Chapter Text
It’s absurd that Wilson’s first thought upon being prompted to kiss his best friend was self-consciousness. I can’t kiss him now, he thought wildly, I’ll taste like tequila and Doritos!
No second thought followed, because Wilson’s brain had short-circuited by that point.
Wilson pulled away from House’s searching face and forced himself up and off the couch in one stiff movement. He took short, halting steps to the kitchen, where he splashed some cold water on his face and filled up a glass from the sink.
A part of him still thought he would sober up and find that this all had been one big dream.
Because this couldn’t be real. House couldn’t be making a move on him.
Back still turned to House, he keeps his voice neutral. “You’re drunk. And a dick.”
“I had less to drink than you did!”
Wilson spins around, face aflame. “Then would you like to explain to me why the fuck you’re doing this?”
House meets his eyes, unflappable. “Because I love you.”
No. No, no, no.
Wilson is so taken aback by House’s poised confession that he can’t help but clutch at straws. By attacking the minute inconsistencies in House’s claim, he could avoid facing the seemingly genuine, reality-changing foundation that lay beneath his words. “I thought you had a fear of rejection. Why would you want to date me anyways? I’m a serial cheater!”
House smiles, spotting Wilson’s deflection. “And I’m a serial home-wrecker! We’re made for each other!”
Wilson protests unconvincingly. “You’re not the only reason my marriages didn’t work out.”
“Damn right I was. And the only reason you let me break up your marriages was because you loved me, remember?”
“You’ve never trusted that I loved you before. Why are you suddenly so certain of my feelings?” Wilson argues, regardless of the fact that he was completely right.
“What, you mean other than the fact that you just admitted you’re falling for me all over again?”
“That doesn’t count. You’re far too confident of this farce for your theory to be based solely in a tequila-fueled confession.”
House cringes. “Well… after your wisdom tooth surgery, you may or may not have told me that you loved me because I would ‘be enough’.” He emphasizes the end of his admission with finger quotes.
Wilson’s eyes bug out. “I told you what?!”
He walks through the entryway of the kitchen to stand firmly in the living room and glare at the diagnostician.
“You also discovered a newfound fixation with knives and confessed your intense fear of your new neighbourhood.” He scratches his head sheepishly.
“What did you do to me?! I trusted you to drive me home, not conduct a cross-examination!”
“You offered that information willingly, okay? Don’t put this on me!” House defends.
Wilson groans. It was his own fault for having trusted his intoxicated and unguarded self to House of all people. “Well, whether or not I love you, you don’t think of me that way!” There. That was a move back towards relevancy.
“Kuperberg and Walker, Gates, Pathela et al.”
Aaaaand, there they were back in irrelevant territory.
Wilson squints at House in bewilderment. “You’re not exactly doing a good job of convincing me you’re sane right now.”
“All of them performed studies showing that it’s entirely possible for a self-professed straight guy to fall in love with his male best friend.”
Wilson raises a hand. “Hold on for a second. You read up on the literature? ”
“And I hate doing research.” House nods, inordinately proud of what he probably considered a great sacrifice taken for Wilson’s favour.
“Fine.” Wilson concedes, arms crossed. “You did some reading to make your story more believable. Doesn’t mean you’re telling the truth.”
“I wouldn’t lie, not about this.”
“You already did.” Wilson reminds both House and himself.
“Which is why it would be entirely boring and somewhat redundant of me to fool you twice. The viewers would stop tuning in.”
“Enough!” Wilson growls. He's suddenly feeling nauseous with the senselessness of their conversation and the alcohol in his system. He breathes slowly through his body’s natural reflex to gag until the tequila is satisfied to remain settled in his stomach.
House hands him his glass of water off the table and analyzes his reaction with concern. A minute passes and Wilson nods him off.
Finally reassured that Wilson wasn’t going to yak on the carpeting, House looks at him, brows drawn together in desperation. “What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m serious?” he implores.
Wilson swallows a mouthful of lukewarm water, setting the glass down and ignoring the condensation seeping into the coffee table. “Maybe,” he suggests sharply, “you can stop joking around.”
“Like you said, I have a fear of rejection. Maybe I’m just using humour to cope.”
“No need to fear because there’s nothing to reject. This is not a proposal. You do not have feelings for me.”
“Listen, I know you get off on telling me how I feel and all but this is real. Why would I lie to you about this?”
“Because!” He stops, forces himself to calm down and think rationally about the problem until the answer hits him. “This is just another one of your schemes. You’re so obsessed with the idea that I might find a boyfriend and leave you that you’ve invented feelings for me in a bid to keep me caught in your web of insanity.”
House wrinkles his forehead in skepticism. “I’m really not that creative.”
Wilson nods to himself, getting more and more into the idea as he paces. He snaps his fingers as new understanding hits him. “That’s why you’ve been acting so weird about the fact that I created an online dating profile!”
“Were you not the one going on about how you’d never leave me like twenty seconds ago?”
Wilson points at House, reveling in his revelation. “I know that. You don’t. Fear of rejection, remember?”
House’s face looks entirely unimpressed by Wilson’s theory. “If I’m so afraid of you leaving then why the hell would I confess my feelings to you? And don’t give me that bullshit about my thinking you’d ditch me for some horny dickhead on Grindr. Three marriages only managed to make you spend more time with me.”
“But it’s not bullshit. I’m breaking the pattern and you can see that.”
“You broke the pattern with Amber. You didn’t see me getting down on one knee then.” House points out.
The mention of Amber chafes at him for some reason.
“That was different!” he booms, before realizing what time it was.
Both House and Wilson look fearfully at the wall connecting House’s apartment to his neighbour’s and a hush falls over them.
All of the fight suddenly leaves Wilson, and he slumps onto the couch next to House in exhaustion, still avoiding his friends’ eyes on him. They both breathe heavily in the silence, reflecting on the circular mess this argument had become. Neither one of them was managing to get through to the other.
This doesn’t stop House from trying, though.
He interrupts their silence to present one last-ditch effort, condensing their argument into the most salient point that, if true, would conquer any other objection.
He asks him, so quietly Wilson has to strain to hear, “If this was real, which it is… would you say yes?”
Wilson’s heart starts racing, pounding out a persistent answer, and before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “Yes…”
House’s face transforms in front of him. His features flood with hope and longing, and Wilson suddenly can’t stand the overwhelming momentous momentum of his spiraling mind.
“No!” he quickly corrects himself in a flustered attempt to slow down the inevitable. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s stupid to hypothesize about the impossible.”
It’s too late. Now House knows that it’s simply a matter of convincing Wilson he was telling the truth, an endeavour he’d stubbornly pursue to its conclusion. This realization leaves him infuriatingly smug. “Didn’t they ever teach you in grade school that impossible is just short for ‘I’m possible’? Which I am. To you.”
“House, you couldn’t even sleep in the same bed as me. You looked like you would welcome death after a peck. And now I’m supposed to believe that you have the hots for me?”
“Fine” he relents. “You’re right. That’s not very believable.”
Wilson is triumphant. “Finally-”
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the same bed with you. I’d be far too busy doing other things.” House leers.
“Gah!” Wilson presses both his hands into his eyes, reeling.
House points accusingly at him. “See? If anyone here’s disgusted by the prospect of some hot and heavy lovemaking, it’s you! Am I that unattractive?” he sniffles.
Wilson’s so distracted by House’s use of the term “love-making” that he doesn’t even realize he’s tripping over his words. “No, you’re not- I don’t- you-”
House watches him stutter with amusement and Wilson puffs his cheeks out in frustration.
“Listen, I am far too drunk and tired to be having this conversation right now.” He grabs his coat and keys from their spot on the coffee table and gets up to leave.
House furrows his brow, limping quickly to intercept him at the door. “You’re also far too drunk and tired to be driving.”
“I’ll take a taxi.” Wilson mumbles, avoiding his gaze.
House searches his face for any hint that he’s lying. Satisfied, he steps aside.
Of course, he’s such a bastard that he moves the bare minimum to allow Wilson passage, forcing the oncologist to squeeze past him on his way out. Wilson screws his eyes shut, trying not to reflect on the feel of House’s stubble scratching against his earlobe or the warm and spicy scent of his cologne.
That resolve evaporates as soon as the door shuts behind him.
Who am I kidding believing I can go home and get some sleep? He thought, as he waited to flag down a cab. I’ll be agonizing over this all night!
~~~
His prediction turns out to be true. After a mere three hours of sleep and a massive hangover breakfast at Mabel’s, Wilson is nursing a mild headache as he pulls into the parking garage at PPTH. The headache had mostly receded from this morning; House and Wilson may have been irresponsibly drinking on a work-night, but they’d both checked their schedules prior to ensure that neither of them had any appointments before noon.
Wilson had spent the morning replaying the last night’s conversation over and over again in his head, analyzing House’s words every which way until he was so adrift in the wide vortex of interpretation that the effort became futile.
Wilson pulls into his spot, putting the car into park. He opens the side door, and groans as he leverages himself out of his seat.
He hears the sound of metal hitting pavement and his eyes widen in an automatic reaction.
Did he drop something? Still in the doorway, he checks his jacket pocket for his car keys and phone. He didn’t carry change anymore, so that wasn’t it. Paranoid, he catalogues all of his possessions in his head to ensure they were all present.
His office keys. Damn it.
They weren’t in his jacket pocket, and a search of his car turned up nothing.
Wilson searches the grey pavement of the parking garage frantically for his keys but nothing turns up. He’s bent down on all hands and knees trying to check underneath his car wondering how his day could get any worse, when it did.
He hears the sound of a motorcycle pulling in behind him.
Wilson groans, staying in place.
“Morning, House.”
House chirps back a far-too-cheery “Morning” for someone whose liver should be much worse at metabolizing alcohol than Wilson’s own.
Wilson cranes his neck backwards to see if House was at least limping. He spots the diagnostician popping the kickstand into place and tossing his thin coat over the back of his motorcycle to reveal a fitted steel-blue shirt underneath that Wilson had never seen him wear.
To preserve his own sanity, Wilson takes a stab at convincing himself that House couldn’t possibly have persuaded a tailor to custom-make a shirt designed solely for the purpose of perfectly accentuating his shoulders in the ten hours since they’d last seen each other.
House peers over curiously at Wilson’s search site. “What did you drop? Your standards?”
“Ha. Ha. No, I heard something drop and now I can’t find my office keys and it’s too damn dark under this car to-”
House is already limping over to Wilson’s trunk. He clicks it open and tilts his head at Wilson. “Did you forget your fully-stocked Boy Scout kit?”
Wilson grumbles. “Just grab the flashlight and help me out here.”
House follows suit, looking like Wilson had asked him to dispose of a ticking time bomb. “I’m not your slave,” he complains, but he painfully lowers himself to the ground and aims the flashlight at the gap between car and concrete.
Wilson searches to no avail and his anxiety is slowly rising until he hears a snort.
“What?” Wilson snapped.
House grins. “This situation is remarkably fitting.”
Wilson raises an eyebrow. “How so?”
House waves the flashlight at Wilson. “Look! I’m carrying a torch for you.”
Goddamnit it. House and his metaphors. Two could play at that game.
“Have you considered that maybe I don’t need you to carry a torch for me?” he mutters pointedly.
House’s eyes sparkle with the knowledge that he’d forced Wilson to engage with his inanity and he’s quick to retort. “It doesn’t matter because I’m the one carrying it, so it’s in my hands.”
Wilson’s hand shoots out and he grabs the flashlight. “Well, it’s in my hands now, and I get to decide what to do with it. Look, it has an off switch!” He infuses the words with as much sarcasm as he can muster.
House reaches out for the flashlight protectively, but Wilson’s grip is strong and the two grapple back and forth for it until it’s pointing directly in House’s eyes and he winces away, his grip loosening.
“How appropriate.” Wilson observes drily. “You’re blinded by your love.”
House’s eyes are still adjusting, but his head snaps up and he points at Wilson triumphantly. “A-ha! So you admit I love you!”
Wilson flushes at his mistake, struggling to recover and keep the metaphor rolling. “So what? Just because I can see that the torch is on, doesn’t mean it’ll help me find what I’m looking for.”
House smirks and scoots over until they’re so close, Wilson can feel the heat of House’s breath tickling the thin fuzz above his upper lip. House extends an arm until his large palm is resting on Wilson’s right pectoral muscle, fanning his fingers out. Wilson shivers as House’s thumb runs over his right nipple through the thin, dress-shirt material and House’s breath hitches at his reaction. Wilson tries to stay still, forcing himself not to lean into the touch as House dips his long, pianist index and middle fingers into Wilson’s breast pocket where the racing of his heart is apparent. House swishes around the contents for an unnecessarily long time before emerging with his prize, the office keys that had been lying dormant in Wilson’s shirt pocket the entire time.
House notches an eyebrow as he dangles the key between the two of them. “Maybe what you’re looking for is right in front of your face,” he says meaningfully, and Wilson belatedly remembers the metaphor.
Wilson has no choice but to take the proffered key. He tries to quickly snatch it out of House’s hand, but House ensures that their hands maintain prolonged contact during the transfer. Their fingers brush together, and Wilson savours House’s feather-light touch cruising over his knuckles before reminding himself to jerk away from that electric sensation.
If House hadn’t taken that moment to pull himself up off the parking garage floor, who knows what Wilson would have done?
Wilson’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he barely notices House’s gaze on him. “What are you looking at?” he asks defensively.
House shrugs, a smile overtaking his face. “Nothing. Nice ass, though.”
Wilson stammers and stands up abruptly, suddenly self-conscious of his suggestive position on the floor. “Excuse me?”
House laughs gleefully and waves the flashlight Wilson didn’t realize he’d repossessed through the air, casting a large circle of light anywhere it pointed as its carrier limps away.
“Definitely still turned on.” House calls over his shoulder jovially.
Before Wilson can respond, the elevator doors open and he’s shuffling in and away.
~~~
Wilson’s in the hospital lab, running a minor test for the third time in a row since he’d distractedly added the wrong ratio of chemicals to the vial on his past two attempts. He manages to get the measurements right this time, and he locks the test tube into the centrifuge, leaning back against the lab table with his arms crossed as the machine spins.
Some days, Wilson feels like he and House were the contents of that vial, spun round and around by the events of life until they were forced to separate. He remembers a bus accident in the dead of night, a power-tripping police officer, a wealthy benefactor with purely economic motives. It was a circular process that would never end until one or the other interfered, put their foot down, and told the world that they weren’t going anywhere.
Wilson is just about to turn off the machine and reach for the solution when Cuddy pops over his shoulder.
He starts, turning around and clutching his chest. “You can’t scare me like that!”
She laughs at the look on his face before wrinkling her nose. “For the sake of both of our jobs, I’m going to pretend I didn’t smell any tequila on you or House today.”
Wilson sends her a grateful look before a silence stretches out between them.
As usual, he waits patiently for Cuddy to broach a subject, expecting a rant about House or a demanding donor, but she doesn’t say anything, just fiddles nervously with a pile of pipettes until he clears his throat.
“As much as I enjoy your visits, we don’t usually spend them quietly. What’s up?”
She inhales, clenching and unclenching her hands in uncertainty before she makes a decision to confide in Wilson.
“You’d think a PI would learn not to leave a paper trail but I think he must have forgotten that I’m the one who manages our finances,” she muses.
Wilson snorts. “What did Lucas buy now? A sports car? A ticket to see the set of Double Indemnity?”
“Not exactly.” Cuddy works her jaw before continuing.
“Lucas recently made a big-ticket purchase at the jeweller’s.”
She tries for a nonchalant tone but her nervous excitement shines through.
Wilson’s jaw drops. “What?!”
She hides her face in her palms, her mouth wobbling with a smile. “I know. I know! It’s crazy.”
“You two haven’t even been dating all that long!” Wilson says, mind still processing.
She squints her eyes at him. “It’s been more than a year, Wilson. Which I know is on the short end of things but it’s not exactly a shotgun wedding.”
Wilson blinks. “Huh.” A year.
Time had a habit of rushing past so quickly when you were living day-to-day and what had felt like seconds had morphed into months before he could even wrap his head around them. Spring was slowly making its presence known, the snow thawing away to reveal fresh roads below. It had almost been a year since that fateful conference where House had kissed him for the first time, and a plethora of images filled his mind of all the days since. He remembers a botched barbecue, a bandaged hand, weeks of silent treatment, and reignited friendships. And he remembers Lucas and Cuddy’s support through it all.
He suddenly feels a rush of brotherly affection for the woman standing in front of him and sweeps her in a hug so tight that they rock back and forth with the force of it.
Wilson pulls away, straightening his tie. “You and Lucas are going to make such an amazing life together,” he promises.
Her chuckle is damp through her tears. “Yeah. It won’t exactly be orthodox, though.”
He points at himself and Cuddy, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think either of us have been ‘orthodox’ since Hebrew school.”
She gives him that point. “Oh, man. How am I going to act surprised when he proposes?”
Wilson cringes. “I’m sure he’ll find some other way to surprise you.” He tries to make that sound like a positive thing but Cuddy knows all too well what he means.
She grimaces in turn. “Maybe I should start dropping some hints about the mountains in Michigan.”
“That sounds like a good plan. Am I the first one you told?”
“First I told willingly,” she sighs. “House figured it out, of course.”
“Did he?” Wilson asks, now intensely curious. “How’d that happen?”
“Apparently, he ran into Lucas at the ring store. Barely managed to talk him out of getting me a massive diamond hunk, said I’d get carpal tunnel trying to support the weight of the boulder that was his original choice.”
Wilson snickered at Lucas’ hopelessness before changing the topic to what he’s really interested in. “House take the big news well?”
“Believe it or not, he congratulated me! Not a shred of jealousy!”
Wilson tries to school his expression into one that isn’t so stupidly hopeful. “He’s really moved on, huh?”
“Yeah.” She leans her chin on her hand as she theorizes. “Must have found someone else to harass with his attentions. I’m glad, though. This week, I actually managed to confront him about his newest case and the inane treatment plan he’s devised.”
“You mean the fact that he wants to give his diabetic patient what amounts to an overdose of insulin?”
“Yeah. That.”
“How’d that little chat go?”
“It was heated. We flung insults back and forth so loudly that a man getting fitted for a hearing aid three rooms away suddenly decided he didn’t actually need the auditory assistance. House cursed my mother and I threatened to fire him and re-hire him as a clinic doctor.”
“So… things are back to normal with you two?”
“Business as usual.” They both smile at each other in amusement.
Cuddy moves to leave, but she pauses at the door, twisting around to shoot him an apologetic glance. “Sorry, were you going to say anything before I started blabbing all my issues to you?”
He opens his mouth, wondering if he should tell her about House’s proposition, but he didn’t want to ruin her moment or tarnish her happy news.
Besides, with the remembrance of the year that had passed and all the hurdles he and House had stumbled through, coming out the other end with their friendship still intact...
Well, maybe he’d have his own happy news to tell her soon.
~~~
At exactly 8:30 pm, Wilson knocks on House’s apartment door before giving up and using his key to enter. He makes his way in, nodding at House, who was lounging on the couch with a TV remote. House sits up abruptly as he recognizes Wilson. “What are you doing here?”
Wilson shrugs his coat off. “My apartment sucks.” He catches sight of an open laptop on the coffee table and bends down to peer at the page House left open.
Both Wilson and House freeze. Wilson coughs as soon as he reads the question written into the search engine: “how to pleasure your partner during gay shit”. Wilson reddens, somewhat reassured by the fact that the other two open tabs held much more useful guides.
“You’re great at this google search optimization thing.” Wilson teases, his amusement overcoming his shock.
Wilson knows House well enough to tell he’s embarrassed, despite the fact that he plays it off with a snappy retort. “Oddly enough, the results are all trying to teach me how to anal douche.”
Wilson snickers. House leans over and closes the laptop aggressively.
He grabs the television remote and switches the channel to an underwater documentary, lowering the volume. “Nothing good on TV,” he observes nonchalantly.
Wilson raises an eyebrow. “Are we really just going to pretend that this morning didn’t happen?”
House shrugs. “The ball’s in your court now. I’m going to order pizza, want anything?”
He dials the number of the local pizza place and the phone is still ringing when Wilson leans in until his face is inches away from House’s.
“The ball’s in my court? It’s a good thing that I’m proficient in tennis, then, isn’t it?” He knows his little seduction technique is successful when he feels only mildly ridiculous.
House licks his lips before his brows furrow in suspicion and he sniffs the air between their mouths. He raises a smug eyebrow. “Minty. You brushed your teeth.”
“An astute observation.”
“Any particular reason why you’ve decided to brush your teeth before dinner?”
“I’m a strong advocate for dental hygiene.” Wilson fails to hold in his laugh and it bubbles out.
The line connects to the pizza delivery guy and House eagerly presses the phone to his ear. “Donnie? My usual, please. Maybe scratch out the creamy garlic dip this time, yeah?”
He finalizes the details of the order with his eyes piercing through Wilson’s all the while. Wilson returns the raw truth he sees in those eyes in his own, and the tension grows deliciously in the space between them. For the first time since House’s drunken dare, Wilson allows himself to believe that this is real.
As soon as the phone hits the table, Wilson takes this newfound realization and decides it’s about time to stop playing around.
Infusing every bit of truth he can gather from his oft-broken heart, he whispers. “I love you, House.”
House’s eyes widen imperceptibly, and Wilson wonders if he too is just beginning to accept this fresh reality.
“I love you too, Wilson.”
The tension is broken as Wilson pumps a fist and House whoops. They both wear matching idiotic grins and Wilson doesn’t know how long they stand there, basking in the air that seems lighter despite having been filled with the sound waves of the love they’d finally learned to express.
House crinkles his eyes. “So. What more is there to say?”
Wilson settles down next to him on the couch, placing a hand on House’s knee that the man in question smiles privately down at before covering it with his own.
Wilson starts hesitantly. “We do still have a lot to talk about, House, if we want to make this work.”
House sighs loudly, turning Wilson’s hand over in his to tickle his palm lightly. “Fi-i-i-i-ne,” he whines, eyes dancing playfully, “I suppose wisdom tooth removals and alcoholic benders aren’t exactly sustainable forms of communication in a relationship.”
Wilson laughs, suppressing House’s jaunty fingers to interlace their hands together. He squeezes tightly. “Friday night? We can get dinner at Caviar Russe.”
House squeezes back. “It’s a date. Now that that’s settled…” he adds, voice low.
The two of them lean in towards each other until their lips meet in the middle. Wilson gasps against House’s mouth at the sensation of wet heat and their mouths slide together until both of their eyes slide closed in turn. As soon as their chests press together, they’re both reminded that they have other limbs and it becomes Wilson’s personal mission to incorporate all of them to the mix, acclimatize each of their body parts to each other until no strip of skin is left untouched. House seems to share his cause, his attentions enthusiastic, passionate. Wilson finds himself being pushed down into the couch, House fervently arranging himself on top of him.
Wilson pulls away for a moment to laugh breathlessly. He kisses House’s lips once more, an indulgent taste through a tender crush of their lips, before resting their foreheads together.
“Whoa, there. Let’s slow it down a bit, okay?”
He softly cups House’s face, brown eyes finally meeting blue in mutual love before Wilson makes his new lover an oath.
“With me, you don’t have anything more to prove.”