Chapter Text
House and Wilson were arguing again.
The team was sitting in the conference room, pretending like they weren’t eavesdropping on the conversation and really doing an awful job of it. Of course, the pair were too absorbed in the topic of today’s dispute -- House had been an ass again, and Wilson was attempting to tell him off for it -- to notice the three heads looking back and forth between them.
“Fine,” House was yelling, signalling that the discussion was over. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a patient.”
Wilson shook his head, exasperated, but the hint of fondness that crept into his eyes was impossible to miss. As House moved to enter the conference room, he paused and said something to him a little more quietly, so that the team had to strain to hear. Just lunch plans, it sounded like.
When House actually came in, three heads snapped back down; the table had suddenly become very interesting.
“Alright, whaddaya got?”
Foreman leaned over the table to hand House the file before he began his spiel. “23-year-old female, claims she’s exhausted all the time and rest doesn’t help. Came in with low blood pressure. She also complains of nausea, lightheadedness upon standing, joint and abdominal pain, and has hyperpigmentation in her hands.”
House pondered it for a moment, deciding whether or not the case was interesting enough. “You said she had low blood pressure. Who tested that?”
“ER did. She passed out and hit her head pretty good, from what I hear,” Foreman explained.
“Eh. Boring. What else is there?”
Foreman shrugged. “Slow day.”
“Ugh, fine,” House grumbled. “Whatever. DDX, go.”
“Could be myalgic encephalomyelitis,” Cameron suggested. Behind her, House jotted the symptoms Foreman had just read off on the whiteboard. “Explains the fatigue, low blood pressure, and pain.”
Foreman shook his head. “Chronic fatigue doesn’t usually cause nausea, and doesn’t account for the hyperpigmentation either.”
“Hemochromatosis,” Chase volunteered.
House snorted from where he stood at the front of the room. “I know things are upside-down back home, but in America, excess iron in the blood usually causes high blood pressure. Hers is low.”
Chase leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, mumbling something or other about hyperpigmentation. Foreman shifted in his seat.
“Hyperthyroidism seems most likely,” he said decisively. “It’s pretty common in women, and accounts for nearly everything.”
“Nearly is not all,” House pointed out helpfully. Foreman rolled his eyes.
“Hold on,” Chase countered. “Since when does hyperthyroidism cause hyperpigmentation?”
“Increased capillary fragility from thyrotoxicosis can lead to hyperpigmentation. Can also cause hemosiderin deposition and basal melanosis,” Foreman replied coolly.
“And the low blood pressure?”
“Maybe she just… has low blood pressure. It happens.”
“Yeah, and maybe she just has hyperpigmentation in her hands. It’s not that likely,” Chase argued.
House wrote hyperthyroidism on the board. “I like it. Anything else?”
“Whipple disease would explain the hypotension, the nausea, the joint and abdominal pain, and the hyperpigmentation.” Cameron flipped through the file as she spoke. Chase nodded his head in approval.
“Anyone notice if her lymph nodes were abnormally large?”
“Haven’t actually seen the patient yet,” Chase admitted.
House sighed dramatically. “Fine. Chase, you go get a detailed history. Check her lymph nodes, find out if she’s had any fat in her stool, and find out stuff for the hyperthyroidism too. You two, go get blood. Test thyroxine and TSH levels for the hyperthyroidism, get a small intestine biopsy for the Whipple, and check her A1C.”
Foreman frowned. “There’s been nothing to indicate unusual blood glucose levels.”
“Just check it. Cover our bases. Chase, when you’re done, go to the patient’s house, find out if there’s anything there that she’s not telling us about. Medications, whatever.”
Tasks assigned, House wasted no time in escaping the conference room, undoubtedly intending to annoy Wilson until Cuddy found him and forced him to go to the clinic, leaving the other three to walk to the patient’s room together.
Idle gossip always tended to revolve around hospital affairs, and even more frequently, around who was sleeping with who, and things were no different with House’s team.
“I’m just saying,” Chase huffed as Cameron pushed the button for the elevator, “both of them have been in relationships with women before. It’s just not likely.”
The doors slid open and Foreman stepped in, shaking his head. The other two followed him through. “Bisexual people do exist, Chase.”
“I’m not saying--”
“Have either of you two ever met House? If he actually liked someone, like really liked them, he would be the last to know. He’s more repressed than anyone I’ve ever met,” Cameron mused. Foreman laughed.
“You wanna bet?” Chase challenged, looking at Foreman with what was probably supposed to be menace. The elevator touched down on the ground floor, and the trio disembarked towards the patient’s room.
“Sure,” he agreed. “What are we betting on, exactly?”
“Either the two of them are completely heterosexual, or they... aren't,” Chase decided.
Foreman nodded. “Cameron, you in?”
She grinned. “Fifty dollars on repression.”
“I second that.”
Chase shook his head, smiling like he’d already won. “Hundred bucks on mine.”
-
“Seems like a fairly mundane case by your standards,” Wilson remarked as he sat down to eat.
House sighed overdramatically. “It’s so lame, but we haven’t had a case in, like, two weeks, and I don’t want the kids getting too bored. I think Cameron bites.”
Wilson chuckled at that, and House found he didn’t have much else to say. Wilson was… kind of cute when he laughed.
Wait. No. Fuck.
Distraction. Distraction. Uh… Wilson had fries. Excellent.
“Are you gonna eat those?” He asked, trying to keep the slightly frayed tone out of his voice.
“Yeah, wh-- hey, no!” Wilson moved to shield his tray from House at the exact moment the other man reached for the fries.
House glanced up, blue eyes glinting with mischief, and accidentally met Wilson’s laughing brown ones. He paused, hand lingering not quite in mid-air; he felt Wilson’s fingers beneath his own. They held each other’s gaze for a minute, maybe longer, the humor leached from the moment.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, god, no.
“I have to go,” they both blurted out in unison, and then looked at each other strangely, and then walked off as quickly as they could in opposite directions.
Back in his own office, House balanced his oversized tennis ball on the end of his cane and resumed his usual game of tossing it up and catching it. He was thinking.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know he was bisexual. He’d known for a while. It just wasn’t exactly something he was very public about.
But this, well… this wasn’t something he wanted to know. Most romantic feelings for friends were better off being squashed down and forgotten for as long as possible. Especially when said friend was really the only damn person in the world who actually liked him. And, y’know. Straighter than Chase, who practically oozed Catholic repression out of every pore. Although, he really doubted Chase's heterosexuality, so maybe he wasn't the best comparison.
“God,” House groaned, dropping the ball and cane and burying his face in his hands. Normally, right about now, he would go badger Wilson to clock out early and go get wasted with him. This, however, hardly qualified as “normally.”
He should go talk to someone. Cuddy, maybe. She knew lots about relationships. So did… Wilson. Not him, who else? Cameron, but then again, she was kind of into him, wasn’t she? Maybe if she thought he was talking about her, she’d help, but her advice would be tailored towards her needs. Foreman, maybe? If he wanted to get this held over his head for the rest of time, sure.
House picked up the ball from the ground and bounced it against the ground. God, this was gonna suck.
-
Wilson went the long way back to his office in order to avoid seeing House again.
Moments like that, the weirdly charged ones that carried far more weight than they really should, didn’t occur too often. When they did, the two of them would avoid each other for a few hours; House, because he was obviously straight and uncomfortable; Wilson, because he was still at a loss as to what this even was and, maybe deep down inside or something, he was even more afraid that House wasn’t straight and uncomfortable.
God.
He’d been married three times. He’d had relationships with dozens of other women in the past. Never once had there been anything to indicate any kind of attraction to men.
To be perfectly honest, he was more than content with the way their relationship was right now. If he never did anything about it, and House never found out, and nothing ever changed, well. Wilson could think of worse things.
Not that there were many things worse than the idea of House leaving him.
Safely in his own office, Wilson sat down heavily behind his desk. Most heterosexual men, he reckoned, did not find it necessary to prove said heterosexuality to themselves multiple times a week. Still, the idea of having to find something to describe the way he felt, to have to change the label he’d fit comfortably inside for most of his life, scared him.
Not for the first time, Wilson wished he had someone he could talk to about all this. Someone besides House. Who would probably just make fun of him anyways, all things considered. He’d probably just end up venting to his therapist about it, or maybe drunkenly rambling to Cuddy until she made him go home. Neither option sounded like the most exciting thing in the world.
House was the only person he truly felt comfortable talking to. Maybe, then, it was for the best that he never found out.