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Being in love with him was never allowed.
House could hear the objections ringing through his ears, a chorus of voices yelling and screaming. He could see his team with disgust written on their faces, turning away from him because he was one of those.
One of them.
James Evan Wilson
James Evan Wilson
House liked saying his name over and over in his head. It was pretty, and though he would constantly remind Wilson of how his name was ‘the most dull and hackneyed first name to ever exist’, he found his heart palpitating every time someone mentioned it in his vicinity.
James Evan Wilson was like a magnet. Ever since the first day House had seen him striding through the conference, wild and somewhat volatile, he had been stuck to him like a leech.
Even now, like Saturn and its 274 damn moons, Wilson seemed to travel with an ever growing crowd orbiting him.
At first glance, James seemed to grasp the master blueprint to the world. Smiling the right amount, laughing the right amount, kindness and empathy dripping off of him like this was some sort of charity show.
House hated people like that. He hated their fake smiles and their cheesy laughs and the way they lied to the world with every sentence they spoke.
But Wilson was different.
The way he looked at House was different.
House sometimes believed when Wilson looked at him that he truly cared. He had this soft sweetness in his gaze, coffee brown eyes warm and inviting.
But most importantly, he actually made an effort to care about House for who he is.
The damn man remembered everything that House seemed to have murmured in his vicinity, and fuck, House says a lot.
House says a lot of shitty stuff, a lot of stupid stuff, and he still remembers it.
Wilson, like the sappy, empathetic freak he is, seemed to be the only person who ever made any move to spend time with House, and it was contagious. If House could do a whole seminar on not trusting that beautiful, energetic man you see at the bar, on how to not catch this infectious disease, he could talk for hours. He would tell them to run and hide before you start rotting from the inside, before that man you see carves a deeper hole into your wounded soul than you have ever imagined possible.
House’s back is pressed on Wilson’s couch, snarl covering his face, a poor attempt at masking the fluttering in his stomach.
He listens to Wilson’s soft breathing religiously, watching out of the corner of his eye the glimmer of his brown hair as he scribbles on his countless papers. On days like this, House just basks in the sight of him, a warm, tingly joy filling him up.
“How’s your patient doing?” Wilson's tone was genuine, a sickly innocence coming off of it.
“She’s got Ewing sarcoma.” House murmurs back, letting the disease do the explanation for itself.
“I’m sorry about that.” Wilson dropped his pen, eyes landing on House’s face with care, “How are you handling-“
”Oh, shut up.” House growled, “I’m not some sympathy case. I’ve had patients die before. That's what patients do. They die.”
Wilson’s shoulders sag and his expression dips softly, a mound of guilt appears in House’s stomach.
He hates how he does this. He hates how he hurts him, how he snaps.
House reminds himself that it's necessary. It’s necessary or else Wilson might know. One day he will look into House’s eyes and realize exactly the emotion behind them. Realize exactly the reason why House is the way he is.
Realize that House would lay his life on the line in an instant meaning it would save Wilsons.
“Okay, but If you ever need to talk-“
House snorts, “Yeah, I’m sure that will fix all of my problems.”
House knows his deflection. It's plain and out in the air.
It's pathetic, and he wishes for the better part of him that he could open up. That he could roll out his problems on a table and have Wilson fix them with those magic eyes of his, those caring hands.
But House will keep doing this. He knows he will keep doing this for the duration of their -well- whatever they had.
Because there was something that was easily missed about Wilson. There was a nagging contradiction that only slowly came to light once he had his next squirming victim tightly between his fingers.
Wilson was perhaps the most insecure person House had ever met. He lived with insecurity like it was some sort of parasite consuming him until he felt nothing anymore. Wilson was a shining gold star, sure, but he was like that because he wanted validation.
At some point, House had come to the conclusion that something or someone in the past had fucked him up. Someone had told he wasn’t good enough, and now he spent his whole life looking for people to love him. Not just anyone either, people who weren’t easy grabs.
House was a perfect victim, and it was quite clear why. Wilson wanted someone who loved nobody, someone closed and cold and distant. He wanted House because if House loved him, correction, if he knew House loved him, he would get that validation he so craved. Then he could finally look at himself in the mirror and gloat at the fact that he tamed the untamable, fixed the unfixable.
Furthermore, House had come to the conclusion that Wilson wanted House to love him because House loved no one, and if House loved him, that would mean he would feel he was truly something special.
Part of House wanted to give Wilson the validation too. Sometimes he wondered if Wilson deserved it. House was so head over heels that he felt bad for the man's self-loathing. Every time Wilson deflated at a comment he made, every time his sad large eyes ached in pain, House wanted to wrap his arms around him. To hug him and tell him he was possibly the best person House had ever met. He wanted to open his mouth and articulate exactly why he thought of Wilson every moment of every day. How pretty he was, how smart he was, how House had never met anybody like him.
Wilson's heart was bigger than anybody's, and there was a certain level of caring that was painfully genuine. The way he looked at his patients sometimes like he was calming a younger version of himself that had nobody.
That way House related to Wilson. Related to that image he often pictured of a young trembling boy sobbing. A little kid cornered against the wall by an adult who is flailing in anger, eyes livid and mouth hanging open in outrage. Their words twisting venomously as they howled out their lecture, suffocating what ounce of joy is left in the kids heart.
Wilson had gotten out of his seat, inching closer to House with a puzzled look crunching his eyebrows, “House, are you okay? You seem distant.”
House moved his cold grey eyes and made contact with Wilson's soft brown ones.
A deep sadness suddenly hit him like a car, and he was drowning in emotion.
Sadness, love, desire, disguist, hatred…
If only he would open his stupid damn mouth and tell Wilson the truth. Tell Wilson that sometimes he thinks of stabbing himself, or overdosing, or setting his apartment on fire and slowly but surely drifting peacefully away into the ashes. That he wants to be special to Wilson. He wants Wilson to come running and crying and scream at the top of his lungs to the world that House mattered. He wants Wilson to love him for once, even if House wasn’t there himself to witness it. He wants to be permanently etched in Wilson’s brain like Wilson is in his.
But House wouldn’t say that. Never.
He knew the pattern. It was written all over Wilson’s face.
Once he gave him that validation, the simple confirmation that Wilson meant jack-shit to him, Wilson would grow cold.
Wilson cared for House for himself. Once he got that validation, it would stimulate him for a while. For a while things would be great, but then, just like he did with his three ex-wives, that gaping hole of insecurity would crawl it’s way back.
Suddenly Wilson wouldn’t need House anymore, he would find his next person to smile at, take into care, laugh and joke with. He would find the next source of validation.
Because though Wilson was an angel from above, and House was nothing but a pathetic grumpy middle aged man, the only one that cared was House.
House was in love and Wilson wasn’t.
Wilson acted like he was in love and House acted like he wasn’t.
They acted how they weren’t
And the two fed an endless loop, Wilson pulling and House pushing.
It was stupid, and House recognized it. The only exemption, the only thing that kept House coming back, was those in-between moments. The days where he sat eating lunch with Wilson and they connected. Where they laughed together and Wilson’s warmth washed over him.
Where he looked at Wilson and wondered how he couldn’t love House.
How that look could be platonic? How sometimes it seemed like maybe, just maybe, Wilson did love him.
That he wouldn’t leave.
”No. Just tired.” House said slowly, breaking eye contact.
But that couldn’t be true. House was a freak of nature, and Wilson -no- Wilson wasn’t gay.
House knew if he didn’t say something he would keep pushing Wilson away, and Wilson would keep pulling. House would keep getting more and more depressed, and the two of them would live out their days ignoring their problems.
But still together
Was that enough? Was it enough to keep hurting Wilson in order to keep his interest?
House didn’t know.
Maybe it wouldn't be enough someday, but it was today.
Maybe the infectious disease was already terminal, because Gregory House loves James Evan Wilson, and something told him he always would.