would have stopped him if he'd been about to give something away.
"I'm not much of a singer," House said, turning back to the keys.
"I don't care," Wilson said, an unfamiliar demanding tone in his words. "Just speak them, then."
House tried to think of a reason not to, but couldn't. If they'd still been House and Wilson, he'd have just blown the other man off without bothering to give a reason. Doing that as Mika Tesla, however, would endanger the tenuous trust Wilson was starting to give him. Operation Weasel (as he'd started thinking of it) demanded certain concessions on his part.
Damn it. He'd just have to seek some kind of petty revenge for this later, once he'd firmly reestablished himself in Wilson's life.
He started playing the song again, and after a moment, reluctantly sang the first verse. When he stopped, Wilson impatiently motioned him to go on. Plotting extensive future revenge against the other man, House mentally gritted his teeth and continued.
"My life is now a myth to me; like the drifter, with his laughter in the dawn..."
When he got to the end, he turned back to Wilson with a "Happy now?" expression and a sarcastic remark at the ready, only to find the other man staring at him with something like fright.
"Wilson? What is it?" Hell, he knew his singing wasn't great, but it had never inspired horror in somebody before.
Wilson didn't answer. Instead, he stood up, grabbed his coat, and fled the bar.
House cursed and ran after him.
Wilson was standing outside the door, leaning forward as he lit a cigarette. House watched, fascinated. House had never even suspected Wilson of smoking before he saw him do it at the funeral. That the other man had kept it a secret for so long was an accomplishment in itself. And since then, he'd found the image a hard one to get out of his head; the way Wilson held the cigarette in the first two fingers of his hands, thumb toying with the filter, and how he exhaled the clouds of smoke in quick rushes.
"Are you okay?" House asked.
Wilson nodded, but flicked the ash hard off the tip of Marlboro.
"Liar," House said, trying to make the words sound kind instead of accusatory.
Wilson shrugged, still not saying anything. The walls were back up around him, House realized.
"Got an extra smoke?" House asked, after a moment. Bonding over a shared bad habit. House had perfected this one as a teen.
Wilson held out the pack to him. House extracted one and stuck it in his mouth, silently asking for a light. Wilson pulled out a green disposable Bic. Rather than hand it to him, like House had expected, the other man leaned forward, cupping his hands around the thin paper tube, and lit House's cigarette.
"I didn't think you were a smoker," House said, taking his first drag. He hadn't smoked since rehab this winter, and had to quell a cough.
Wilson shrugged, replacing the lighter back in his pocket. "I'm not, really. Haven't smoked regularly since I was an undergrad. Started again after House..." he trailed off. "I felt justified in taking up an old bad habit."
House smirked. "I know how that is," he said, taking another drag.
"I was in love with him," Wilson suddenly blurted.
House choked on a lungful of smoke.
Wilson looked over at him, more guardedly bemused than concerned. "Sorry. Too much information?"
It was. House had already known, but to hear the words from the horse's mouth, so to speak, was more shocking than he'd prepared himself for.
He shook his head at Wilson, and said in between hacking coughs, "Just surprised."
"Didn't think I swung that way?" Wilson said, a slight edge in his voice.
"No. Didn't think anybody was that much of a masochist."
Wilson shrugged and smiled briefly, exhaling a stream of smoke through his nose.
"Masochism was kind of a cornerstone of our friendship," he said.
House caught himself nodding as he cleared the last of the smoke from his lungs. It was probably true.
"Never did anything about it," Wilson continued. "Never said anything. I don't think he ever suspected. I'm not sure whether I should regret it now or not, considering everything that's happened."
Wilson took a final drag off his cigarette before stubbing it out in the ashtray next to the cafe's entrance. "I should get going," he said.
House let his cigarette fall onto the sidewalk, grinding it underneath his foot and steeling himself for Stage Two of Operation Weasel.
"Can I..." he trailed off, swallowing thickly as the words got caught in his throat. Why the hell was he so nervous? House cleared his throat, hoping Wilson would see his discomfort as charming rather than desperate. "Would you be interested in getting together again sometime? Dinner or something? Maybe a drink?"
Smooth. He hoped the words had sounded only half as moronic to Wilson as they did to his own ears. Mika Tesla obviously didn't have much experience in hitting on men.
Wilson gave him a long look, which House forced himself to return fearlessly.
"Yeah," Wilson said. "I'd like that."
Because Mika Tesla was a mature adult, he only allowed a small grin to grace his mouth as Wilson handed over his card and told him to call him. And because House had the emotional maturity of a seven year old, he pumped a fist in the air and whisper-shouted "Boo yah!" as soon as Wilson was out of hearing range.
His moment of triumph was short lived, because as soon as he turned around, he found himself staring into the enraged face of another Reaper.
"What the FUCK do you think you're doing!" Ada shouted.