Work Text:
Hold down the brake, press power, slide over and down for drive. It’s autopilot after only two weeks. The Prius is the first thing Wilson bought with the settlement that came from his divorce. It had been somewhat amicable. He’d had suspicions that she’d been cheating on him, and she’d thought the same of him. Not quite wrong but also not quite right. He’d wanted to cheat on her, but this new love isn’t so new after all and has refused to do anything more than a chaste closed-mouthed kiss or holding hands on the couch.
Sixty miles heading for the hospital, a big step up in luxury for him. Julie hadn’t cared for energy-efficient cars, instead insisting he spend his hard-earned money on lobsters for special occasions or pricey jewelry to showcase his love for her. As though love has to be bought. He doesn’t even like lobsters, and she doesn’t deserve the shiny necklaces or earrings. His… how to describe his current relationship? Lover isn’t right since they haven’t made it that far yet. Best friend sounds juvenile now though that was how described it for nearly twenty years. Crazy in hindsight.
Heated pleather seats, moonroof, navigation, and the six-speaker stereo make the ride to and from work a plushier experience. A comfortable commute after a particularly stressful day or being called in early on a dreadful case. Wilson looks over in the passenger seat, itching for his right hand to let go of the steering wheel and grab his friend. Something more, though. What will he want them to be called? A Mick Jagger song comes on the radio, and his head nods to the beat.
Moments later, Wilson automatically pulls into his reserved spot in the lot, but they sit back while the song ends. He cuts off the radio and then quickly places an arm over his passenger’s middle as though to bar him from leaving the vehicle. House quirks an eyebrow but settles in. Wilson sucks in an unsteady breath but grabs a folder from the back and sets it on his lap.
“It’s finalized.”
House picks it up and flips through the papers, his eyes growing considerably wider.
“When?”
“Twenty-four hours ago as of…” He watches the seconds tick by on his watch. “Now. I’m divorced. Officially single.”
House huffs a breath of a laugh, “We’ll just need to remedy that.”
Without warning, House stretches an arm behind Wilson’s neck. The latter quickly unbuckles his seatbelt in time for their lips to meet. While Wilson had been expecting a repeat of the soft lips, the surprising bites along his bottom lip and abrasive lapping of the protruding tongue is not unwelcome. House loosens his grip and attempts to sit back, likely unsure if Wilson wants this still, but the latter doesn’t let him second guess. He chases after House’s lips and kisses back feverishly. When he pulls back, the men are breathless and their lips are plump.
“So, um, boyfriends?”
House chuckles, “Boyfriends.”
Wilson slows his pace to match House’s once they exit the vehicle. The trek is short enough, and no one bats an eye at them arriving together. There’s a betting pool on whether they’ve fucked, if they’ve had an illicit relationship, whether they’ll get their heads out of their asses and ask each other out already. House knows about some of them, entering a few under the alias Luke N. Laura, a favorite of his. Wilson grabs a case file from his saved stack and, recognizing the name, gestures to House.
“Rebecca Adler. Twenty-nine-year-old female, first seizure one month ago, lost the ability to speak. Babbled like a baby. Present deterioration of mental status.”
House raises an eyebrow. “And that should interest me because?”
“Protein markers for the three most prevalent brain cancers came up negative. Protein markers for the three most prevalent brain cancers came up negative. No family history, no environmental factors, and she’s not responding to radiation treatment.”
House hums, and Wilson knows he’s winning. Deciding to put their newest shift to his advantage, he places a hand on House’s arm.
“C’mon, I’ll even work it with you. It’ll be the anniversary case to mark us being boyfriends.”
House scoffs and Wilson wilts a tad, but the older man accepts the file.
“Let’s go, Catherine Earnshaw.”
Wilson grins and follows him to the elevator like a puppy. “You know that makes you Heathcliff.”
House suppresses a smirk, and the men walk into the car. An hour and a half later, they drink coffees and sit at the opposite end of the conference table from House’s ducklings: Cameron, Chase, and newcomer Foreman. They’ve admitted Adler into their care and sent her through an MRI. House has asked the fledgling what he sees in the x-ray.
“It’s a lesion.”
“And the big green thing in the middle of the bigger blue thing on a map is an island,” House remarks sardonically. “I was hoping for something a bit more creative.”
Foreman questions why they don’t simply talk to the patient, but House gives him an even simpler mantra: Everybody lies. Cameron assures the man that House just doesn’t like dealing with patients, but that confuses him further.
“Isn’t treating patients why we became doctors?”
“No, treating illnesses is why we became doctors, treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable.”
After a few more rounds of humanity versus zebras, Chase and Cameron break in with a differential diagnosis. It’s Chase who speaks first.
“Aneurysm, stroke, or some other ischemic syndrome.”
House writes contrast MRI next to Chase’s name on the whiteboard.
“Creutzfeld-Jakob disease,” Cameron offers.
Chase looks at her strangely for suggesting Mad Cow, but House shrugs. Foreman decides to play along.
“Wernicke's encephalopathy?”
House contemplates then lightly nudges Wilson for his input on Foreman’s suggestion. He looks through the blood level charts from the previous hospital she was brought from.
“Looks normal, but the results could be fudged. People lie, and people screw up.”
House nods, now smiling with his eyes. “Re-draw the blood tests. And get her scheduled for that contrast MRI ASAP. Let’s find out what kind of zebra we’re dealing with here.”
The ducklings disperse, and Wilson feels his face heat up when House turns to face him.
“Relax, Wilson. I’m not about to ravish you in this goldfish bowl. Your office on the other hand…”
Wilson turns even redder and forces himself not to immediately invite House over. The implication shows on his face, however, and House chuckles a bit darker.
“It would be a good way to avoid Cuddy.”
Wilson frowns slightly, “Why are we avoiding her?”
“Clinic duty. I’m a bit behind.”
“Six years behind,” Wilson corrects him. “I was at that meeting too. I thought you started that five months ago.”
“I did. And then I stopped a few weeks ago.”
Wilson sighs. “How about a Reward System?”
House’s eyes twinkle, “What’d you have in mind?”
“We’ll go down to the clinic. You see three patients, actually see to them, and if your team hasn’t come up with any new results, we go back to my office. For a little… privacy.”
His voice breaks during the last sentence, but it doesn’t deter House. The challenge screams at him, and he pulls himself upright in one fluid motion. He stands chest-to-chest against Wilson and kisses him quickly. Wilson stutters in his step before joining his pace for the elevator once more.
“12:52 PM,” he mutters under his breath as he signs into the clinic.
He slips into Exam Room 1 where an orange-skinned middle-aged man sits on the examination chair. He does a double-take.
“Alright, talk.”
“I was playing golf and my cleat got stuck. I mean, it hurt a little but I kept playing. The next morning I could barely stand up.”
House smirks as the patient explains the man and not his skin color. Orange Guy nervously smiles as well.
“Well, you’re smiling, so I take it that means this isn’t serious.”
You’re orange, you moron. Either your wife is having an affair, or she’s too into Princeton Homecoming to care. There’s a lot on House’s mind, and Wilson’s challenge is shoved up front. So, he holds back his comments, choosing to let them fly for his ducklings and Adler. Instead, he whips out his bottle of Vicodin, and Orange Guy questions them.
“What are those?”
“Painkillers,” he responds, dry-swallowing one.
“Oh, for you,” he nods. “Your leg.”
“No, ‘cause they’re yummy.” House rolls his eyes but pauses before putting the bottle back in his pocket. “You want one? It’ll make your back feel better.”
Orange Guy nods and House gives him a Vicodin. He contemplates the man as he struggles to swallow the pill. He reaches across the sink to fill a plastic cup with water.
“By the way, do you consume just a ridiculous amount of carrots and mega-dose vitamins?”
OG sheepishly nods but gratefully accepts the water.
“The carrots turn you yellow, the niacin turns you red. Get some finger paints and do the math.” House writes a scrip for lesser painkillers and hands it to him. “Give this to the pharmacist. You’ll be fine.”
Orange Guy thanks him, and House leaves the room. He tosses the file in the correct basket and grabs the paper for Exam Room 3. He matches gazes with Wilson and suddenly has more of a spring in his step. Inside the room are a wheezing preteen and his concerned-looking mother. House closes the door and grabs a stethoscope.
“Deep breath.”
The boy complains about the cold but continues wheezing. House can tell instantly that he’s asthmatic, and he turns to the mom.
“Has he been using his inhaler?”
“Not in the past few days. He’s, um, only ten. I worry about children taking such strong medicine so frequently.”
Damn, why do I get all the numbnuts? House groans aloud before diving into a tirade on the dangers medicines can provide versus the dangers of not breathing. Eventually, she gets the gist, and he prescribes more albuterol. House trades the file for another, in Room 1 again. The middle-aged man believes he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or fibromyalgia. He goes through a list of mild symptoms…
“… a couple of headaches last month, mild fever, sometimes I can’t sleep, and I have trouble concentrating,”
House sarcastically congratulates him on his self-diagnosis, and the guy asks if he can get a scrip for that. House glances at his silent pager then lets out a heavy sigh.
“You know, I think there just might be.”
He leaves the room and nods his head toward Wilson. The latter follows him to the dispensary. House requests thirty-six Vicodin from the nurse and holds out a dollar to his boyfriend.
“Change for a dollar.”
Wilson frowns but has a quirk of his eyebrows, intrigued by House’s actions. He digs in his pants pocket and pulls out four quarters to trade. House takes the change and walks over to a nearby candy machine. He does a little holding trick to get three times as many white candies from the machine then returns to the counter. He drops the candies and then empties the Vicodin into a separate pile. He swipes the Vicodin in his pocket; the candy into the empty bottle. Wilson is silently impressed at the deception.
Back inside the exam room, House explains to the man that he should take one pill every other day. Swallow with water; taking any more would require extensive, expensive surgery. Back at the nurse’s station, House clocks out and meets Wilson at the front.
“Hypochondriac?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
The men walk side by side to the elevator, stepping in with practiced ease. Nothing visibly different on the outside, but the doctors vibrate with anticipation on the inside. Milliseconds after the lock engages on Wilson’s office door, the younger man finds himself trapped against it. House’s hand wraps around Wilson’s burgundy tie, tightening slightly, pulling his chest toward his boyfriend, and leaving his neck exposed to suckling and biting. Knowing there are nurses and other medical staff just outside in the hall, Wilson struggles to clamp down on a moan.
House, on the other hand, doesn’t care. His cane clatters to the floor, his now free hand moving to the back of Wilson’s neck. Wilson rests his hands on House’s hips, subconsciously bringing him closer. House smirks but it’s lost on Wilson, who grinds toward the heat. House lets go of the tie without breaking contact from his mouth on Wilson’s neck, quickly removing the white coat from the man against the door.
“Couch…” Wilson groans out.
A predatory growl rumbles from House’s throat as he sheds the coat. He throws his weight on Wilson’s hips, guiding him to the couch. The younger man complies, and House buries his hands in Wilson’s locks while the latter fumbles with his belt. He plants kisses on his forehead, mouth, and neck; stubble scratching the other man’s skin. Wilson shudders, leaning against him. House impatiently bats away Wilson’s hands, instead shoving his own down the front of his boyfriend’s pants.
“Little Jimmy’s happy.”
“H-how’s Little Greg?”
House grins maniacally, shoving Wilson to the couch. He swiftly crawls on top, shifting most of his weight on his good leg.
“Ecstatic.”
James squirms a little, one hand clapping over House’s clothed ass cheek, and the other trying to sneak into his pants. House works his belt with one hand, having a lot more luck than Wilson. The younger man huffs when he sees Greg’s bulge, and he covers it with his hand. House slips his hand into Wilson’s pants again, pumping as they kiss. Thoroughly. House’s tongue maps out his boyfriend’s mouth, Wilson attempting the same.
He moans as he reaches his climax, and House takes pity on him by muffling the scream, swallowing the pleasurable noise. He juts into Wilson’s open palm, racked and wretched, and working up a sweat. Wilson quickly latches his mouth onto House’s when he realizes his boyfriend is reaching his own.
“F-u-u-uck…” House breathes against the other man’s lips.
The following hour passes with the men cuddling on the couch, post-orgasm. James claims to have papers to file, but Greg assures him that it’s not anything that needs immediate attention. At least, not until House’s pager startles them both. House shifts and Wilson carefully slides out from beneath him. He grabs the offending pager from the chair his jacket is strewn across and picks up the cane while he’s up.
“It’s from Foreman.”
“Something probably went wrong in the MRI,” House sighs, sitting up. “You still got extra clothes in the closet?”
Wilson laughs uneasily but goes to the closet and returns with a basket of extra clothes. He has three pairs of y-fronts, two pairs of slacks, three shirts, and three ties. House smiles genuinely, as James pulls out what his boyfriend needs.
“Always the boy scout, Jimmy.”
James smiles and finally unbuckles his belt. The men remove their trousers and pants in a post-bliss companionable silence. Redressed moments later, House uses the cane to pull himself to his feet. He hobbles to Wilson’s desk where the latter is folding the ruined clothes into a bag. He catches Wilson’s chin, positioning his mouth to cover his. Wilson sighs into the kiss.
“I’ll find you when the workday ends.”
Leaving Wilson’s office, House plasters on his uncaring façade and searches for his ducklings. Rebecca had an allergic reaction to gadolinium during the MRI, so she’s now hooked to a ventilator in her room. Chase is sent to get a family history – mom passed away three years ago from a heart attack, and dad broke his back doing construction – and Foreman is sent to break into her house. He brings Cameron along because “it’s always better to have a white chick with you.”
House and Chase are left in the conference room to go over Rebecca’s condition. They’ve concluded that she doesn’t have a tumor. But there are no toxins, medications, or family history circumstances that would explain her symptoms. When Foreman and Cameron return from Adler’s house, Wilson has joined the troop. The whiteboard is busy, ideas and illnesses crossed off.
“Find anything?”
Foreman shakes his head, slumping in the chair two seats down from Chase. House glances at Cameron as though she’ll say something different. She takes the seat across from Chase and shrugs.
“Normal house stuff. Nothing in the bedroom closet, no weird smells in the vent, and there's normal ham and bread in the kitchen.”
“You made a sandwich?” Wilson asks incredulously.
“Foreman did.”
He frowns and nudges his boyfriend, “You’re turning them into you.”
House isn’t paying attention, though. “Neurocysticercosis.”
Wilson and the ducklings confusedly stare at him and, when Foreman opens his mouth, House beats him to the punch.
“What happens when you give steroids to a person who has a tapeworm?”
“They, they get a little better and then they get worse.”
Wilson hides his proud smile when he adds, “Just like Rebecca Adler did.”
House nods, “Chase. Fetch the infectious disease book.”
The Australian doctor complies, grabbing a certain book from the shelf behind the whiteboard. He cracks it open to the chapter on tapeworms, and he reads it aloud to the class. House takes on the role of Teacher, explaining how in Adler’s case, she’s ingested live tapeworm larvae from uncooked pork, and now it’s dying. Her immune system has woken up and attacked the worm, which is why everything is swelling.
House goes to talk to her for the first time since taking the case. He clarifies what’s happening to her and what they’ll need to do so she won’t be dead by the weekend.
“You were sure I had vasculitis too. Now I can’t walk and I’m wearing a diaper. What’s this treatment gonna do for me?”
“I’m not talking about a treatment,” He replies honestly. “I’m talking about a cure. But because I might be wrong. You want to die.”
Rebecca nods to his leg. “What made you a cripple?”
“I had an infarction.”
She scrunches up her face. “A heart attack?”
House leans against the wall near her bed. “It’s what happens when the blood flow is obstructed. If it’s in the heart, it’s a heart attack. If it’s in the lungs, it’s a pulmonary embolism. If it’s in the brain, it’s a stroke. I had it in my thigh muscles.”
“Wasn’t there something they could do?”
“There was plenty they could do if they made the right diagnosis, but the only symptom was pain. Not many people get to experience muscle death.”
“Did you think you were dying?”
House thinks back to the time in question. He and Stacey had broken up on less than amicable terms a month back, and Wilson was having serious issues with his wife. He couldn’t make the trip, and Stacey had already paid for his end, so he was coerced into “enjoying the free ride.” After the incident, he’d only wanted Wilson, but he doesn’t always get what he wants.
“I hoped I was dying.”
Rebecca surmises from his story that he hides away and refuses to see patients because he doesn’t like the way people see him. He doesn’t want to get attached, but he wants his patients to fight. A fair assessment. But she doesn’t want to risk it on a guess. So, House sends the ducklings to run tests to prove his hypothesis.
Hours pass by, and Chase locates the million-dollar worm in her leg. He shows the image to Rebecca and then shares the news with the team. Since he found it, House rewards him with sharing the good news – and two pills worth of Albendazole – with the patient. it’s likely been there for the past six to ten years; as a trade-off, she’ll need to take the medicine every day for at least a month with a meal.
With the case solved, House is packing up in his office. Wilson is sitting on the chair across from the desk when Cameron walks in. She doesn’t acknowledge Wilson but determinedly walks up to House.
“Why did you hire me?”
“Does it matter?” He shrugs, locking up his Gameboy in the top drawer of his desk. “Does it make a difference why I think I’m a jerk? The only thing that matters is what you think. Can you do the job?”
She crosses her arms, “You hired a black guy because he had a juvenile record.”
“No, it wasn’t a racial thing, I didn’t see a black guy. I just saw a doctor…with a juvenile record. I hired Chase ‘cause his dad made a phone call. I hired you because you are extremely pretty.”
Cameron looks even more aghast. “You hired me to get into my pants?!”
“I can’t believe that would shock you,” House scoffs. “It’s also not what I said. No, I hired you because you look good; it’s like having a nice piece of art in the lobby. I figured you could calm down raging dads and accusing boyfriends just by your looks.”
“I was at the top of my class.”
“But not the top,” House responds, shrugging on his jacket and nodding over her head to Wilson.
His boyfriend stands, smirking silently to himself. Cameron goes on to state that she did an internship at the Mayo Clinic, and expresses how hard she’s worked to get where she is. House tells her how she didn’t need to work hard. Says that she defied a law of nature by getting here.
“That’s why I hired you. You could have married rich, could have been a model, you could have just shown up and people would have given you stuff. Lots of stuff, but you didn’t, you worked your stunning little ass off.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered?” She asks, following him and Wilson out of the office.
“Gorgeous women do not go to medical school. Unless they’re as damaged as they are beautiful.”
The men leave her in the hallway, and Wilson stays quiet until they’re alone in the elevator. There aren’t many people using it at two in the morning.
“A little harsh, wasn’t it?”
“Would you rather I ask her if she were abused by a family member?”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
House shrugs. “She wanted to know why I hired her.”
On the ground floor, House and Wilson sign out for the day. Wilson offers to stop for some Chinese, but House waves him off. The younger man drops him off at 221B Baker Street – after some light making out in the car – and then drives to his apartment. It’s empty, and he lies in bed wondering what House would do if he packed all his things and just sold his apartment. Just started to slowly move in with House. He decides to try it as a challenge with his last thought before succumbing to sleep.