Work Text:
Verge
"She moved in two weeks ago," House says.
Wilson feels his mouth falling open, even knowing it's a bad idea. His stomach clenches. House seems so irrepressible, like a big kid. He'd be bouncing his knee if he was sitting down. As it is, he looks like he's about to start pacing around his office to work off some excess energry. Wilson's still not sure he heard right, though. House? Let someone--a woman--into his life? "But...I thought--"
"Don't worry, this isn't going to cut into our manly bonding time." House flashes a quick smirk at him, happy to be mocking. "As long as you don't mess it up by being a girl."
"That's not--" Wilson stops. There's really nothing he can say. He reaches deep, and pulls on a smile. "Congratulations."
House's forehead wrinkles in confusion. "I pretend to like your girlfriends," he says. "And you usually pretend so much better than I do. In fact, I think you get off on it."
Wilson shakes his head. "No. No, she's lovely. But--" There are really no words to say it. He feels like a conspiracy artist, lining up his tinhat theories, but even Bonnie has commented on the fact that it seems, sometimes, like House is flirting with him. "You...steal my food," he says. That, at least, is an undeniable fact.
"No kidding." At first, House looks like he's going to pull another quip out of the air, something about Wilson just begging to have his lunch money bullied out of him every day before school, but then his frown deepens, and he's staring at Wilson.
Wrong track. Wrong time. Wilson's heart starts pounding, and he stutters, "N-no, it's...never mind. I'm sure she's wonderful."
"She is," House says, sharply. That predatory stare is still there.
Wilson backs up, heading towards the door. He has to escape. He can't stay here and watch House slowly put the pieces together. "Anyway, I don't want to interrupt. You two crazy kids..." He chuckles nervously. "Enjoy yourselves." He's nearly free. A meaningless smile and two steps to the door and he won't have to hold up under House's scrutiny any longer.
Before he reaches it, House has launched himself across the room. His arm reaches over Wilson's shoulder to slam the door shut before Wilson can open it fully. "Did you have something you wanted to say, Jimmy?" he asks. His voice is low, almost dangerous, and his breath is warm in Wilson's ear.
Under any other circumstances, it would be a sensation that Wilson would grab hold of, shiver to remember, keep for...other times, to take out and examine. To say to himself, If I had just turned my head right then, we would have been kissing. Right now he doesn't want that at all. No. No. Not after all these years, to find out he'd been an idiot. "House, I have to go."
He expects House to answer. To snap, "So suddenly?" Or to act. House might be the one to take it further, to take the step Wilson could never force himself to take on his own.
But House backs off. Suddenly the heat and the threat of him is gone. Wilson's escape route is unblocked, if he wants to take it. Of course, he turns around, and looks back at House instead.
House isn't looking at him, exactly. He's bouncing his fist on the corner of his desk, looking over his shoulder towards the window as if his greatest concern right now is whether he should worry about a forgotten umbrella. "I love her," he says.
Wilson can't have heard House right. He doesn't think he's ever heard House use that word--at least, when it wasn't preceded by "I fucking" and followed by "monster trucks!"
He doesn't want House to have said it. Wilson isn't supposed to have to congratulate House on his new girlfriend. He isn't supposed to have to say, "I'm happy for you." It's a lie, anyway. Right now it's a lie, and when Wilson lies to House, he wants it to be grander, to mean more than some social nicety. He starts, "You--" A pause, and he licks his lips. "You've only known her for three weeks, House."
House's head lifts sharply. Now that he has something to attack, any evidence of introspection vanishes. "When did you propose to Ellie?" he says. "Was that week four, or did you make it to the second month?"
Wilson knows he can't defend himself against House's too-thorough knowledge of his life, and he shakes his head. But there must still be some chance, otherwise why would House back away like that? To hide his reaction, maybe. Because, if he really loves this woman, he can't risk being near Wilson anymore. That has to be it. Wilson has nothing left to lose. He thinks of Bonnie--or, really, he doesn't think of her at all. He sweeps her out of his mind when he closes the distance between himself and House. It's always seemed so slight before, like there was never room for another person between them.
"House," he says, and he thinks, just let me try. House has to know what he's doing, why he's standing so close. House has everyone figured out, or thinks he does. So Wilson doesn't hesitate, not anymore. He lifts a hand to House's cheek and kisses him.
House wrenches away, before even a second has passed. Before Wilson can fully assimilate the taste of his mouth, the once-familiar feel of the grain of stubble against his lips. "What the hell are you doing?"
Wilson can only shrug helplessly. "I--I wanted to know."
And now he does. House is tense, angrier than Wilson's ever seen him--angrier, because he's not lashing out, not with words or by punching Wilson in the jaw. Coldly angry, so bound up in himself that he's shaking with it. "I told you, I love Stacy," he says. "Even if I didn't--even if she was just some woman, you think I'm going to cheat on her after three weeks?"
Wilson swallows hard, or tries to. He won't back away from whatever House wants to fling at him. He's earned it. This is his fault, his blame to take. "If she wasn't..." His life is full of ifs and this might just be another one. "If it didn't work," he says. He knows how easy it is to hope, to believe. And this is House. No one could put up with him forever. She might love him now, but for how long?
"Even if," House says, his words harsh with emphasis. "I'm not interested."
Wilson presses his lips together. There's no I'm sorry that can fix this. House will avoid him now. They'll pass in the hallways and House will look aside, the way he does when he can't, or won't, acknowledge something that hurts him. And Wilson will let him. He'll pretend for House, the way he pretends for everyone else. They're colleagues, that's all. Certainly not friends anymore.
"Fuck," House bursts out suddenly. Wilson looks up at him, his mouth open again, waiting for House to yell at him to get out. Instead, House's voice is quiet again when he says, "I told you." He pushes past Wilson, heading for the door, grabbing his jacket on his way. But before he leaves, he glances over his shoulder. His eyes, when he meets Wilson's, seem so simple and uncomplicated. Which is a lie, as Wilson has known since the moment he met House, but House isn't leaving. He's not pretending Wilson doesn't exist.
Three seconds too late, Wilson realizes what House meant. House told him. He may not even have told Stacy yet, this mystery woman that Wilson has barely met. All he's seen is tall, dark, gorgeous. He doesn't know her. But House does. And House feels something for her. House, who doesn't say he loves his mother or his father or the dog he had when he was twelve, he loves her.
If Wilson can't accept that, then yeah, it's over. He has to find a way to fix this, to put the kiss--the mistake--in the past. "So," he starts, and clears his throat. "So she killed you at paintball. She..." He sighs, and smiles crookedly. "Sounds like the perfect woman."
House nods, although it seems almost like he wants to deny it; as if he's too scared for that to be true. "Yeah," he says. Dismissive. The subject's over. House shrugs, and pulls the door open at last. "You hungry?"
"Sure," Wilson says, and follows him out.
end