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It wasn’t easy.
Sometimes it was really hard.
People whispered. People stared. They snickered and nudged each other and a few shot dirty looks in the hallways or the cafeteria, especially when they were walking or seated together.
Half the hospital took Cuddy’s side, bemoaning how horrible what they had done to her was, how selfish. The other half were cooing about how cute it was that the famous Dr. House had finally found love, how they had known all along that this is where he and Wilson were headed.
The latter group drove House up the wall. The former made Wilson’s heart hurt. Unlike his new…whatever House was, he wasn’t used to people hating him. Especially his friends.
It took Cuddy a long time to get over it. There was a lot of very public screaming and slapping and crying, from more than one party. Wilson apologized until his throat was raw, and through several excellent tricks he'd learned to do with his finger, he convinced House to do the same.
"Call her. Send flowers. Generally make up for being the world's worst boyfriend." He said as they lay panting, sideways on the mattress. House gave him a reproachful look.
“To her, to her!” He held up his hands defensively.
“Ugh, fine.”
House watched from the balcony over the lobby as Cuddy received his bouquet of red daffodils, glanced at the card, and threw them in her trashcan without a second thought.
To Wilson’s astonishment, he just sent more. Everyday for two and a half weeks, roses of red and pink and white and even a few genetically engineered green ones appeared in her office to greet her each morning. Finally, nearly a month after the scandal had broken, Cuddy picked up that day's bouquet (yellow), sighed, and set them on her desk.
House had solved the Cuddy puzzle through pure force of will.
She called Wilson that afternoon and told him she had her cousin’s daughter’s simchat bat that Saturday.
“You’re coming as my Plus One.” It wasn’t a question.
He smiled for the rest of the day, even when one of the oncology nurses purposely slammed a door in his face.
It wasn’t easy.
Sometimes it was really infuriating.
They would fight for days, weeks, pulling petty pranks over imagined slights.
They would throw things and call each other offensive names and hide musical intruments and tear apart specially ordered Vertigo posters. Then they would make out on the nearest desk or table, which was painful for both Wilson’s dignity and House’s physical being, and start the whole process over again.
Finally someone would step too far and push it from anger to pure rage.
House would say something cruel, or painfully truthful, or both. Or he would brush Wilson off, disappearing for a week with his soaps and his drugs because he just needs to be alone, Jesus, Wilson, stop acting like a twelve-year-old girl.
Wilson's innate, compulsive need to fix and help and heal the needy would overwhelm him. He’d get on his soapbox, lecturing House about whatever aspect of his life he was ruining that week until they were both screaming and shoving each other and the neighbors had to call the cops.
House would glower and stalk off into the night, his cane smacking against the pavement.
Wilson would sink onto the couch with a weak scotch and watery eyes, wondering if he had made the right choice.
After the fourth such fight in as many months, House stormed into work as the sun was setting, planning to take out his aggression on his team. He made it up to the door of his office before he overheard Chase muttering to the rest of the team that House and Wilson acted more like squabbling brothers than boyfriends.
"They're a reason they held off on adding sex for sixteen years; They're gonna destroy each other."
Thirteen smirked. Taub looked up and saw House standing in the threshold. He lost all the blood in his face.
House exhaled, then marched into the room and rapped Chase on the side of the head with his cane.
"Ow!"
"Boyfriends is so seventh grade." He groused, trying to uphold his usual cantankerous demeanor. "We prefer lovers in the nighttime."
But the look in Chase’s eyes didn't dissipate. The sickening, simpering sympathy that proved even the dumbest member of his team could see what was happening.
There goes House, self-destructing again. This time, he’s bringing the only person he’s ever loved down with him.
The idea made his stomach hurt, even after he swallowed seven Vicodin in one go and made Chase intubate a 94-year-old woman with halitosis.
It wasn’t easy.
Maybe it never would be.
But out of all the nurses who hated him and the patients he’d embarrassed and the hospital lawyer who spent 90% of her time trying to keep him out of federal prison, not a single person could deny that Gregory House was tough.
Wilson was too.
So they tried anyway.
They would make slightly burnt breakfasts and have sleepy, sticky sex at two AM. Wilson got House a new strap for his guitar after House accidentally unraveled the last one while deep in thought. House would occasionally, reluctantly, miss episodes of Prescription Passion to accompany Wilson to fundraising events that made him want to blow his brains out.
Slowly, very, very slowly, the fighting and anger and daily scandal of going from House and Wilson to House and Wilson got a little more manageable.
One morning, ten months in, House woke up at 6:30 to have coffee and watch Wilson throw on his sports coat and run around the living room, grabbing papers and shoving them into his leather satchel.
“Are you actually going to go to work on time?” He called to the kitchen. House scoffed as an answer.
“Well, why are you up?”
“You know me; I can’t resist a sunrise.” House quipped. He switched his mug to his left hand and pushed himself up on his cane, hobbling to the front door. “They're just so full of possibility and joy!”
Wilson rolled his eyes as he too scurried to the entryway, checking his watch. “OK, well, I’ll see you tonight, we can grab dinner.” He leaned forward and House tugged him in by his tie, pecking him quickly on the lips. He smelled like minty soap.
“See you.” Wilson said and rushed down the hall.
“Laters."
It was a boring, everyday exchange. They had had it dozens of times, just like thousands of couples before them.
The echo of the door closing rang in House's ears as he came to a sudden, horrifying realization. He dropped his mug, and his shattered on the foyer floor.
He and Wilson were a couple. And worse than that, their life together was approaching something close to normal.
“Ugh. Gross.” He hurried to the bathroom, entertaining vague ideas of wrapping the toilet in saran wrap and writing a novelization of the porno Wilson had stared in during college.
It wasn’t easy.
HOUSE: I’m bord.
WILSON: Here’s a novel idea; You could come to work and do your job.
HOUSE: Y do U txt in full sentences? Yul neva get invited 2 the cool kids parties if you type lyke a nerd.
WILSON: Shut up.
HOUSE: im sry i set yr niece's papr-mache sculpture on fyre. in my d-fnse it was terrible.
WILSON: ...I'm sorry I mailed your guitar to your mom's retirement community in Florida.
HOUSE: If U cum home we can watch the Mendez-Finn match & U can give me a bj.
WILSON: HOUSE. I’m with a fourteen-year-old patient.
HOUSE: Lyke he's nvr thght bout sex.
WILSON: We're actually having a fascinating discussion about the cinematography in Citizen Kane. I might stay through lunch.
HOUSE: Fyne. i’ll blow U.
WILSON: …Give me half an hour.
HOUSE: Ur goin 2 Jew hell.
WILSON: Love you too.
But easy had never been their style.