Chapter Text
Wilson was happy. He hated to admit it, but since coming back to the hospital and diving back into the world of House’s insanity, he couldn’t deny he was far happier than he had been the past 4 months. It was necessary, moving away from Princeton. It was his physical way of moving on from Amber and he’d used the time alone to get his mind with the programme.
Sure, moving back to Princeton now somewhat defeated the point, returning to Amber's apartment where he lay on their waterbed for hours staring my at the ceiling and smelt her laundry detergent and smelt her perfume and fancy soaps and cried at the pile of hairbands she’d left on her dresser, or cried at the boxes of animal crackers in the cupboards she liked to hoard, or cried at the fancy tea that was going stale in those nice glass jars she found at market with him on their fourth date.
But he was happier. He grieved then he wiped his eyes and got on with his life and it was surprisingly okay.
Maybe it had something to do with House providing sufficient distraction from him being too sad. The House that was there when Wilson returned was not the House he had known before. At first, on the road trip, Wilson was close to giving House the keys to his own car and hitchhiking across states just to get away from the insufferable man. Then he was sat, seething at a funeral which made him feel prickly and anxious at his own disrespect, yet he was already planning how to reduce the awfulness of the trip home as he had a sneaking suspicion House would worm his way back into his car instead of getting a flight like Wilson had intended and then- then, Wilson was on the verge of tears, chest tight and heart breaking because House was being honest. And he knew he had problems with empathy and caring far too much about other people. This man could well have ruined his life, had come so close so many times before but as House stood there in front of all these people who respected his father and told the truth, his truth of his life and childhood and problems and feelings, Wilson couldn’t remember the last time House had ever been that honest. Yes, it was quickly succeeded with the desecration of a corpse and some childish arguing and destruction of private property and yeah, maybe Wilson covered a dead man in a beautiful ex-stained-glass window but that was beside the point. Because now they were here.
Here was familiar yet new. He had his old job, saw his old friends and colleagues and patients who he cried the same for when they went into remission or died. And he and House were back to their own normal, with lies and pranks and manipulation and wild cases and prying into personal business and stolen lunches. The private investigator was new but not surprising, and Wilson had proved it couldn’t best him so far. House himself was different though. He could feel it in the way he held back sometimes, spoke far too lightly on the topic of girlfriends and relationships, with lightly in House terms meaning not gut punching just mildly scathing. Wilson almost wished he was made fun of for his dead girlfriend. At least then he’d just feel really sad sometimes till House went too far, then he’d break down and they could repeat the cycle all over. Now he was stuck with House’s blue eyes staring at him with a strange kind of terror every time the chance bully Wilson’s grief arrived. And House seemed subdued beyond that. He was still crazy by any standard, but Wilson caught it when he held his tongue, whether for the sake of his fellows sanity or his patients feelings, or didn’t verbally assault Cuddy at every opportunity, or actually asked before stealing Wilson’s lunch and it was freaking Wilson the fuck out. Every time House acted even mildly civil or did something for no other reason than being nice, and not just to dying patients but to healthy people like Wilson, he couldn’t help but think about the mess that he’d created by trying to abandon their friendship, and, as justified as he was, couldn’t help but ask himself one thing.
Had he broken House?
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Wilson wasn’t ready for this.
Charlotte was pretty. She had a quick sense of humour, dry yet not mean, and when she laughed she went a little pink and bit her lip like she was trying to keep it in. Wilson knew this because he keeps finding himself staring at said lips when Charlotte is flirting with him.
Yes, Wilson is highly susceptible to new nurses becoming flirtatious around him. As depressed as he may feel, and as well as everyone in the hospital seems to know about Amber, it didn’t deter any of the numerous new nurse hires. He guessed he was just too friendly to begin with, perhaps overly friendly to those he found attractive since old habits die hard and all that. But the second he felt it, the look, any spark just died miserably, sour and slimy and rotten. He felt rotten, every time Tambry from radiology coyly asked what he was doing at the weekend, at her feigned interest when he’d fake plans, every time Penny at reception touched his arm when they spoke and smiled cockily before frowning when he stepped away, and every goddamn time Charlotte gave him the look. And he couldn’t manage to follow through and actually kiss her.
The look can be defined by many observations. In true Housian fashion, though coming from a much more seasoned veteran in the world of romance, here is what defines Charlotte’s look as the look; her eyes were lidded but not tired, her gaze was shifting focus between Wilson’s eyes and lips as he spoke, like she couldn’t help be drawn to his mouth, she was vaguely distracted from whatever was actually happening, be it a bland conversation about what they had for lunch or patients screaming bloody murder in the ER, there was a slight tone to her voice as though she dropped the pitch a little to direct her voice towards him, and most vitally, when he spoke or gave her any opportunity to just stay silent and watch him, her teeth always found her bottom lip and her head lolled to the side just a little. In every breath, she practically screamed ‘I want you to kiss me’.
And even as Wilson felt a rush, felt giddy and nervous and hopelessly attracted to the sight, his mind served him a barrage of images, of Amber giving him a look just like that and his heart feeling something new, the texture of her blond hair through his fingers when he kissed her for the last time in that awful room, the devastation on House’s face when he was sat in that operating theatre and the shining hope hidden in his memory turned out to be the nail in the coffin.
So Wilson deflected Charlotte's advances the best he could, though he didn’t have it in his heart to be anywhere near mean about it. To Charlotte, he most likely seemed oblivious rather than disinterested and, yeah maybe it was actually meaner to string her along with the false hope he may one day actually understand what flirting was, but he still took comfort in being desired, in having someone look at him like that, be it a poor imitation of his late girlfriend.
Wilson was mulling over this during his lunch break, mindlessly eating a sandwich and was not all that pleased when the familiar thwack of a cane purposefully hit his leg as House dropped into the seat across from him.
House pointed to his sandwich, not snatched, he pointed, and raised his eyebrows. Wilson just shrugged helplessly, House’s weird niceness unsettling him.
“Egg mayonnaise? Did you stop taking your meds?”
Wilson just narrowed his eyes, “My choice of sandwich isn’t an indicator of my depression.”
House grinned back, “You’re not even curious as to why I think so? It’s a convoluted but accurate system to monitor your mental state.”
The deadpan stare he gave House made no effort to deter the teasing, so Wilson gave in, somewhat. “There’s this nurse in- “
“You mean Charlotte?”
“How do you know about Charlotte?” Wilson whispered, incredulous at House’s endless snooping and his volume in the crowded cafeteria.
House shrugged, “I’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb to miss her throwing herself at you every time you do clinic hours. Yet it doesn’t look like you’ve done anything about it.” It was a statement, yet his eyes held a clear question.
Wilson was shifting under House’s gaze, which kept flickering over his face in an interrogation of his micro expressions. He knew he couldn’t hide this from House, never has before and evidently hasn’t this time, so why not bare his heart out to House, the less reassuring person he could think of, in the middle of a cafeteria full of gossip-hungry eavesdroppers, he thought miserably. Wilson sighed like it could prepare him from the shit-show this conversation was rapidly devolving into. Looking away from House's intense stare helped though.
“I’m not ready. It’s too soon. Obviously. I thought you were smart enough to figure that out on your own.” Either he looked so downright sorrowful, or House’s newfound humanity took over because there was a hand reaching over to squeeze his own where it rested on the table. It was gone by the time his gaze made its way back to House in surprise, and his surprise redoubled when Wilson was met with a half sympathetic smile. A quip about the apocalypse was on the tip of Wilson’s tongue, but then House was speaking again.
“I know that.” House stated simply, honestly which was rare, “What I mean is, why are you still doling out all that ‘pretty boy’ charm around her?” And House shouldn’t have sounded honest saying that, that was surely meant to be an insult, but his tone was off, and he was still looking at Wilson too intensely and then House blinked, looking thoughtful and-
“Sorry, I meant sad, kicked puppy ‘I need sex to cope with my grief’ charm, you’ve expired anything remotely ‘pretty’ now, I’m afraid.” He spoke faster than Wilson could follow but eventually the quip registered.
Okay. That was more like it. Wilson wanted to move on from whatever else would come out of House and his weird mood and opened his mouth to ask about House’s case.
“The case is going horribly, if you must know,” House said, over dramatic like Wilson had pestered him to say it.
Still, that surprised Wilson again. House only ever spoke about his cases to show off or to chat meaningless nonsense until inspiration struck. When had he ever just brought it up in casual conversation? Like literally every other doctor in the world always does? House was never that boring.
They began to chat about the case, and okay, House seemed a lot less normal when he began to conspiratorially explain how the old woman they were treating was most definitely the ex-wife of a former dictator in South America, he just needed a little more evidence. But the conversation turned slow after that, Wilson offering what he could when House gave even the slightest indication of cancer, but nothing stuck and Wilson felt House get bored of the small talk, no matter how much they tried to joke, and Wilson wondered why he hadn’t stalked away since his stolen sandwich finished and their conversation had begun to drag on while they theorised endless unnecessary tests to pester Cuddy with. He looked tired, heavy eyes and quiet low voice as he snorted at Wilson’s more outlandish theories.
Well. He had to be the one to leave first it seemed. Wilson swiped the back of his hand across his mouth to get rid of any crumbs, wanting to look presentable when he gave Mrs Robinson an update on her relapse later as the older woman seemed very uncertain in the competency of doctors ever since her cancer returned. He looked up at House to excuse himself from the strangely pleasant lunch they had had.
Wilson may as well have been a deer, with how instantly he froze. All his instincts were screaming at him. Years of awkward high school crushes, sleazy college flings and eventual refined practices in flirting glued him to his chair as he saw what House was doing.
Maybe House wasn’t tired, or bored or pretending to be pleasant for once. The way he was looking at Wilson was- was-
“Don’t look at me like that.” He said it out of instinct as he got the familiar feeling that House was messing with him, even as it was clouded by a profound sense of unease, not disgust or revulsion but the sensation of the world tipping off axis, the angle just off in a way that was just as impossible to pinpoint as it was to ignore.
House seemed to jump a little at the harsh tone, as if startled while dozing off. Still, he recovered quickly and plastered on a weak smirk. “Like what?” The hesitancy in House’s voice only further the off kilter feeling of the whole encounter because when was House, known narcissist, king of all egomaniacs, even unsure of himself?
So Wilson did what he learnt from many years of failed marriages that held on far past their expiration date: he deflected. With a placating smile, he just shook his head and stood, “Like my idea to light a small, contained fire in the orthopaedic wing right after that asshole Mitchelson uses an electric cast saw isn’t something you’d definitely do.”
That was enough to set House back on track as any traces of panic melted from his face. “I’ll make sure to tell Cuddy it was your idea then.”
Wilson walked away then, the world set right and an easy smile masking his pure bewilderment.