Archive of Our Own ^beta

James Wilson has quite a reputation within the walls of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, one that might perhaps be his own doing, but is certainly also a product of the amazing (some would call it twisted) mind of his fellow doctor, Gregory House.

His Gregory House. His friend of over twenty years, of more years than he cares to count, that Gregory House. His best friend, he would call him, if House wasn’t the most stubborn, insufferable person on the planet, one who would never be caught alive admitting that he loves, or that he cares, about anyone. Not after Stacy. Not after everything.

This is James Wilson’s problem with his reputation; House and his stubbornness has insisted upon him being somewhat of a… womanizer. 

It’s deeply awful. He isn’t going to deny his number of divorces or the faults and failures he made with them, but at work, this gets complicated. Not because of the unpleasant mixture of work and personal life, in fact, he hasn’t worried about this issue in a long, long time.

The problem lies nowhere near the line between professional and personal. 

Rather, it lies with a person. It lies with Gregory House. It always has.

He would call Gregory House his best friend to his face, if the other man even cared to hear it. He calls him his best friend to everyone else, because it’s the truth, because House hates any signs of sentimental bullshit, and most of all, because it’s the only thing he can do.

That’s the complicated part.

If you wonder why he calls him his best friend, you wouldn’t be the first nor the last person to look back at Wilson in pure bewilderment, at a loss for words or simply arguing with him why this cannot and must not be true.

How could a person like him willingly spend so much time with a person like House?

This isn’t how he himself would word it. This is a question that has been left unasked, but something everyone secretly thinks when he’s got his back turned to them. This is how the ducklings phrased it, or something similar, when Wilson helps a case along that they’ve all been struggling with, where House has ordered them around and bullied them and kept them up sleepless several nights in a row, like he usually does.

It’s where he decides to do what his best friend demands him to do, no matter how illogical or irrational or sometimes unethical it may be. He does put up a fight, obviously, he argues with Gregory House so much, nearly every day.

But being his best friend, he knows that House is annoyingly right about most things, most of the time. His fellows have learned this lesson a long time ago, but it’s a harder pill for them to swallow; after all, he’s had the luxury of having over twenty years to do so.

It’s where he offers his help, and the patient can go home, and Gregory House bathes in the victory of knowing that he was right. It’s where he gloats and leaves without saying thank you, and where his best friend’s fellows follow him to his car after midnight, and where Dr. Foreman stops him before he can unlock the door, the three of them strangely, unusually silent.

They haven’t complained about House at all tonight. They’re too tired, too strung up to breathe out and say goodbye to the couple they finally found the right treatment for, but they’d never been too tired to curse their boss’ name and swear they would quit sooner or later.

The latter has become less of a genuine threat and more of a joke, as time has passed. Because despite everything, House has proven that he cares about these kids.

Wilson knew this after House had worked with his new fellows for no more than six months; his best friend hadn’t even known then, probably, but he did. It’s rather obvious, he thinks.

Gregory House likes them, and he doesn’t like a lot of people. He isn’t a stranger to bending the rules and using unethical methods, but usually, this is because he won’t be satisfied until he’s got an answer.

The ducklings, on the other hand, that isn’t about his own ego. He bullies them and drags them around and convinces them that he hates them, and it works. But as patients come, this universal truth House believes in is just as true about doctors: everybody lies.

And Gregory House would kill for them. And he’d die for them. Wilson hasn’t bothered to tell them, because he doesn’t think they’ll ever believe him.

Tonight, Dr. Foreman hesitates before asking a question he’s never been asked before. He asks what everyone has wondered for twenty years but no one has had the courage to say out loud.

“How have you and House been together for so long?” is what he says. He sounds unsure, but he asks nonetheless. Dr. Cameron grimaces behind him but remains silent.

“Hm?”

He isn’t sure he heard him right. Foreman’s own response is interrupted by Dr. Chase, who looks like he can barely keep his eyes open, threatening to fall asleep standing up straight, “How can you stand being around him?”

“Not exactly how I would ask-”

“It’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

Foreman rolls his eyes at the snark, but ultimately shrugs. That is what he meant. Cameron sighs.

“You know him better than we do,” she adds, “But your relationship does seem pretty one-sided.”

“How do you mean?”

“You know,” Cameron gestures with her hands, “House interrupts you while you’re in meetings all the time. You pay for his lunch and he never pays for yours. You write all of his prescriptions whenever he wants. He barges into your office without knocking and calls you no matter what time. He lies to you and you still help him out with our patients, anyway.”

All these are facts, all these are universal truths.

Cameron, Foreman and Chase know that he and House have known each other for over twenty years. Most people know this. Cuddy knows this, the nurses and surgeons know this, even the janitor knows this.

But there’s a crucial part of that truth that none of them know, which is why Wilson cannot answer a question like that truthfully, not completely. 

Unlike House, of course, he thinks that the “everybody lies” mantra is bullshit. So, he answers as close to the truth as he can possibly muster, feeling uncomfortably tense under the gaze of the three fellows’ confused, bloodshot eyes. 

He realizes how rarely he spends time with them; he considers them his friends, too, but they never exist in a room without House present in it. He has a lot of respect and admiration for them, not only because no fellows of House’s have lasted as long as them without breaking down, but because they challenge his best friend like no one else can.

This is why he knows what no one else knows, that Gregory House is capable of caring for them like one cares about abandoned baby birds who were pushed out of their nests. He cares for them because these three individuals aren’t afraid to stand up to him and be as nasty as he is to them. 

And really, don’t they care for him, too? Their motivations are just different, is all.

Cameron is obvious, she cares about House because she believes she can fix and change and protect anyone. Chase cares because he sees too much of his own deceased, absent father in his boss. Foreman cares because he respects him, not to say that the former two don’t; rather, Foreman respects him because he knows, unlike the others, that House respects them, too, because he sees right through whatever legend or folktale Dr. House has become and sees him as the person he is.

Previous fellows have all feared House. Foreman doesn't. 

He knows that his boss is in this position because he's passionate about his field and nothing else, and that he isn't a god or a fraud or whatever else he's been called in his many years of practice.

And House? Well, House cares about them because he sees himself in all of them. He’d never admit this, either.

“I know he respects me like I respect him,” Wilson tells them, because it’s true.

Chase looks rather skeptical. “It doesn’t seem like he does,” he answers bluntly, and Cameron hits his shoulder as if she was scolding a child.

Wilson cannot do anything but shrug. He can’t tell them anymore than this, not without making it too private, too vulnerable, too hysterically illogical.

“House is many things, as you know,” he reminds the fellows, “But I trust him. I don’t think I would’ve put up with him for as many years as I have if I didn’t.”

He’s not quite sure he believes his own explanation. It’s half of a truth and half of a fact.

Neither Chase nor Foreman seem fully convinced, and Cameron is the strangest of them all, looking back at him with a sweet smile and tired, but somehow fond eyes. He finds the whole interaction odd, they seem concerned about him, although he doesn’t blame them for not being as used to House as he is, not being versed in everything that makes him tick and everything that bores him and everything that he secretly cares about.

Dr. Foreman’s facial expression tells him that there’s more on his mind, but his phone buzzes and the last remaining car in the lot besides their own vehicles leave around the corner, and they’re all too tired to analyze Dr. House any further tonight.

“You’re a good person,” he tells Wilson, “I admire House. I put up with him because he’s one of the greatest doctors there is,” he goes on, and Chase and Cameron nod in agreement, “I just think you could do better than him, is all.”

It’s odd. Wilson isn’t sure he understands.

He knows Gregory House isn’t what you’d call a good person; then he would be lying to himself. House is calculating, manipulative, irritating, a genius, miserable. He’s unethical and illogical and irrational. He’s many things.

He doesn’t think that necessarily makes him a completely bad person, either. If he thought he was, he wouldn’t be here. At least he doesn’t think so, but maybe he’s convinced himself of some delusion in all these years, it’s too late to tell.

The simplest thing to say is that House is complicated. It describes him perfectly; vague enough, fulfilling enough. He would love it.

Maybe he’s convinced himself that Gregory House really does care, or maybe he just sees what no one else sees because he knows him too well. Maybe he’s seen every side of his best friend, has seen him suffer and seen him happy. Maybe he just knows that it’s possible for Dr. House to be happy at all.

The fellows are clearly convinced that House doesn’t treat him right, that he isn’t a good enough friend, which they definitely aren’t the first one to believe. His friend has never been likable, he’s always been an asshole, he’s never cared if people think he’s an asshole, and he’s never cared for company or distracting himself with meaningless things like human connection.

What he cares about is doing his job. For some reason, he’s just decided that Wilson’s company isn’t meaningless.

Honestly, he wouldn’t be able to tell you why. It's probably because he's enabled his destructive behavior, he'd be the first to admit this. Maybe it's because he challenges him, like the fellows do. Maybe it's because his friend thinks he can manipulate him, and maybe he can, Wilson isn't sure of anything anymore.

But he knows that, for some reason, he enjoys House’s company. This, he knows the reason behind. But that’s also complicated, and not for anyone’s ears to hear but his own.

“House is complicated,” he echoes his own thought out loud, “We have a sort of understanding between us. You shouldn’t worry about me all that much.”

As sleep deprived as they all are, Wilson’s answers seem satisfactory enough for the three fellows, for now. The ducklings look at him with solemn smiles or troubled frowns but nod all the same, and they all part ways for a well-deserved weekend, with Dr. Chase giving him a rather pitying look at the knowledge that his trip home ends at their boss’ apartment, where he’s been staying ever since he and Julie split up.

He really should be looking for his own place, shouldn’t he? Then again, he’s lived at House’s apartment so long now that it feels like that’s all he’s known.

And so James Wilson drives all the way home; which isn’t home , exactly, but his best friend’s place where said best friend is passed out in his bedroom with a wide open door and an open container of vicodin on the nightstand, dishes in the sink still dirty, his leather jacket carelessly left on the hallway floor.

Yet, the couch is made up from what was previously a morning mess as Wilson was running late today, with two pillows, a duvet and a blanket, and a note left for him on the fridge that simply says, Need another prescription. Asshole.

He wants to laugh, but he shouldn’t be surprised, he’s never surprised anymore at anything his best friend throws at him. However, as he removes the note, he notices scribbles on the other side of the paper as well, and here House’s slanted handwriting tells him, Thank you.

No more explanation is added, and Wilson finds that particularly irritating, more irritating and upsetting than anything his friend has ever said. Thank you for covering my ass today, maybe. Thank you for buying lunch, that one is less likely. Thank you for your help on the case, it’s rare, but those instances do happen.

Nevertheless, he won’t find the right answer tonight, so he gives up trying. Instead, he goes to sleep with this irrational feeling that his best friend can see inside his head and predict his every movement, and it’s a terrifying thing.

Because if Gregory House can see inside his head and predict his every movement, he would know that he only told the fellows half of the full truth today.

He would know that there was something that Wilson didn’t tell them, and that there are many other words that he would use to describe his friend, but that it’s the very same person who stops him from expressing these feelings and thoughts and saying what he wants to say out loud.

He would know that Wilson enjoys his company more than he should, more than House has ever allowed him to, more than anyone else thinks is possible.

He would know that Wilson harbors feelings for him that he shouldn’t have, and he would know that these feelings have been there for more than twenty years; in fact, he doesn’t remember a time where they weren’t present and real and tangible.

He would know that James Wilson has been in love with him ever since they first met. And he would know that no matter how irrational or illogical it may seem to anyone else, he doesn’t think he’s ever not been in love with House.

It’s a terrifying thought, but Gregory House isn’t a psychic. Still, he finds himself praying to all the gods he doesn’t believe in that it can’t and won’t ever be true. Because if his best friend comes to know this, surely, he wouldn’t stick around. 

Surely, their friendship would come to an abrupt ending, and then, he wouldn't have House anymore. His friend has relied on him in his own twisted way, but then, he wouldn't anymore. 

Surely, then, all these years would have been for nothing. 

And if he didn’t have House, well, would there even be anything left of himself without him?

…

When Wilson arrives back in his office on Monday morning, nothing looks to be any less strange than it has been the last month or so. Then again, he supposes there is no normal, dull day at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, especially not when you’re working alongside Gregory House.

Or when you’re living with him, in Wilson’s situation. You may wonder why he’s been living at his best friend’s place so long, why he’s pushed the plan of finding his own place out of his mind for too long, when it’s as tortuous as it is for him to be in such close proximity to House, for so long, all the time.

It never felt the same with his former partners or ex-lovers. He’s sure it’s always felt this way, only, living within the same walls has worsened his own self-induced condition severely.

It feels horrible. It feels incredible. Wilson feels like a lovesick teenager, and House is either aware of it and has decided to ignore it, which isn’t very characteristic of him, or he’s completely unaware, which is just as out of character as the previous option.

In short, Wilson has no idea about anything going on in his best friend’s mind, and he hopes for the sake of everything that is peaceful in his life that House has no idea about his mind, either.

Does it feel good to live with Gregory House? Perhaps.

It feels like he’s got physical butterflies in his stomach, everything makes him nervous, everything makes him sweat, and everything feels too intimate. Yet, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.

He’s seen House naked before, for example, just as not as often as he does now. He usually eats lunch with House five days a week, but now, he does it seven days a week, and breakfast and dinner and everything in between.

Is it absolute hell, living with him? Absolutely. These two conclusions don’t exclude each other.

House calls him a housewife and asks him every night when dinner is ready, he never cleans up, he trash talks everything and everyone, he’s impossible to watch TV with because he disagrees with every movie Wilson picks. He’s impossible. That’s a good description.

But Wilson knows all this. He’s always known this.

What he didn’t know before now is how easily he could get used to this daily routine. Waking up and passing his best friend in the bathroom with dreary eyes, talking about nothing over their coffee, driving each other to work, dozing off on the couch on his friend’s shoulder, even if said friend never fails to make fun of him for it or subject him to childish pranks like doodling on his face or leaving gifts like shaving cream in his hand while he’s too far gone in dreamland.

It feels like it was meant to happen. That’s illogical, isn’t it?

He’s never believed in fate. In his line of work, fate is bullshit.

But then, why does this life, this situation, feel so right? Why does it feel like there’s nothing else he wants to do? Why does it feel like nothing else will bring him the same satisfaction, the same joy as existing in the same room and same world as Gregory House?

He needs to shift his focus onto something else, he decides. Away from illogical feelings and onto his work. 

Thing is, the day turns out to be a particularly strange one. For House and his fellows, he supposes, every day must be strange, but Wilson only ever gets involved once they’ve excluded every other symptom and diagnosis except cancer.

Today, they don’t need him around, not in the usual sense. The morning starts out rather ordinary, he thinks, if it wasn’t for Cuddy bidding him good morning with a strange look on her face, and Wilson fully prepares to hear a scolding he needs to memorize for when House decides to meet up.

“Where’s House?” she asks instead, and he lifts an eyebrow in response, the clock nowhere near signaling that said diagnostician is running late, although that wouldn’t exactly be a first time occurrence if that were the case.

“I assume he’s on his way here,” Wilson tells his friend casually, assuming the doctor in question has already contacted and been filled in about the new patient from his fellows, “How was your weekend?”

Cuddy blissfully ignores his attempt at conversation, “You didn’t drive him?”

He isn’t sure how to respond. He does drive House quite often. But House is also a stubborn bastard who doesn’t ask for a lift and just snatches his car keys whenever he wants, so he doesn’t really have a choice.

Not that he would say no, if he was asked. He doesn’t think he ever would. It’s terrible.

His best friend is also just as stubborn about arriving at work on his motorcycle and extending the ride to the hospital as long as possible, mostly just to piss Cuddy off when he’s in the mood for it. So, since he found his car keys untouched this morning and the other man absent for breakfast, it seemed like the latter is relevant today.

Wilson would rather not try and rationalize the way he felt as if he’d been punched in the gut after realizing that he was alone, eating breakfast alone, with no goodmorning or anything similar to that. He would rather just not think about it at all.

“He was in a hurry today,” he answers absentmindedly, hoping Cuddy doesn’t detect his lie.

His friend hums in consideration. “I assumed you would go together,” she says and shrugs, “Are you two alright?”

“We-” Wilson catches himself stuttering, not sure how to respond at all anymore, “What do you mean?”

She shrugs again. “House is much more cooperative lately. Hell, last week, he was looking after a patient’s kid while he was in treatment,” she tells him, which clearly puzzles her as much as it does him, “It’s almost scary.”

Wilson laughs. “Isn’t that a good thing, Lisa?”

“Obviously,” she answers quickly, not paying it any particular attention when he brings up her first name. He’s probably the only one who does this, and she’s the only one who uses his first name, as well, because their friendship goes almost as far back as it does with House. And House is an entirely different conversation for him, as established earlier.

“You would tell me if something was going on with you, right?” Cuddy asks next, which, once again, Wilson tries and fails to wrap his mind around why exactly that is a factor of discussion in this conversation. He supposes she’s just shocked Dr. House could ever be in a good mood, because, well, she knows him, and he knows him.

Maybe he’s lived with his best friend so long, now, that they’ve started to rub off on each other. He amuses himself with this thought, although that would be slightly concerning, too.

Does Wilson even exist without him anymore? House exists without him, that much he knows is true. 

The other man is dependent on him in many, many ways. But, well, what if he isn’t anymore? What if living together wakes him up, fills up his endless neediness, changes him into an entirely different person?

What would James Wilson do, exactly, if Gregory House didn’t need him anymore? 

Lie down and wither away, his best friend would probably suggest. He fears it isn’t an entirely unrealistic scenario, either.

He shakes his head at his own spiraling, conflicting emotions and answers Cuddy quickly, “Of course. You’re my friend.”

She huffs, eyes showing a hint of worry, one that she clearly attempts to hide away behind her usual Dr. House-related irritation, “House is my friend, too, and he never tells me anything. Not unless he needs a lawyer, anyway.”

Wilson nods, knowing that she knows that he knows all too well, because the two of them have had this conversation so many times they lost count years ago. “Tell me about it,” he mutters, “Although he has been on his best behavior lately, to House standards. So I reckon a lawyer isn’t needed at this time.”

His friend hums again thoughtfully, her mind seeming miles away. “I’m sure he’ll be back to being a pain in my ass soon enough,” she decides, accepting it as the universal truth of life that it is, “Or maybe your good influence is finally getting to him! Took the bastard long enough to move in with you, already.”

Cuddy dramatically rolls her eyes to punctuate her point, leaving Wilson even more confused than when he first walked in. Mostly because he thinks the days of influencing Gregory House in positive ways are long gone, but also because, apparently, their living situation that their mutual friend has anticipated, for some odd reason.

House gives him enough shit about his failed marriages on his own, so he doesn’t think Cuddy would add more nails in that coffin, but otherwise, he can’t really think of why she would be all that interested in them sharing the same roof, unless it was for to gain just a little more control of the unpredictable diagnostician through him.

He would normally consider inquiring her about these mysterious words of hers. But alas, he’s caught up in his own head about his absent best friend and how odd his behavior has been, now that he thinks about it, and even more so how his fellows’ behavior has been, so he figures he must hurry to his office and suffer in silence for as long as possible until his first patient of the day arrives for her check-up.

Before the day evolves to be any weirder than it already looks to be, that is.

As luck would have it, as Wilson is about to excuse himself and Cuddy opens her mouth to possibly further inquire him about her newly sprung concern for him and House’s relationship, his pager loudly and gracefully interrupts them both.

He suppresses a laugh as he glances at it and back to the woman next to him, jokingly telling her, “The kids require urgent supervision.”

Cuddy crosses her arms, most definitely silently cursing House and his mother in her head already, “I’ll send their deadbeat father your way once I catch him.”

“Appreciate it.”

He smiles gratefully at the escape from the confusion and from Lisa’s reassuring hand on his arm, although he still isn’t sure what for. He’s just too tired for all this. 

Maybe he’s hallucinating right now. Maybe he’s been hallucinating for a month or so. Maybe he’s been hallucinating his entire life and he’ll find himself waking up from a twenty year coma one day, with House being no more than a figment of his imagination? 

He must be losing his mind. Then again, crazier things have happened. He can only shudder at what crazier things there’s about to come.

…

Foreman is about to make a snide comment, or a tired one, or possibly a mixture of both about their boss being late yet another morning, before the subject of their conversation casually strolls through the glass door as if he’s got all the time in the world.

The ducklings simultaneously sigh in relief. So does Wilson, because he was starting to feel the concern for his best friend’s absence this morning to his bones, and this secret feeling of his turns into something more like searing embarrassment. 

Mainly because the man of the hour doesn’t blink twice at his own presence in the room, or the fact that he’s currently occupying his desk chair, but rather, gives him a sly smile that could only mean that Dr. House is up to no good (as per usual), and yet, he proceeds to simply, gently nudge his shoulder. 

He does everything he can to not scurry, he tries to appear casual as he’s about to stand up, but his friend keeps a hold of his shoulder and pushes him back down again, shaking his head once, heavily, like his reaction was something outrageous and unheard of. House himself, he sits down on top of the table, swinging his legs over and leaving his cane in the safety of Wilson’s lap. 

All the while, the fellows watch this course of action with keen interest.

And Wilson, well, he’s left dumbfounded. As per usual.

If he claimed this was the first time House left him speechless, it would be the greatest lie he’s ever told. In a way, that was what began their friendship in the first place; a man he’s never met bailing him out of jail, for no reason other than that he amused him. That he wasn’t boring .

This is ironic, because since then, that has become his best friend’s favorite term to describe him, it leaves his tongue so easily and with so much satisfaction, by now, as if he was using it as a term of endearment.

In some ways, he guesses it is an endearment. 

Maybe House would mean it like that, or maybe he’s just too far gone in a ridiculous and unrequited emotion that he tells himself this had any possibility of being true.

Wilson only notices how strange and just how long this silence has fallen over the room when the man on the desk loudly clears his throat, making Dr. Chase jump in his seat and then pretend he didn’t.

He doesn’t notice how the silence feels so heavy over him he thinks it’ll crash through the floors, like a rigid, faulty elevator.

He doesn’t notice how House is looming over him in arms’ distance, sneaking obvious glances at his paperwork, until he suddenly extends a hand to his elbow, and lets his fingers travel down the fabric of his shirt, down to his wrist and palm and knuckles, only to snatch the pen out of his hand. 

Wilson, all the while, remains frozen in place, holding his breath for some reason unbeknownst to him.

He does notice the similarities his brain conjures up. How House moves with no intention of slowing down, with no warnings, and how his affection for his best friend is no longer affection but rather a crumbling building; a forest fire; an elevator with no wire. How it threatens to crash upon him and leave nothing in its wake.

“Are you in pain?” Dr. Cameron asks as soon as House rubs his knee, and just as expected, he loudly clicks the pen he robbed Wilson off moments earlier, and then throws it in the general direction of his fellows, making them all duck simultaneously. If he was aiming for any of their heads, he missed them completely.

“Always,” he replies, feigning a cheery tone.

“You’re a terrible pitcher,” Foreman notes.

“And you’re a terrible catcher,” House retaliates, although it makes the three of them quirk up in their seats. Chase tries to hide a giggle and is terribly obvious about it.

“What are you, five years old?” the man responds, “You’re way meaner than that, House. Are you even trying to make someone cry today?”

His best friend usually takes any opportunity to insult the ducklings, as many times a day, as if he’s trying to beat some world record pictured inside his mind. 

But to Wilson and everyone else’s surprise, today, the man on the desk doesn’t answer immediately and crudely, but instead grabs his cane from his lap once more and gets a hold of the whiteboard, rolling it over by his feet.

“What can I say, Foreman?” he finally says, “I’m a changed person. Sunshine and rainbows! I adopted a couple of puppies on the way here. Maybe I’ll adopt the three of you, too, while I’m at it, you look like you’re in need of a positive role model in your lives!”

Dr. Foreman laughs, with just a hint of relief of knowing everything is the same as it always was. Dr. Cameron still looks worried about his leg, but frowns at the comment like she tasted something sour. Dr. Chase looks like he’s ready to run home and get the adoption papers signed.

Despite whatever’s making House act in this particular way, where he’s not entirely himself but not entirely not himself, if that even makes sense, Wilson watches the group work through a diagnosis for their new patient. 

The young woman arrived at the clinic late at night, after three sleepless nights and a seizure that almost scared her girlfriend half to death. He reads through his prescriptions in silence until Cameron brings up the possibility of a tumor, and three pairs of eyes suddenly come to rest on him, accompanied by his best friend’s lack of comment on his fellow’s suggestion but instead turns directly towards him with a, “What do you reckon, Jimmy?”

Their fellow doctors look as shell shocked as he does, which he guesses he shouldn’t be all surprised by, but he finds that he is, anyway.

House never calls him by his first name, and Wilson never calls him by his, either. In fact, he can only count three occasions where the other man has ever used that abbreviation for him, a nickname that would be outstandingly normal to anyone else. 

He’s Wilson. He’s House. That’s how it’s always been.

Twice, his friend has called him this name, in an attempt to taunt him; when he saw him cut the crust of a sandwich, and in front of Bonnie at the most overly posh restaurant he could find, where his fully blown argument with Wilson’s second wife ended with her leaving before the entrees had even arrived. 

Stacy had hidden her face in her hands out of sheer embarrassment. House, on the other hand, already knew that Bonnie had complained about how Wilson spent more time with his best friend than her. 

He didn’t even realize it, and when he told the other man that fact, he was called an idiot, which he probably deserved.

The third time his friend had called him by this prohibited nickname was in entirely circumstances. House pretends that evening never happened, and sometimes Wilson almost convinced himself it was a figment of his imagination, but no, it was true, it was real.

He was working. House wasn’t. House was in bed, out of surgery, left for observation and with no words spoken to him or Cuddy for days.

That night, Wilson came by with dinner, because the stubborn man refused to eat anything, and found his room strangely vacant. No trace was to be found of his wife, who had been sleeping in hospital chairs and pacing the hallways for hours on end, who had watched her husband helplessly and winced at every move, as if his body was hers and she felt everything just as hard.

House had yelled at him the first time he’d tried to visit. When he entered that night just around 11PM, his friend didn’t say anything at all. He was awake, wide awake, but deadly silent, staring at his leg like it was his greatest enemy.

The silence, Wilson nearly couldn’t bear it. It terrified him.

Then, he shut the door and placed the tray in front of the other man, and he cleared his throat, trying to think of anything to say, any words that would matter, but stopped in his tracks once his best friend’s eyes locked with his own.

Maybe, he would have given him a comforting smile. One he gave to his patients, one when he had to be brave because the person in front of him needed it, because they couldn’t be.

But he didn’t. House looked at him with empty eyes and chapped lips, and when nothing but, “Jimmy,” left his mouth in a devastating, broken sob, Wilson abandoned any other procedure in his mind, and he left his coat and ID and paperwork and the food and everything else behind instead to join the other man on the bed.

The thing is, House doesn’t touch.

Sure, he’s patted his shoulder a couple of times, joking around, consoling him after some stupid prank he pulled because he was bored, but they’ve never hugged before, not ever.

But that fact didn’t matter that night. It didn’t matter because his words wouldn’t be enough, so he didn’t think this spontaneous, irrational decision over and invaded his friend’s space, and House, he just let him.

He let Wilson move in on the bed next to him and practically scoop him up in his arms and into his lap, wishing, hoping, willing that he was able to take away all the pain and feel it all for the both of them if he just held him tight enough.

It didn’t work. House could’ve told him that. But he didn’t.

What he did was cry, and cry, and cry. House has never cried in front of him before.

When his friend spoke again, when time had become irrelevant and it was just the two of them in the world and no one else, the sound was muffled from where his face was pressed to his chest, but he could make out the simple, overwhelming, soul destroying statement anyway.

“It was too much for her,” he told him.

Wilson had hummed questioningly, assuming he’d heard him wrong, and his friend moved just an inch, just enough for him to make it out clearer.

“Stacy. I’m too much for her,” he’d said in a watery voice, “I’m too much for everyone. But I’ve never been too much for her before.”

Those words brought a feeling upon Wilson that he’ll always be ashamed of. It passed as quickly as it had arrived, so maybe, he’d eventually convince himself he never felt it before. Oh, how he longs for that.

He hated Stacy that day. The anger flared up in him with the most violent, burning flames in his body, he felt the hatred boil his blood and shatter his bones, and he wanted to throw up as soon as he recognized it.

But he didn’t hate Stacy, of course he didn’t, he couldn’t. It wasn’t her fault that he was in pain, it wasn’t House’s fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just was .

And Stacy was his friend just as much as House, except, she wasn’t, she isn’t.

Stacy is his friend. House is this. Whatever this is.

He didn’t tell his best friend of these ugly feelings that grew and withered inside of him. He didn’t need them. He knew what he needed. Wilson didn’t shake his head, he didn’t move at all, even though the other man was gripping his wrist so hard he’d probably stop his blood circulation sooner or later.

“You’re not too much,” he’d told him while absentmindedly running his hand through his hair, because it was truer than anything he’d ever said before, “You’ve never been too much. Not for me.”

“You’re lying,” his friend said in another sob.

“You know I’m a bad liar, House.”

He was only met with more silence after that. His best friend didn’t have a snarky comment for that one. Time passed until the man nodded softly into his chest, and more time passed until Wilson was woken up from a slumber he didn’t even realize he slipped into, to find Cuddy shuffling quietly with his papers just out of sight.

When he looked down, he was met with the sight of House sleeping almost on top of him, dry tear streaks on his cheeks and his hair a mess after not having been washed since the week prior. 

It was a strange, new sight. It made his heart feel like it was turned inside out.

That day filled him with so many new feelings, too many feelings. Lisa had given him a much needed bottle of water without him even expressing it, and she kissed his cheek with a small smile and left them soon after. He still doesn’t know how many hours they slept, but the sun sank and rose as they lay there, in their own little world.

House never mentioned that day, since then. 

Does he ever think about it? Does he repress it? Does he realize that this particular night was perhaps the night it dawned upon Wilson that his best friend was much more than a best friend, and that he’s thought about nothing but that night since then?

He’ll never get an answer for that, he reckons.

Certainly, he won’t get one with how he keeps embarrassing himself; now, the other man snaps his fingers right in his face, sending him back to the reality of the situation and leaving behind those damned memories of his until later.

He should’ve realized sooner that everyone in the room was awaiting his response. He followed up with them soon enough, and his friend ordered the ducklings out to their various tests, had them leave the room slightly less filled, slightly more empty, but House’s presence even bigger and even more all-consuming.

If his theory that House is a mind reader is true, he must be fuelling his massive ego right now. Then again, it doesn’t need fuel, he’s not sure it even is possible for it to grow any bigger. 

“What’s gotten into you today?” his friend suddenly asks him.

He hasn’t moved from the table at all; hasn’t ordered Wilson to leave, hasn’t bugged him to buy them both coffee and lunch, hasn’t uttered some creative insult towards any of his fellows, not even when they were still in the room.

It’s puzzling. It makes him consider that maybe House is pranking him, again.

But Dr. House and pranks usually involve childishly bothering him in his sleep, or stealing his things, or dosing him with amphetamines to prove some elaborate theory he’s cracked about Wilson and his love life.

The situation at hand, it rather seems like something as simple as asking about his well-being. Which is crazy.

Of course, House cares. He knows House cares, even if he wants him to think he doesn’t. It’s not part of a mind game, like Wilson thought in the beginning of their friendship. He doesn’t even think his best friend does it consciously; he just doesn’t want to care.

So, naturally, if you push people away and pretend not to, the outcome is that those people will eventually leave for good, ergo, you’ll stop caring.

That’s the other man’s foolproof plan for not letting anyone in, and why, no matter how hard Wilson tries to get a peek inside those walls, he refuses to let his vulnerability show.

Of course, most people don’t even know that exists. He does. Stacy does.

Of course, this foolproof plan of his didn’t quite work with his now ex-wife. That’s why the keyword in that plan is to pretend not to care. 

House doesn’t want to care. Yet, he’s physically incapable of not caring. What a conundrum.

Wilson wants to ask House the same question he’s just angled towards him. Except it’s not just today, it’s this week, this month, these past five months. Ever since the first day he crashed on his best friend’s couch, it feels as if something within the fabric of the universe has shifted.

He doesn’t ask, however. He feels too moved by this morning, so he asks something else, “Where were you this morning?”

This is the moment House chooses to get off the table. He doesn’t meet Wilson’s eyes when he moves, and ends up scribbling the previously discussed symptoms on the board, the sound of the marker suddenly remarkably loud.

“Who are you, my mother?” the man asks him in his usual sarcastic yet deadly serious tone, the one that confuses just about everyone working in the same vicinity of House, with the exception of Cuddy and himself.

“No,” he responds, trying to not let his insecurity in this conversation show too much, “I’m the guy you’ve been living with for five months, remember?”

“I remember you taking my couch hostage and never leaving,” House accuses him dryly.

“I don’t remember you shutting me out.”

And there it is; the most normal thing that’s happened in all this time. 

The fellows, they’d probably have a stroke at the sight, but Wilson knows the exact things his best friend tries to tease and quip and argue out of him. Sometimes he refuses to give in, when he’s sleep deprived and fed up with him interrupting his patient consultations, but most of the time, it’s worth it to see Dr. Gregory House smile.

Even if it barely even lasts a second. Even if he wishes he could see it all the time, even if he wishes he could wake up to it and see it before he goes to sleep. Even if he’d be perfectly content with never looking at anything else for the rest of his life.

House discards the marker on the table somewhere in the mountain of files, not caring to cast a glance at where his throw lands. That smile disappeared as fast as it had arrived, but he’d expected as much.

His friend does land his eyes on him again, waving his hand as a signal for him to move. “I’ll leave you a detailed note of my whereabouts next time, sweetheart,” he says, voice so obviously condescending, a voice that’s landed him a number of patient complaints and punches and bruises and a lawsuit to top it all off.

Wilson doesn’t mind it much. In fact, it brings a smile to his own face instead.

It’s terrifyingly ordinary. It’s terrifyingly comforting.

…

Wilson has never cried in front of his best friend before. His best friend has cried in front of him one time.

He supposes it’s got something to do with said best friend and his nonexistent relationship with emotional vulnerability, because while he knows House better than most people, arguably the one that knows him most intimately apart from the man’s ex-wife, he has his own theory that this fact is exactly the reason why his friend makes an effort to avoid what you would probably consider normal things for close friends to do.

Touching, hugging, showing emotion, talking about one’s emotions.

House has never had a problem showing the ugliest sides of him; the ones that argue mindlessly with him, berates and bullies everyone around him, pushing him away until he stops speechlessly and wonders why Wilson hasn’t left yet.

These are the things that the fellows wonder about every day, he assumes, he knows why. But while it’s true that they often want to kill each other, that he doesn’t play along with his friend’s twisted jokes, that he sometimes snaps and can’t be in a room with him for the whole day, it has, just as everything else about this tricky emotion called love, become something he can’t exactly live without, either.

He doesn’t mind it. More than that, sometimes, it amuses him. Sometimes, like today, he finds himself almost longing for the normalcy of it.

He longs for a semi-normal day, where he can eat lunch with his best friend and pine for him in silence and roll his eyes at whatever insane new methods he’s using today. One where he doesn’t have to listen to a voicemail from Sam that makes it feel like she’s ripping his heart in half with her bare hands.

He knows how to give advice, he knows how to give assurance, how to give comfort. Well, to anyone other than himself, that is.

The sound of his first girlfriend, his first wife, the voice becomes a blur in his head on the car ride home, until he can barely recall anything said over his own mind screaming at him, too loud, drowning out any sense of logic or anything similar.

You are never enough. You never give enough.

These thoughts run through his head as he arrives to an empty, silent flat, where he kicks off his shoes and proceeds to let himself fall apart. He doesn’t know when House will be leaving, but the fellows were strung up long after lunch (he’s not sure they even had lunch at all), so he assumes he’ll be alone for a while.

He was prepared for this. He was hoping for this, even, because the prospect of a friend who he may or may not have been in love with since the very first day he met him seeing him like this shouldn’t be nerve wracking, but Dr. House, of course, isn’t like any other friend or any other doctor.

His reactions and opinions and feelings are unpredictable, to say the least. Sometimes infuriating, sometimes genius, sometimes heartbreaking.

What is certain about House is that he hates Sam. He’s always hated her, and she’s always hated him, and Wilson has known this since the first day he introduced the two of them, while they lived in the perfect illusion and pretense that he didn’t have a clue.

Sam told him House didn’t care enough about him, about what was good for him and what was right for him. But House told him Sam didn’t care at all. That was the strangest of all. 

He was never quite sure who to believe, or who was right. But maybe figuring out who’s right would be a waste of time.

Wilson finds the thought of crying in front of his best friend embarrassing. He can only imagine the hostile approach the other man would have, if he’d say anything at all. House isn’t a person who gives comfort, and that’s fine with him.

He finds comfort in taking care of other people without ever expecting anything in return; something that his friend thinks is a character flaw, and which he would probably analyze himself if his vision wasn’t blurry, and his shoulders weren’t shaking, and his mind repeats a godforsaken question over and over to himself in the darkness of the living room. 

Why are you never enough? Why is no one ever enough for you?

It’s a question he needs to stop asking himself. It’s a question he can never answer. It’s one that never leaves him.

Despite it, he still very much notices when something changes in the silence that surrounds him. When an engine shuts off right outside the window, when keys rattle faintly, when a doorknob turns, and Wilson does the only thing he can think of and runs to the bathroom faster than he thought he was capable of.

Not much else disturbs the silence than soon arrives again, with the exception of his own breathing, and House’s footsteps somewhere in the distance.

He wonders if the other man will ignore the sound of the door slamming shut as soon as he walked in. He wonders if he will go straight to bed, or if he’ll see Wilson’s tear stained face eventually and scoff at the display, if he will interrogate him about some nurse that House has convinced himself that he’s flirting with, assuming that must be the root of the problem.

He’s played along with it before, for his best friend’s entertainment, but mainly, to avoid his suspicion. What better way to hide an unrequited yearning than by pretending you’re romantically involved with someone else?

It isn’t fair to Julie. He did love her, and he did love Bonnie, and he did love Sam, and he’s loved many other people in his life and loved them for everything they were. But something changed when he met House. 

There’s no other way to explain it; there’s the person he was before House, and the person he became after House.

It really wasn’t fair to any of them. But Wilson found that his best friend consumed him. He found that he wanted to give House everything he had and it still wasn’t enough. He found that House could give him as much as a nod in agreement or a taunting wink and it would mean everything.

Moving in with his friend was a bad idea, he concludes, as he’s hiding his tears in the bathroom like a child. It always was.

He really should’ve gotten a hotel room, like he told House he would. And then he didn’t. The couch really is awful. But being around House isn’t.

So he waits. 

It’s still silent, making him assume his friend has gone to bed. He doesn’t know how long it’s been between his own arrival and the other man’s, the concept of time has gotten lost somewhere, until one stern knock sounds on the door separating him from the rest of the apartment.

Well, his assumption was wrong. He doesn’t exactly know what to do with it.

He waits some more, the silence becoming so loud he thinks his ears might start ringing. Eventually, the voice on the other side of the wall breaks it.

“I’ll have to go to the bathroom sooner or later,” he tells him, tone unreadable.

Wilson nods to no one but himself. He swallows hard. There’s nothing else to do than to face him, which has always been just about the easiest and the hardest thing for him to do, at the same time.

“Right,” he calls to House, standing up straight. He tries to take a deep breath, and contemplates washing his face in the sink, but doesn’t bother when he catches sight of himself in the mirror, eyes and cheeks red and puffy. It’s too obvious, too transparent. 

The other man would know if he was hiding something, anyway, wouldn’t he? Doesn’t he?

When he eventually opens the door and looks straight into the eyes of his best friend, his expression is about as readable as his emotions. Wilson used to be better at this, or at least, he thought he had become better at this.

Maybe this is when he realizes that he doesn’t know his unrequited love at all, that he doesn’t understand the man in front of him any more than anyone else and that, in Dr. House’s eyes, maybe, Wilson isn’t any different compared to other people.

Maybe he is just part of… people. Maybe there’s no reason for his best friend to stick around with him compared to everyone else. Maybe he just happens to be available.

Maybe he has no idea that he is better and more special than anyone else Wilson could ever possibly imagine, and that he lives for the days the other man smiles at him and dies on the days that he doesn’t.

There’s too many maybe’s. So many that he sniffs and speaks before House has a chance, “This isn’t about Julie.”

His friend huffs. “Of course it isn’t,” he replies, “You must take me for an idiot.”

He doesn’t have the strength in him to play along with his quips. So he sighs, and walks past him, with passing out on the couch as his only goal. The other man appears shocked, although he isn’t too willing to show it.

And if House actually had to use the bathroom, he doesn’t, instead, he turns right back around and follows Wilson’s movement silently. He can feel his friend’s gaze boring a hole into his neck from behind him, and he discards the throw pillows on the floor, still trying to stop any more tears from breaking out.

This time, he really does think the other man will head to bed and ignore the whole scenario in the morning. But once again, he doesn’t. 

Once again, Dr. House is full of nothing but surprises all this time living under the same roof.

What is surprising is that his friend soon joins him on the couch. What is even more surprising is that he doesn’t put space between them, but that he occupies the seat right next to him, and that he doesn’t turn on the television, even though Wilson knows that he has three episodes yet to be seen of his favorite medical drama recorded on the DVR. But what is most surprising of all is that he doesn’t ask any questions at all; he knows exactly what’s on his mind. He supposes he should’ve known.

“Don’t tell me that bitch is getting to you,” House says, almost like an order, the both of them knowing exactly who he’s referring to, “Don’t tell me you’re that outrageously stupid.”

Ah, those familiar Gregory House words of comfort. Never gets old.

Wilson doesn’t answer. Neither does he question his friend about whether or not he’s listened to his voicemails, because he definitely has, so there’s just no point in asking about it. He just stares at their reflections in the dark of the television screen and wonders how it’s humanly possible for him to hate and love the woman on the phone so deeply, all at the same time.

“Maybe she’s right about me,” he mumbles in response, “Maybe she was. Maybe I cling on too hard and too easily.”

Surely, Dr. House always knows what to say. He always has a clever remark in his sleeve, or an incredibly inappropriate one, for that matter.

But Dr. House doesn’t say anything close to that.

Instead, he rises and rummages through the kitchen, and returns right back to the couch moments later with two glasses and the bottle of whiskey that Wilson bought him in case he needed some sort of gift to convince him to let him crash in the flat, those five months ago.

He frowns at the drink he gets handed, but his friend pops a Vicodin and looks at him without resentment, without malice or ridicule or anything similar to what those who hate House might expect from him. He supposes he expects all these sorts of things from him, often.

“I would agree with that statement if it wasn’t coming from your lovely first ex,” the other man decides solemnly, avoiding speaking her name like it’ll poison him and their surroundings, “She’s saying those things so you’ll take her back and let her control everything in your life again.”

Wilson has no idea what to do. “What if she needs me?” he asks, wincing again at how his voice breaks, knowing that the question carries little to no meaning.

House takes his drink in one gulp and continues, “People will always need people.”

“That sounds nothing like you,” he reminds him.

“I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Then why are you saying it?”

“Because I believe it.”

“Do you, House?” he asks, a flare of something like anger showing itself, something scarily similar to that night when his best friend held onto him for dear life, that night when he hated his friend’s partner for reasons that were beyond anyone’s control, “Do you, really? Since when did you ever believe in love or compassion or self sacrifice? Since when did you ever believe in the beauty of human connection?”

The words keep falling out of his mouth, it’s beyond his control anymore. The other man doesn’t look at him any different than he already is; a look that shocks him with the painful amount of sincerity in it.

“It’s what you believe in,” House recalls.

“Right,” Wilson huffs, too stubborn to accept the drink in his hand just yet, “So you’re just telling me what you think I want to hear?”

“That would be like saying I’m lying to you,” the other man says.

“Well, it’s not far-fetched, is it?” he finds himself laughing, almost, “You lie to everyone. Everybody lies.”

“Sometimes,” House starts, and the prolonged pause after the word almost has him thinking this is the only answer he’s willing to give, but he gives him more, eventually, “Sometimes, you need me to lie to you. Like when you and Bonnie got married and I waited until after your honeymoon to express just how insufferable she is. But most of the time, you need me to be honest with you.”

“I do,” he answers carefully, the conversation becoming entirely too cryptic for his tired mind.

“And I’m being honest with you right now,” the other man reassures him, “So believe me when I say she never saw you.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

House sighs in surprisingly mild frustration, “You need needy people, Jimmy. You need someone to give everything to, and someone who’s willing to take it. Sam’s needy, sure, but she never took anything you gave her. You gave everything and she didn’t care for it until she could use it against you. You can disagree with me all you want, but you know it’s true.”

Wilson feels like he’s going to pass out. Jimmy. 

Sam called him James, that is, when she didn’t call him a pathetic loser. Bonnie called him pumpkin and chipmunk and other similar names that taste too sickeningly sweet on his tongue. He can’t even remember what Julie called him.

“So I wasn’t enough for her,” he decides, the anger fizzing out of him like a balloon.

“So she didn’t appreciate you,” House corrects him.

“Because I should’ve done better.”

“Because you did everything for her and she demanded twice as much,” his friend says as he pours himself another glass, “Because she wanted you to give away everything until there was nothing left of yourself.”

“Isn’t that what love is about?” Wilson asks in exasperation, not sure he wants to know the other man’s answer. 

They’ve never talked about love. For obvious reasons, and for less obvious reasons. 

Friends say they love each other all the time. House and Wilson don’t. If they did, Wilson might’ve fooled himself into thinking those three words could mean more than they did.

“You’re a romantic,” his friend tells him like it’s an insult, “Losing sight of who you are isn’t romantic.”

He thinks about this for a while. It’s true, he would easily agree with him if it was any other day, any other time, any other person telling him this. 

But it’s today, it’s right now, and it’s the person he thinks about in his sleep who’s telling him a meaningful lesson about love, and it feels absolutely surreal.

For some reason, he decides to speak his mind. He clenches his teeth and says something he fears might be a fact. It’s the kind of thing that any decent stranger would assure him wasn’t true, and he would proceed to second guess their answer for the rest of eternity.

House would be blunt, and brutally honest, though. He’ll know what to say.

“What if I don’t like who I am? What then?” Wilson whispers.

House leans back and looks back at him in the reflection. He looks like he wants to say a lot of things. He doesn’t say a lot. 

“Then you must be an idiot,” he says it like a natural conclusion, but there’s no way Wilson expects what he follows that statement with, “It’s a good thing I like who you are, then.”

It’s shocking, to say the least. There’s nothing he’d believe less than what he just said, right now.

But when he turns his head to look at his friend, he knows with everything in him that what he just said is something he believed in, that he’s just as brutally and righteously honest as always. He knows that it’s not sentimental, it’s just a simple truth, as true as the law of gravity.

And he knows there’s no reason for House to lie to him about that.

This is exactly why Wilson cannot say anything to it. There’s nothing for him to say.

Instead, it feels like he’s watching himself from outside his own body, as he starts trembling with fresh, new sobs that rattle his bones, each more painful than the last, and he hears himself make the most pathetic noises that he’d be embarrassed about if he cared about that trivial thing anymore.

It all hurts too much.

But House takes him into his arms, and that means everything.

…

Walking into his workplace with a hangover isn’t exactly Wilson’s proudest moment, but at least he knows his best friend slash unrequited love slash flatmate of now six months is having a similar feeling of being worn out, tired and hazy. At least, it was said friend’s idea to drink alcohol in the first place, but he isn’t ungrateful, doesn’t blame him, but it provided him a welcome distraction.

It was a distraction from the sensation of crying into his best friend’s chest. It was a distraction from the sensation of the other man’s hands on the small of his back and on his arms, and from his eyes who could tell any and all of his secrets, they could, they must.

And it was a distraction, most of all, from the voice of his ex-wife haunting him the whole night. Wilson isn’t sure he believed any of the things House said; he hated himself too much to hear them, hated himself too much to accept them.

But he did fall asleep on his friend’s shoulder, like he had done many times before. The only difference was that the other man awoke him and shifted the two of them so he could rest his head on the armrest and prop his leg up on a pillow, and so that Wilson could lie on his chest between his legs, before they fell into a deep, peaceful slumber like no other.

He’s ashamed to say he thought about this particular fact every single second of the journey on the subway. He thought about how House made him breakfast this morning, and about how he laughed in disbelief when Wilson didn’t complain about him leaving the washing up from two days ago in the sink.

Wilson didn’t care. He cares about how he can’t stop brushing his hands against each other and how his fingertips burn from resting on his friend’s chest.

How he can still feel his warmth and his comfort, one that he gave him truthfully and unashamedly, one that Cuddy would never believe to be true if he told her of these events.

Much like his night in House’s hospital room, it’s the kind of night that he tries to argue with himself didn't actually happen.

But it did. He knows it did.

Maybe he tries to pretend like it didn’t because it would be easier, after all; but as he arrives and walks past the glass doors of the conference room, where the other man is flashing the biggest grin he’s ever seen as his sleep deprived fellows, Wilson decides that would be the opposite of easy.

If he had imagined it, that would be the most difficult pill to swallow. He would be too far gone, he would be left without hope. But it happened.

Cuddy would muse at the thought of House having a heart. Wilson would know that he always had one.

What hits him in the middle of Dr. House consuming every single part of his mind is that the very same doctor very much does not look like he’s fighting to stand up straight and not fall asleep on the spot. He doesn’t look like he’s hungover at all.

In fact, he looks like he’s never slept better in his life, and not on a lumpy couch with the weight of another human being on top of him, which he knows to be false.

It’s crazy, because House looks cheerful. He looks like he’s giving some grand motivational speech in there, even if it is still laced by his usual sarcasm. The fellows look as shocked as he does.

It’s what makes him decide to take a page out of his best friend’s own book and interrupt their meeting without knocking, because his head is pounding, because he needs the other man to pinch him or maybe even punch him in the face to make sure what is happening is real, and because he needs to escape the nurses at the front desk, who started whispering as soon as he turned his back to them after asking if House was in his office.

Wendy was the one who bid him good morning, and the one who smiled sweetly and lifted one eyebrow as he mentioned his best friend’s name. She didn’t look surprised, of course. She rather just looked… satisfied. She looked like the two of them had just made a pinky promise and he had no idea what she had sworn to not tell, it flew completely over his head.

Come to think, she’s been doing that a lot lately. Most of the nurses have, actually.

One of the surgeons months back asked him how him and House were holding up, and Wilson spent many days afterwards wondering why suddenly everyone knew about the two of them living together, why it was seemingly vital information, why their workplace responded to them as if they were celebrities in a reality television show, why some seemed to follow their every movement.

It really was strange. He couldn’t fathom why anyone would find him all that important, how he didn’t just blend into his surroundings.

Although, he always felt this way, unless he was around House. Around him, he felt like a shooting star waiting to burst, or a grenade waiting to explode. He wonders if other people feel this way around Dr. House, as well.

His friend seemed calmer as soon as he entered the room. Wilson has no idea if he just imagines that.

“There you are,” the other man tells him casually, and he feels three pairs of eyes on his cheek immediately, urging himself not to sweat under the fellows’ intense gaze, “I don’t assume you’ve bothered to get us lunch yet?”

“I just got in,” Wilson replies. There’s no malice in his joking question, either. It’s not overly exaggerated or entirely unlike House, in fact, it is exactly what House would say and do.

It’s normal. It’s comforting. It’s like he’s still holding him in his embrace and letting his tears soak his t-shirt. It’s like a touch of a hand on his cheek or an arm resting around his back as he dozes off.

He knows what that feels like. He’s experienced it. Wilson fears he’ll start blushing just at the thought of it.

And House smiles at him, clearly satisfied with his answer, which is all kinds of insane. He doesn’t berate him or taunt him or wait for him in annoying silence until he does what he asks. He just smiles. Wilson wouldn’t mind either one of these things; they feel like home, because at this point, they are. He just doesn’t understand what he did to deserve a smile like that, today.

One that’s warm and mischievous and drives his mind around in circles upon itself. One that makes him forget where he is and who he is and everything else until nothing matters but the man in front of him. 

The doctors at the table look back at their boss like they’ve just seen a ghost.

If Wilson didn’t know better, he’d say House also quite looked like he forgot about time and space for a second. Nevertheless, he catches the fellows’ eyes with a deadpan expression and wipes out the text he just wrote on the board harshly as he speaks to them.

“Don’t you kids have some very important tests to do?”

They mumble something between them under their breaths, nodding and rolling their eyes, the typical response House earns himself, and the one that makes him grin in satisfaction the most.

And the doctors all smile politely in greeting towards Wilson as they leave the room, although every one of them looks rather eager to stay. They look too intrigued, too curious, too secretive. He’s got a feeling they’d like to run to the nurses and share whatever it is on their minds that he can’t figure out.

All he knows is that, for the first time in his life, being alone with House is torture. He used to long for nothing but this, and spend the end of time with nothing but that on his mind.

Now, he isn’t so sure. Now, although his friend looks like a beacon of light in the dead of night, it’s like he's holding onto some code he can’t decipher. Something changed between them last night, and he cannot tell if it’s for the better, or for the worse. Or if they can just continue to be as they are.

That’s his ideal outcome, the one seeming most realistic and yet delusionally unreal. Wilson just wants to be with him. He just wants them to be.

What’s even more torturous than being alone with House, is House not talking to him. Instead, he’s made him coffee. He’s made them both coffee. Wilson thinks he might be hallucinating, at this point.

The other man sips from his own cup and doesn’t wait for him to join him, but he takes a seat on top of his desk, anyway, once again leaving his own chair free for the taking. 

So he takes the seat. And then he waits. But his best friend says nothing.

It’s as his worst fear predicted it; that the other man didn’t just wave off last night like it wasn’t a big or life altering event, but suppressed it, erased it from existence. Wilson doesn’t know if he can live with that. He doesn’t know if he should remind him, if he’s allowed to conjure the memory up again.

But he does it, he clears his throat as he warms his palms around the heat of the cup and looks up at his friend, who’s turned to look at the now blank whiteboard in deep contemplation. He studies the scruff on his chin and the lines around his eyes and loses his breath, but speaks up anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Wilson says. It’s the only thing he can think of. It’s the only words that could matter.

Strange thing is, House turns and stares at him like he just said something incriminating. It isn’t easy to shock Dr. Gregory House, but it appears he’s just succeeded in doing just that.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Wilson feels his mouth turning dry. If he had to be honest with himself, he’s not sure what he’s apologizing for, himself.

I’m sorry for ruining everything. I’m sorry for clinging onto you too hard. Sam warned me.

“I must’ve looked pathetic last night,” he settles on the reply, licking his lips, “Thank you… for bearing with me. But I’ll get through it. Just promise me you won’t do anything rash like threaten Sam or someth-”

“I already deleted all her voicemails,” House tells him as if it was obvious. Wilson hadn’t even known she’d left more than one. He can’t even bring himself to be upset about his friend invading his privacy by using his phone, but it doesn’t matter to him anymore.

Is it even his privacy, has it ever not included House? Have they ever been two separate beings, have they ever not been tragically dependent on the other?

“Okay,” he decides to answer, because it’s the only thing he knows how to say.

“You look rough, buddy,” his friend continues, “You can’t handle too much whiskey, can you?”

His easy slip back to joking, to picking on him, to a faux pitying voice that would drive Wilson crazy if everything else about the other man wasn’t driving just as crazy already. And so, all his doubting thoughts are drowned out by a new question, one that he would scream at the top of his lungs if his throat wasn’t sore and he wasn’t terrified of causing a scene he could never come back from.

He’d rather just die here. With House and no one else. Maybe not right now, but inevitably, it’s something he’s imagined, that one day this man will be the end of him. He’s surprisingly fine with that.

“Why did you stay?”

“What?”

“Why did you?” Wilson asks again, “Why did you… you hate Sam. You hate all my exes. You hate when I talk about them. And why did you…” he sighs, “Why did you let me fall asleep on you? Or touch you, or-”

“You needed me,” House says, as if it were the simplest explanation in the world. And it is.

He must be hallucinating now, he reasons with himself, it’s the only way this conversation could ever realistically happen. His friend suddenly doesn’t feel as distant, like the oceans between them have calmed and the storm has cleared.

“It’s not like you,” he replies, but the words sound ugly and bitter when he hears them out loud, “I mean-”

“It really isn’t. But you’ve never really needed me like that before,” House says, serious as ever.

Oh, if only he knew.

The other man goes on, “You never need anything, do you, Jimmy? It’s like I said. You attract needy people like a moth to a flame, I mean, look at me. But you never allow yourself to be needy for once in your goddamn life. Well, congrats, you just did it.”

Wilson has no idea where to begin in unpacking what he’s being told. Suddenly, it’s as if the world folded in on itself and compressed him into nothingness.

All there’s left is House. He’s fine with that, too.

“I suppose so,” he responds, too distracted by House’s lips moving and his teeth chewing the inside of his cheek. And then, because some otherworldly bravery possesses him for a minute, he admits to something, “You made me feel like I was enough.”

The other man crosses his hands on his lap and now angles his body towards him completely, leaning entirely into his space, leaning almost as close as he had last night, so close that Wilson feels his head start spinning, making him all the more self conscious, all the more bouncy and sweaty and shaking.

“You shouldn’t need me to tell you that,” he says in mild disappointment, apparently more aimed towards himself, “But good.”

“I need you to tell me something else, then,” he urges.

“Alright,” House accepts his request easily, patiently waits while Wilson collects himself, in a scarily similar moment to the night before. No malice, no ridicule, no lightheartedness, no assumption. Just Wilson and House, House and Wilson, and no one else.

“I need you to tell me why Foreman thinks I could do better than you.”

“Huh?”

“I need you to tell me why Cuddy is concerned about our relationship. I need you to tell me why the nurses smile to me whenever I say your name and whisper around when I’m out of sight,” he whispers it urgently as if he’s scared someone might hear, feeling like he can’t breathe, feeling like his headache is returning, “And I need you to tell me why you haven’t kicked me out. Why you didn’t kick me out a long time ago. Because I don’t understand it, House, and I don’t understand you.”

His friend, the object of all his affection and one-sided pining, he seems lost in thought as he listens to Wilson’s wild rambling. He would regret saying all of this out loud immediately, he feels embarrassed already, he feels like he’s starving himself and House is the only person capable of saving him from fading.

“I can kick you out if you want me to so badly.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Sure,” the other man says, as if this is the most normal conversation ever, “Well, Cuddy is your friend and cares about your well being and whether or not I am corrupting you,” he continues his speech, putting heavy air quotations around the word, “And Dr. Foreman and the ducklings are probably right, logistically. They don’t like how I treat you - well, they don’t like me, but that’s not very original. They don’t think I’m capable of love.”

Love. “Love?” Wilson asks, bewildered as ever.

House laughs, “You’re strange. Very strange indeed. They don’t understand how you could ever love someone as… selfish as me. An egomaniac, isn’t that what they call me?”

The knowledge comes crashing down upon him all at once; the walls are closing in on him, crushing his organs one at the time until he’s nothing but dust. Except they aren’t, and he’s alive, and House is alive, and he just spoke of the word love.

He knows. Of course he knows. He’s always known.

“You’re not-” Wilson protests, “You’re not incapable of love. You’re not undeserving of love.”

“You believe that?” his friend asks, sounding genuinely curious, “Why do you stay? Why haven’t you left?”

“What?”

“Why haven’t you left me yet?” House asks again, sounding degrees more upset. Like it’s something he’s thought about over and over again for years. Like it’s haunted him since the very first day. It’s painful. It hurts Wilson all too much for him to process.

“How long have you known?” he evades the question with his own, wondering if this office is the right place to argue as they are.

“How long have I known what?”

“That I-” he starts, his voice breaking over that one simple syllable. He never thought that would be easy. This would be the hardest thing he’s ever done. “That I love you. That I love you more than anyone I have ever loved before. That I know you hate everyone else I love and how it doesn’t matter to me, how I could love you and no one else for the rest of my life. That I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, probably, I can’t really remember. It took me too long to realize. But I need to know how long it took you to realize and why you haven’t told me and why you haven’t pushed me away like you should have.”

It’s a confession of love he never thought he was going to let out, and yet here he is, here they are, and here those words have been spoken and settled in the air between them.

House is as unreadable as ever. He doesn’t look displeased or disgusted, though, so he guesses that must be a good sign. Wilson won’t allow himself to be hopeful, but he does it, he hopes, he prays for a way to fix something that can’t be fixed.

“Jimmy, are you an idiot?” House asks him instead, sounding exasperated.

Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.

“What?”

“Of course I know, you don’t have to do some terrible monologue about it,” he says, but shockingly enough, gives him a look that radiates something quite like fondness, “Your days of being a theater kid are long gone. Snap out of it.”

“You never said anything,” Wilson reminds him, “I did everything to hide it, to make sure you never knew.”

The man on the desk huffs. “Seems like the fellows should be questioning me about dating you, since you’ve clearly lost your mind.”

Dating.

Dating.

Jimmy. Gregory House.

None of those words make any sense to him, not now, not ever. He thinks he’s feeling lightheaded.

“Dating?” Wilson catches himself almost yelling it. He doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. Why would his best friend and unrequited love maybe of his entire life say that? Why would he risk that?

“I’m not crazy about that word, either, but you’re ridiculous.”

“House, since when have we been dating?”

“What is wrong with you, right now?”

“Don’t avoid my question, please, ” he whines, and he doesn’t even have it in him to feel ashamed of it, “How long have we been dating?”

House sighs and rubs his temple, then proceeds to run his finger along Wilson’s sleeve, like he’s done once before, “Six months. You moved in with me, remember?”

“I remember,” he agrees, “I don’t remember you ever asking me out. I don’t remember us ever going on a date or being a couple. I don’t remember you ever telling me you knew how I felt and that you felt the same way.”

“I thought it was obvious,” House tells him ever so seriously. 

He can’t fucking believe this is happening. He can’t believe that this is real and tangible and that he’s cursing under his breath and that everything is so unlike him and House and yet it’s just… perfect. Yet the whole thing fits like a glove. Yet it’s so them, through and through.

“So, you’re telling me,” he asks him, all anger coming and going again like he’s experienced it before, this time, however, replaced with something that is nowhere near sadness or pain or hopelessness. He doesn’t know what it is. It doesn’t feel entirely bad, “That we have been in a relationship- a romantic relationship for half a year and I just didn’t know? That you and all of our coworkers have thought we were a couple this whole time?”

“It appears so.”

“I can’t-” Wilson stutters over his own tongue, biting down hard on his lip to make sure he isn’t dreaming, “I can’t believe this. You know, relationships usually involve more communication.”

“I thought you knew.”

“Fuck. I thought you would hate me if you ever knew of my feelings. You hate sentimental bullshit. I never thought you could love anyone else other than Stacy.”

“Foolish of you to think I could ever hate you,” House decides, “I do hate confessions like the one you just painfully made. That’s entirely unnecessary. You love me and I love you and we shouldn’t need to prove that to anyone other than each other.”

“You love me,” he repeats his friend’s words, still not entirely believing it, “Why would you love me?”

The man shrugs. This whole thing is ridiculous. But it’s true and unreal and it’s the most important thing to him that has happened and will ever happen. It makes all of the pain worth it, somehow.

“Because you’re everything,” House explains, “And nothing else matters.”

Wilson doesn’t think he’s crying, he can’t feel tears streaming or his anxiety burning up inside of him. But the heart that Sam ripped out and splattered all over the floorboards yesterday has somehow made itself whole again, and has found a new home.

“You believe that?”

“Of course I do,” the other man confirms.

“Then I believe it.”

Maybe it was always meant to be this way. Maybe they were always meant to be Wilson and House, Jimmy and Greg, and maybe they were always supposed to be stubborn and insufferable to be around. 

But he lives for it, and they live for each other. And he’s right. Nothing else matters.