Chapter Text
"You were sure he had AIDS. Then you talked to him, then you had doubts. What- what did he say?" said Wilson, sounding bewildered.
"He said he had not engaged in any risky behavior." House responded subtly with sarcasm as he started to walk towards exam room 1.
"Huh. And you believed him?" Wilson retorted while also following him.
"Well, he didn't have any reason to lie–"
" 'Everybody lies' except.. politicians?" interrupted Wilson. House looked away.
Wilson continued "House, I believe you're a romantic. You didn't just believe him, you believed IN him. Do you want to come over tonight to watch old movies and cry?" teased the younger doctor with apparent amusement in his voice.
House looked up through his eyelids into Wilson's eyes with a smirk. Wilson pointed at him all accusatory.
"Dr. Cameron's getting to you. Well I guess you can't be around that much niceness and not get any on you."
"Is that why you haven't put the moves on her?"
"What makes you think I haven't put the moves on her?" deadpanned Wilson.
House stopped, clearly taken aback a little, and scanned Wilson's face for a while, eyebrows slowly drawing together, full of questions. Wilson quickly noticed, pointed once again at his friend's expression with an "Oh". House looked up to the ceiling with half a smile, already knowing what Wilson thinks he's deduced from his pause.
"Oh, boy! You're in trouble." said Wilson pointedly, walking away while still looking at the older man and quietly chuckling. House, annoyed, lips tightly sealed, just nodded at him, as if to play along, to give the other man the satisfaction of thinking he caught him.
Yet when Wilson walked away, House's expression dropped into a more solemn one and he sighed. If only he knew House thought.
Because the pause had had indicated jealousy, but while Wilson thought it was directed towards Cameron — that despite House's numerous comments — he does have feelings, and as it turns out romantic ones, for one of his fellows no less, but the truth isn't exactly.. as such. In reality, it's directed towards HIM. Doctor James Evan Wilson. The boy wonder oncologist, House's one and only friend, and the man he's been in love with since '91, since the medical convention in New Orleans, since their very first meeting.
Wilson this time was right though, House is, in fact, more of a romantic than he lets on. I mean, love at first sight, how much more romantic can you get? Ever since he entered that hotel bar and saw the drop-dead gorgeous man sitting and drinking his troubles away, clearly just having been dealt with divorce papers which he was holding onto with strange devotion, he knew he was infatuated on the spot. The infatuation quickly turned into full blown love of course, after seeing the man throw a bottle at a mirror, which broke said mirror, which also in consequence caused House having to bail the man out of jail. What a night.
House frowned, having now realized that Wilson was also right about another thing: he was in trouble. All throughout the years, House has tried to analyze every inch of Wilson to his best abilities. And so far he can proudly say that Wilson is straight. A perfect example of a heterosexual man. Two ex-wives, one wife, many girlfriends and even more flings. House concluded he has no chance with Wilson. Yet still with that knowledge, his feelings don't seem to want to fade away. On the contrary, they're getting worse.
House snapped out of his thoughts and quickly dealt with the patient in the exam room. He then went back to his office, his fellows off somewhere probably doing doctor stuff, he didn't really care. He put his shoes on his desk and turned on the TV.
He didn't even notice when he fell asleep until he was woken up by a pager pretty late in the evening. Through instinct that got instilled in him throughout medical school, still half asleep, he reached for his belt, pulled out the pager and noticed his pager wasn't the one making the noise. Then what was it? House put his feet down, hissing with the partial numbness caused by the position he was sleeping in for at least 5 hours, accompanied with the usual throbbing pain from his thigh and he pulled out two Vicodin pills, swallowed them dry then stood up, looking around for the source of the persisting noise.
Still with sleep in his eyes, House looked out of his office and immediately found the culprit. Outside of his office, next to the wall, on the floor, was a pager, still buzzing and shining a bright green light.
House, clearly annoyed but also quite curious, picked up his cane in his dominant hand and went to the source of the disturbance this late in the evening. Can't a man have some peace and quiet.
He picked it up and read the message:
Please proceed to room 256.
Huh.
Whatever it is, it better be important enough to interrupt my nap House thought as he started heading down to the elevator. Then his brain caught up with him.
Room 256 is in the oncology ward and not many oncologists dare to walk on the diagnostic medicine department floor. The pager belongs to Wilson then. But Wilson wouldn't be so careless to lose his pager, he cares too much about his bald-headed kids. Actually, where is Wilson?
House arrived at the designated floor and made quick work of finding room 256. He entered, eyes squinted as he was getting used to the almost dark room, the only light source being a candle lit on the bedside and the hospital lights from the corridor shining through the curtains a little. He then noticed the patient- an older woman, in her 70's, with short curly gray hair, face vaguely wrinkled, no ring on her finger, nothing but a circle of white on her skin showing that there used to be a ring there, for a few decades in fact, but not anymore. The light from the candle illuminated her face, showing a sort of melancholic expression on her face. Her fingers fidgeted with the absence of the ring, her teeth worried her lip, her eyes glassy and full of thoughts.
House spoke before he even knew his mouth was moving "You're dying." The woman startled out of her thoughts looked up at him, but with no anger at the bluntness, instead, she smiled.
"I'm afraid so, dear. Brain cancer, stage 4." said the woman, with a pause, looking House up and down, then continued "Where's Dr. Wilson? I asked the nurses to call for him."
House walked up to the bed, hooked his cane on its railing and picked up her chart "Unfortunately erm– Miss Smith, Dr. Wilson isn't currently available." he said as he read the chart.
"Oh" whispered the frail woman. "Is that why you came here then, Dr. House?"
House looked up from the chart and hooked it back up to the bed, then moved a little closer to the patient. "How'd you know who I am?" he said and as he moved, pain coursed once again throughout his entire body, courtesy of his right leg, and so with no fanfare, he pulled out the vicodin again, and swallowed three this time.
"Oh I've heard a thing or two about the miserable yet witty doctor with a cane"
"Does Wilson often talk about me or is it the nurse gossip?" asked House.
"Not telling" asserted the woman while flickering her nose with a finger. "You know, he's a very nice young man, that Dr. Wilson. Good looking too."
"Bit of a people pleaser I'd say, Miss Smith,"
"Please feel free to call me Eleanor, dear. Smith is my ex-husband's last name."
"What's your maiden name then? Rigby?" House joked.
Eleanor lightly laughed but got abruptly stopped as she went into a coughing fit. When she stopped, she breathed deeply and her hand started to seek out the bottle of water that sat on her bedside, right next to the candle and a few dandelions in a vase. House felt for a second compelled to hand her the water but she managed to grab it and quickly gulped the water down. And then "I think he'd do you some good," she remarked.
House froze in his place, looking into Eleanor's eyes, his own squinted once again, eyebrows drawn together. She looked back with a confidence that would be considered out-of-character for a dying old lady with cancer.
"How'd you figure that?" responded House with an astute look
The woman just smiled and shrugged.
"He has a wife." House continued
"As if that ever stopped men before." she sighed
"He's straight."
"Honey, I know a straight man when I see one."
"Are you calling Wilson camp?"
"I'm just saying, he's too nice for his own good, you're too much of a jerk. You'd be great together. My husband and I were just the same. Opposites attract, you know. Besides, you do have feelings for him, don't you?"
"Excuse me?"
"You should tell him how you feel before it's too late"
"I think him being married would be the definition of 'too late'." House observed.
"Marriage isn't forever, not in most cases anyway. But that's not what I was referring to."
"You mean, before he kicks it or before I do?
What's your prognosis doctor, how much time do we have left for goodbye sex before we kick the bucket?" said House with faux worry in his voice.
"You never know, dear. My first husband died at 36, car accident. We always thought we had more time, that we were still considerably still young, that we could still have kids. We never did."
House sighed. I wouldn't worry about the kids thing in my case. "So anyway, why'd you want Wilson in here?"
Eleanor smirked at the clear deflection, but didn't push on. Her smile faded as she prepared her next words. "I wanted to thank him for everything." she said, voice riddled with emotion.
"Alright, I'll let him know then. Bye." House mumbled and turned towards the door. He went into the elevator and in there he finally looked at his watch and realized it's 1am. He went back to his office to get his things and then proceeded to go home.
The next morning, House noticed he still had Wilson's pager with him. At 10am he (finally) arrived at work and got stopped by Cuddy at the entrance. "How's your case coming along?" she asked, going for nonchalant but clearly asking because of Vogler breathing down her neck.
Right, the case, he forgot about it for a moment. House scoffed. "My kids are off doing some MRI's and CT's and whatnot. We're getting nowhere. But if Vogler asks, tell him we're doing very well, that House's employees are working notoriously and Dr. House himself is especially diligent and charming the Senator with his charisma and intellect."
"Yes, and he will obviously believe that and will give you a raise." said Cuddy while glaring at him, voice thick with sarcasm.
House looked away from her gaze and made a show of looking around then asked "Have you seen Wilson?"
"Yes, because unlike some people, he's been here already for 5 hours."
"Great." House said and walked away.
He pushed Wilson's door wide open and walked in, slamming his pager on the desk. Wilson didn't even flinch, just looked up from his paperwork at House and then his eyes fell on the pager he presumed had gone missing. House tracked Wilson's movement and awed as always at Wilson's beautiful brown eyes.
"I think you left something on the floor."
"My God, where'd you get it?"
"It was on the floor, I just said it."
"You know, my patient died at night and I couldn't be there for her because my pager disappeared into thin air and no one bothered to notify me. Should have known it was your work."
Oh.
"Hey, I really didn't steal it. It was lying down on the floor a few feet outside of my office."
So, she's dead
Wilson sighed and dug his fingers into his hair, palms squeezing his face. "Anyway, you wanna go get lunch?"
"Yeah, I'm starving."
"You're always starving."
"Then why ask?"
Wilson stood up and they both walked out. They had their usual patient talk in the elevator, the banter, House complained about Vogler and when they came back to their floor, they parted ways.
The rest of the day went as always, House finally solved the case and the fellows were AS ALWAYS amazed at his deduction skills, though they wouldn't admit it. They sent the Senator home, Cuddy came around and talked about something while House stared at the ceiling and bounced his ball against the wall. As usual.
He didn't even notice when Cuddy left as he was deep in thought. He had been trying to convince himself Eleanor's death doesn't affect him in the slightest, but he can't stop thinking about her. She's just like any other cancer patient, Wilson's patient at that. People die, patients die, that's life. Why should it bother me? Why should I care about what she said?
Yet, he was still reminded of her words.
'You'd be great together'
'You should tell him how you feel before it's too late'
He wasn't planning on dying any time soon, he's certain neither is Wilson, but then again it was probably just a typical comment of an old person, the 'you're not getting any younger, you'll blink and find yourself to be my age soon enough, I wish I was still as young as you, you have so much life left to live'
It's always been annoying to House, how old people try to spew some wisdom at others about doing what they want and following your dreams because they wish they had done so. As if that has ever worked for anyone. It certainly hasn't for him. You never really appreciate what you have until you lose it and people only ever get it once they experience it firsthand. He wishes he could run, ride a bike, not wake up in pain, not go to work in pain and not go to sleep in pain.
He wished Wilson wasn't straight, he wished Wilson was in love with him and they'd confess their love and have sex and end up together. But what could he do?
He got startled out of his thoughts when his fellows came back into the office and sat down, tired and getting ready to go home.
He stood up, groaning in pain and trudged over to Wilson's office as he was also preparing to go home. House walked in without knocking and went to open his mouth when suddenly Wilson asked,
"So, how's things with Cameron?"
"Hm?"
"Well, y'know, your crush" said Wilson and raised his eyebrows suggestively.
"Oh, you mean the nonexistent one?"
"Come on House, you can't deny the look of jealousy from yesterday. You obviously have some sort of feelings for her"
"Yeah and the feelings are indifference and annoyance, which, I'm no expert at semantics but I think they're not synonyms for love"
"We all know why you're avoiding this."
"Oh, do you? Why is that then?"
"You're scared. You haven't been in proper love since Stacy. And Cameron's your colleague, your employee at that. And assuming age isn't a problem for you, you've really got a chance at being happy, because she's clearly in love with you too. You should really go for it." explained Wilson with a smug look on his face.
"Yes, thank you Mr. Two Divorces for your great advice. It'd help if I was actually in love with her, which I'm not." puffed House, frowning, properly annoyed.
"Oh come off it, you clearly are! Are you seriously being dense on purpose or are you just messing with me?"
"Ughh just drop it." gruntled House.
"Why can't you even acknowledge it?"
"Don't push it, Wilson." House demanded.
"Please at least give yourselves a chance, maybe ask her ou-"
"I'm not in love with Cameron." he interrupted Wilson.
"God, you're so-"
"It's you, you idiot!" House sputtered, immediately regretting saying it.
"It's me what?"
"I'm in love with you." said House with hesitation, not really meaning to reveal that in a pointless argument.
"What?" Wilson said, face scrunched up in confusion.
"I've been in love with you since New Orleans." he said as he went to rub his forehead with his palm, exasperated.
Before Wilson had a chance to respond, House decided he didn't want to hear his response, not right now, not ever, so he turned around, walked out, closed the door with a bang and went for the elevator.
Shit shit shit shit he thought as he banged his head against the elevator door
Once it stopped at the 1st floor, he stepped out and speed-walked, to the best of his abilities, as much as his thigh allowed, to the exit. He could tell Cuddy spotted him and was about to walk up to him, but seeing his expression, which he guessed is rather odd and desperate at the moment, she decided against it and just waved goodbye at him.
He got in his car and just sat there for a few minutes, breathing shakily and deeply.
God, this is fucking great, the extraordinary doctor Gregory House panicking after confessing his love for his best friend.
He reached out for the radio but decided not to turn it on, and so he drove home in complete and utter silence. His plan for the rest of the day? Getting wasted and high while watching some shitty DVD's.