Work Text:
Jimmy is awake at five with his alarm.
It knocks him from the depths of sleep, somewhere within his fourth hour of the night. With leaden bones, he drags himself to a sitting position, rubbing at his eyes. He sits, trying to wake up, for a short while. The alarm is incessant, but it pulls him further from his slumber, so he lets it go on for a minute.
He feels shifting on the bed behind him. Greg reaches out an arm and brushes his fingertips to Jimmy's back.
"Turn that damn thing off," he says, muffled.
Jimmy does as he's asked and turns around to face Greg. His eyes are closed, one hand still outstretched and lying on the bed, and by all measures, he seems to already be asleep again. Jimmy finds it endearing; the sight lands somewhere in the center of his chest, soft and warm. Carefully, as not to wake him (though Greg sleeps like the dead), Jimmy places a hand on the side of his face. Whether he's aware of it or not, the corner of Greg’s mouth twitches slightly, and of course Jimmy can't help but lean down to kiss him gently on the temple.
Though he now has even more reason to want to stay, he pulls himself from bed and begins his morning. He hits the kitchen feeling more awake, with sleeves rolled to his elbows and his tie undone around his neck. Last night's dirty dishes await him in the sink. James ignores them despite the annoyance he feels upon seeing them; there are other pots and pans, and he has things to do.
He pulls eggs and spinach from the fridge and sets about the beginning of an omelet. It's approaching six now, and the sun is rising outside. The kitchen is filled with a sense of peace. The sounds of cooking and the morning commute starting outside, the soft light through the window, the space to himself without his old crushing feeling of loneliness — despite the dirty dishes, James feels that he belongs here, doing exactly this.
He takes a seat at the table to eat half of breakfast, leaving the other, smaller half for Greg, whenever he bothers to get up. The loneliness does start to creep up on him. James has never enjoyed eating alone, whether it was during the intermittent hotel stays or at the end of a late night. It's a mark of disconnect.
Greg, well-timed but tacky as always, begins groaning and banging around. James hears him approach, and thinks idly how he would make a terrible spy. Greg neglects a good-morning and proceeds directly to the omelet half upon the countertop. He does, however, pause before sitting down to kiss the top of James's head, heavy and tired.
"Why the hell's it green," he asks, taking a bite anyway.
"It’s spinach," James replies. He doesn't bite back, though he would any other time of day. There is still something fragile about the morning.
They share smiles across the table until half past six, when James adds his plate to the top of the pile in the sink. He ties his tie, fixes his sleeves, picks up his coat and kisses Greg goodbye, though he'll see him again in an hour or two.
Wilson reaches Princeton Plainsboro a few minutes before seven, and kicks off his shift with an hour in the clinic. It's enough to get through three people — two women with colds and a toddler with an eraser up his nose. A typical hour, all things considered, though he’s a little disappointed that there would be no STD panels to tell House about later.
He heads to his office at eight o'clock sharp, running into House on the walk. He's handed a lukewarm, half-empty cup of gas station coffee with the good-morning he didn’t get at home.
"Thank you so much," Wilson says, "I was really hoping I would get to drink your cold backwash."
"Well, that's what you did last night, so I figured you wouldn't mind." House doesn't so much as glance at him. Wilson takes a swig of the coffee anyway, and it's just as awful as he had expected. He downs the rest in one swallow and hands the empty cup back to House.
"Cuddy gave me a kid with scoliosis," House tells him, "And blood pressure so low it's hanging out with Cameron's self-esteem. Kid's fine. She was up and talking even though she's on the verge of a stroke all the time."
"Are the scoliosis and the blood pressure related?" He doubts they are — it would be a bizarre symptom combination — but it's House, so he asks anyway. Wilson boards the elevator with him as he starts jamming the 'close door' button.
"Oh, no," House says, "But she's shaped like the letter S. It's weird."
The sun is going down when Wilson peeks into the diagnostics room. House is pacing in front of the whiteboard, where LOW BP, ENERGETIC, and KIDNEY FAILURE are written in untidy scrawl. He's bouncing a ball with his free hand, and Wilson watches Chase blink every time it hits the ground. He's poring over a file with Cameron at his shoulder. She has one arm propped on the table in front of her, and her other hand rests on the inside of Chase's elbow. Foreman is nowhere to be seen; he's probably running a test, though for what Wilson can't even guess.
"I'm heading home," he says, quietly so as not to startle them too much. Three sets of eyes are suddenly on him, and though he’s used to House, to speak as intimately in front of Chase and Cameron as he is now — it still makes him want to apologize and leave without a goodbye.
He pushes on. "I'll pick up a pizza. Any guess when you'll be out of here?"
He sees House smile ever so slightly. He stops bouncing the ball, and Chase breathes a small but audible sigh of relief. "Give me another hour. Unless another organ shuts down."
Wilson nods, silently thankful he won't have to go to bed alone. "Bye, House," he says, and waves at Cameron and Chase.
"Bye, Wilson," comes a reply through the closing door.
He blasts the radio on the drive. After a long day with little to celebrate but much to mourn, he can't stand the silence. He gets the promised pizza and is home 45 minutes before he can even start to expect House. The pizza is left on the table and James changes out of his work clothes, sits down in front of the television to wait.
He watches the last ten minutes of an episode of Law and Order and gets halfway through another when the door opens.
Greg heads straight to the kitchen and takes a slice of pizza, plateless out of courtesy for the pile of dishes still waiting to be done. James joins him and they eat in silence, staring at the floor, until Greg spits something out.
"Bad day?" He waits for a response, and when he doesn't get one, elaborates. "You don't usually check when I'm coming home."
"Yeah," James says, all he can get out, hoping it's enough.
It is. "Come sit," Greg says. He picks up another piece and returns to the couch. James follows. Thinking of Cameron, he slips a hand through the crook of Greg’s arm. The contact soothes him, returning some of the peace of the morning, which seems so long ago.
They finish the episode, by which time James's head is on Greg's shoulder and they're both close to sleep. Greg, who had been forced to spend time in the clinic, details an STD panel that revealed three different infections in a sixty-year-old man. It does cheer James up slightly, and again he's sorry he doesn't have a story to swap. Greg excuses himself, and James assumes he's going to the bathroom. Instead, his uneven steps lead back to the kitchen, where the sink turns on and dishes begin to clatter.
He's joined, minutes later, by Jimmy's arms wrapped around his waist and a cold nose on the back of his neck. He kisses Greg there, smiling as he does so, then rests his forehead on Greg’s shoulder.
"Thank you," he says. "I meant to do it this morning and didn't."
"No, you didn't," Greg replies. It's not malicious, purely a statement of fact.
"No, I didn't," he agrees. "But I did think about it."
Jimmy runs his thumb up and down, up and down, comforting to both of them.
"I'm going to bed," he says into Greg’s shoulder.
"I'll be there soon."
"I love you."
"I love you, too."