Chapter Text
A role reversal of the ages. The heavens should have opened up and it should be raining fire. Dealing with the horsemen. You know..all that stuff. The end of days really.
Wilson was not a man for hyperbole but he couldn't help it this time around.
The event in question. House feeding him.
Wilson knew damn well for most of the past couple years he was the only thing keeping House from forgetting to eat for god knows how long because apparently this man didn't see food unless it was on someone else's plate.
And that person's plate more often than not happened to be Wilson's. He'd taken great measures to make sure House ate enough, or well, enough that he wasn't drinking the majority of his calories via bourbon and to give his liver some hope of not rotting out from inside of him prematurely.
But now, House off Vicodin. In his house. Cooking.
And cooking a lot.
Wilson had expected many things waking up. House jacking off to DVD porn was the worst thing he could imagine right now. Sleepy. Annoyed. With a headache, and a mouth that frankly tasted like ass (not that he knew what that tasted like)
He didn't expect to walk into the kitchen to get water and get hit by a fucking smell. Not a bad one. But one far too rich for 7am Wilson.
Without preamble a spoon was shoved in his mouth. Mm. That was good. He looked up. House looked at him. He looked at House. In a pink frilly apron. He didn't clock that yet.
“‘s good.”
“I know.”
“Why'd you make me eat it then.”
“Wanted to see your face.”
Little note was said after that. Wilson ate cereal. Bran flakes. God he hated bran flakes. Why did he do this to himself. Right. Because he was watching his weight. Again. Curse his metabolism and not letting him eat without putting everything around his waist as some sort of failsafe.
But goddamn he hated fucking bran flakes. Even maple syrup. That glorious glorious tree blood, failed to make it taste less like soggy cardboard.
House looked at him again. Smacked down a bowl with entirely too much force.
“Mashed potatoes.”
“It's 7.20 House.”
“It's either the bran flakes or the potatoes. I already ate.”
“Have you now?” Even more absurd than House feeding him was House feeding himself.
“Trust me they're the best fucking mashed potatoes you'd ever seen.”
“I'll be the judge of that.”
He took a spoon. He'd never seen smashed potatoes so smooth and skinless. Mm. Mmf those were good. Creamy. Soft. Mm yea. This was good.
He finished the bowl at record speed, only realising it was empty when the spoon came back empty.
God. House how did you get the potatoes that creamy?
Apparently it was a secret.
(Between me and you it was the fact that House had put more butter than potatoes and thickened it with heavy cream and passed it through a sieve)
Far better than bran flakes. And also about thrice as heavy. Good lord he needed a nap. No comment on the fact that he just woke up.
To House, Wilson looked a bit like a hamster. A very sleepy one. Kind of adorable in a pathetic way. Wilson was a stress eater. Always had been. Probably always will be
Another thing he was was remarkably easily swayed if food was given as an incentive, he'd be a perfect lab rat, except he'd be a lab hamster. Where was he again?
Right, yes, Wilson.
“Aww, James, are you sleepy? Sleepy little hamster?”
“Shut up House. I'm not a hamster.”
“Yes you are. And that's not an answer.”
Wilson didn't dignify that. He had places to be, unlike House he couldn't afford to show up to the hospital whenever he damn pleased, he wasn't getting late per se. But still. Places to be that weren't his kitchen (currently occupied by one Gregory House) and things to do that didn't involve him eating half his bodyweight in potatoes.
He realised House was in his apron
“House why are you wearing my apron?”
“Only apron in the house. It just happened to be pink and frilly and yours.”
“Fine, just. Don't burn the place down.”
Wilson went to go change. He didn't have time for this. Everything on, clean. Fresh..ah..he could almost pretend he didn't eat that much for breakfast
His trousers fit fine (for now) and he'd like it to stay that way till at least November. He didn't look like a hamster. Did he?
No he didn't. House was being an ass again. And besides. If Wilson was a hamster what did that make House. An asshole of a rat?
Again. Places to do. What was he doing standing in front of the mirror staring at himself thinking about rodents.
House didn't have his licence back either, did he, that would be strange. Not having House just randomly burst in. Probably a good thing, could get more work done without getting pulled into some questionably legal shenanigan that would end with either them in prison or HR.
However that would mean he would be home and bored. A bored House was a dangerous House
Honestly he didn't know what was worse. House being bored at work and roping Wilson into something he shouldn't even consider or House being bored at home and fucking cooking.
This still felt like the end of days, House lived off takeout, why was he doing this. Also. How long had he been able to cook like that, had he just been stealing his food for 15 odd years because he wanted to be an ass. Actually why was he even asking that, of course he was.
Anyways..he decided. As a treat to walk to work instead of driving, burn off the calories oh, oh he didn't have the time for that. The potatoes took far more time than he hoped, head about 30 minutes to get to work exactly without being late.
Wilson tended to go to work 15 minutes early. He couldn't walk this. Driving it was. He'd go by the stairs then. That would get him down exercise. He needed it, couldn't afford to fatten up just because House decided to cook up a fucking storm.
Right. Off to the hospital.
Halfway through a jam caused by shitty new York drivers he realised something, tapping finger against the wheel, looking at his watch. Staring.
Hang on.
House was wearing his apron. A pink frilly thing that he was pretty sure House himself had got him a couple years ago to celebrate the fact that Bonnie said he couldn't top. It rankled him at the time but it was honestly a rather comfortable apron now, a bit singed and faded.
It was the only apron Wilson used nowadays..mainly because he couldn't be arsed to buy an apron. But he never thought he'd ever see House in it.
Ah. Traffic cleared up. Perfect. Wouldn't be late.
And he had to stop thinking about House in that fucking apron. Idiot.
And why, pray tell. Was his pager going insane. For the love of god he just got here and House didn't have it in him to not pester him for 5 minutes.
Honestly Wilson kind of thought House's ability to annoy people was limited to face to face, bursting into his office while he was in the middle of a consult or trying to do paperwork on 4 hours of sleep and an unholy amount of (milky) coffee, what do you think he was, a masochist who liked black coffee?
Anyways, evidently not, given that it had been about 12 minutes and he was already ready to throw his pager out the window.
Asshole.
Anyways, he had a busy morning, rounds and a few consults in the afternoon, plenty of time to somehow both ignore House paging him and also not be able to ignore the fact that House wasn't there. Don't ask what he was thinking. He couldn't tell you.
It did feel empty without him. Foreman was in charge of diagnostics, something that was logically good for Cuddy, her sanity, any cases diagnostics would have, HR, Wilson's own sanity. But still, the eternal anxiety conditioned into him to have House burst in at least once a day wasn't letting up and he kept looking across the balcony.
Why did they even have a connected balcony? Oncology was 2 floors and 3 corridors down, he'd thought about this a lot (mainly when the lifts were out of order and he had to run up and down the stairs half a dozen times an hour. But now it was
because House wasn't there and that was making him antsy in some convoluted way.
Enough with the musing.
He had things to do. That didn't involve throwing his pager out the window. Hopefully.