Work Text:
Writing is the next hobby House latches onto.
Nolan tells him to do that, that he needs to try other things before falling right back into medicine. That old habits die hard, and that he needs to try more things. If cooking didn't work, then maybe writing will. So he writes. It feels bad, wrong, to do something he's not good at---he's used to the success of medicine. Of diagnosing someone right, the amazed looks, the praise from people who didn't know him. Now there's no diagnosis. Writing is all too subjective. With diagnosis you either are right or you're wrong. Writing can be lauded in applause or be booed off the stage, sure, but there will always be people who dislike the classics and people who love the mocked.
Throughout all that, he knows that his writing isn't any good. He's never done much of it. He's never one for reading, either. Fiction isn't his thing---he can read nonfiction books, many of them, but he takes a while to go through fiction books. He used to get into them, when he was a teenager, escaping the bleak reality of his father's actions toward him with fantasy and science fiction, murder mysteries and horror stories. He latched onto medicine when he got to pre-med, though, and fiction books were soon forgotten amongst the stress of college.
He's not one for fiction, so he tries to go for a more biographical approach. He talks about his life, in first person, a memoir no one else is going to see, if he can help it. He rambles on about his father and his mother, about false paternity, about college, about Stacy---about Wilson. That's where things start to unravel a little. It's almost unconscious, how the words flow out of him with ease when he talks about his friendship with Wilson.
He talks about their episodes, their fights, their arguments. He talks about the good times, he talks about monster trucks and about theater and about everyone's assumptions. And he types, without thinking, without considering it, like it's simply a fact of life---I love him. It's not when he rereads the last paragraph that it sinks in, what he's said, what he's written.
He deletes it, presses the spacebar until it's out of existence. But he can't just make it go away like that. The words ghost over the page, there and not there. He types them back again, doubtfully, taking the weigh of every syllable. It's a three word sentence. It's so simple but so heavy. I. Love. Him.
He does. He does, indeed, love him---there is nothing to do about that. He stops writing for the day, stares at the page for a long while before closing the application shut. He'll talk about it when Wilson comes home. Maybe they'll manage to workshop something out, maybe he'll go to a writer's workshop and try to gut himself for feelings unearthed, things he's shoved deep down until there was nothing but numbness.
When Wilson comes home, he doesn't doubt. He doesn't let himself fear the repercussions of asking such a thing.
"James," he says, looks at him as he settles back home. First name and everything.
"Yes?"
"Could I kiss you?"
He hopes he sounds earnest. He hopes Wilson doesn't think this is an elaborate joke, a prank he's concocted out of thin air.
Wilson blinks owlishly before he smiles at him, one of those warm smiles, warmer than the sun, and House realizes just how much truth can be handled in those three words, held onto them, imbued in every syllable. "Sure."
House walks toward him and takes his face in his hand. And he kisses him, like words wouldn't exist unless he created them by pressing their lips together. He kisses him and makes a mental note of thanking Nolan for making him try out another hobby before falling back onto medicine.
I love you, he thinks so hard Wilson may as well hear his thoughts, transmitted with every one of his actions. He holds onto him, but Wilson is the first one to speak.
"How long have you wanted to do that for?"
He lets out a huffy little laugh. "Don't know. Realized I wanted to about three hours ago, though."
"Something to do with writing?" he teases, leads him to the couch.
As they settle next to each other, it feels like the easiest transition from a status to another. Without a word, they've become something else for each other entirely. "Don't worry about it," he mumbles into the crook of his neck. "I can talk about it when I'm with my fellow writers. Or something."
"I'll look for workshops here in Princeton, then," Wilson says lightly, brushing his hair with his hand. "That'll work for you?"
He huffs, and lets out a little laugh before kissing him again. He can't do that, really, the idea of being so emotionally open feeling like something stabbing him, but he can surely fantasize about sharing cheesy love poems at a writer's workshop, them being critiqued onto dust. What else are those for, anyway?
That night, Real Housewives of New Jersey is forgotten in favor of curling up in the couch together, cuddling so close they forget everything else.