sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-11 01:12 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-11 01:12 am
Entry tags:
Synchronicity 3 of 3. R.
Title: Synchronicity
Rating: R for graphic sexual situations, as if canes and cigars weren't symbolic enough.
Summary: Dead patients, car wrecks, drug overdoses, journalists, Comatose Charlie, and orange chicken. Must be love. House/Wilson.
Notes: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
simon, setissma, and juniper200 for betaz, and for not making fun of the whole surfing-instructor thing. Rad, man.
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2
***
House's bike wasn't in its parking spot when Wilson left the building after paging him twice and getting informed by Chase that House had left for the day. He didn't answer his phone, either. Wilson was beginning to be just a little ticked off that House had talked about him freaking out, but he gave it up as a lost cause and made for House's apartment, where there was probably something edible. Probably.
House's bike was parked here, which was a promising sign at any rate.
House himself was parked on the couch, leg propped on the coffee table, with a beer nearby and a plate of food on his lap.
"Chivalry is dead," Wilson said, dropping his briefcase and loosening his tie. "Is it just a goal to beat me to every meal?"
"What? I got you some orange chicken," House replied. "You were the one who was all eager to have dinner and talk about intubation."
"I was treating patients! Patients with life-threatening cancer!"
"And I was eating delicious sweet-and-sour beef," House answered. Wilson sighed.
"Did you get potstickers?" he asked hopefully.
"Did I get potstickers. No, I've learned nothing from the last decade," House answered. "Everything's in a bag in the kitchen."
Wilson took down a plate and opened the bag, inspecting each take-away box before serving himself.
"Are you making art with it?" House called.
"I don't like my -- "
"Rice getting on the chicken, I know."
"Then you know that I'll be in there in just a minute, darling, and why can't you talk to me from there? It's ten feet."
"I want to show you something."
"Oh ho!" Wilson uncapped a beer from the fridge and carried his meal into the living room, dropping onto the couch next to House. He glanced sideways at him, trying to determine his mood and whether blowjobs were still an option. House reached forward and picked up a thin stack of paper, offering it to him. Wilson glanced through them, expecting a case, while on television someone in the OC had an argument about relationships with someone else.
"This is...a photocopy of the hospital regulations handbook. Wow, I thought you dipped yours in blood, used it in some occult ritual, and then burned it."
"Sexual Harassment on top. Diversity Tolerance on bottom."
Wilson snickered, but dutifully looked through it while he ate, taking note of the red arrows House had apparently drawn to mark out what he should read. House idly flicked channels.
"Mmmh. I love lawyerspeak," Wilson said eventually. "It's okay to date co-workers so long as we don't catch you doing it and you agree that you'll never break up and if you do one of you will quit and never return. Also, according to this, every nurse on our floor could sue you for creating a sexually hostile work environment."
"Not if I tell them I'm doing the head of Oncology. Then I'm just their funny gay friend," House answered. "Keep reading."
Wilson sighed and turned to the Diversity Tolerance photocopies. After a while, he set them down.
"So, that was a mixed message," he said finally. "Legally we can't be fired for the love that dare not speak its name, but it's not cool to date your co-worker, and we both know that Diversity Tolerance isn't worth the paper it's printed on."
"I like to be informed," House said without looking at him.
"And what does this inform you of, exactly?"
"I don't know."
Wilson put his plate down on top of the paperwork. "Listen, if you're scared or something -- "
"I'm not scared."
"It wasn't a dare, House."
"You're right. You're in the middle of a divorce. For you -- "
"Is that what this is about? Jesus, I wasn't saying we shouldn't try it. I'm just saying, can we please not talk about it at work. And don't give me any out and proud crap, once the divorce is final I'll send you singing telegrams about your sexual prowess if that's what you want."
House was silent for a moment. Then he made the face, the face he always made when he was trying to brood but something was too funny. Eventually, he grinned.
"Singing telegrams?" he asked. "Then you can put on your straw hat and we'll go punting down the Thames..."
"You," Wilson said, turning to him, "Have been a smartass for the last time today -- "
House fought back valiantly, but he hadn't been expecting a sudden wrestling match and he had the remote in one hand; by the time he gave in and shouted "Okay okay okay!" Wilson was straddling him, holding his wrists against the back of the couch.
Wilson was straddling him.
Holding his wrists against the back of the couch.
This was interesting. Gratifying, too.
House looked up at him, gravely. "The OC's still on."
"You tivo'd it," Wilson answered, bending to kiss him just below the ear. House made a noise that Wilson had never in all honesty expected to hear. "And I am tired..." House made another noise as he kissed his jaw, "...of being distracted."
House's mouth was warm and tasted like apricots from the food he'd been eating; Wilson took his time, not planning on being interrupted by sudden bouts of unconsciousness this time.
"This doesn't worry you?" House asked, tilting his head back to rest it against the edge of the couch, eyes still closed. "You saw me and Stacy -- "
"And you and Lila before her, and you and Andrea before that." Wilson let go of his wrist and tugged his shirt out and up, sliding a hand underneath it. "And even if there was a you and Thomas or a you and Aaron or a you and anyone, I was there. Remember?"
House actually gasped when Wilson curled his hand against his chest and raked his fingernails back down to his belt buckle.
"You can't screw this up, because you might be smarter or meaner or louder than I am, but I am way more stubborn than you are," Wilson said. "So now I'm going to take your clothes off and do things that will make even you unable to sulk. And you won't stop me."
House gave him a look, mouth slightly open, eyes wide, that was...hungry. Wilson kissed him again while he was working the back of his shirt out of his trousers. When he leaned back to pull it off, House reached up and tried to undo his top button. Aha, so this was how it was going to be...
"No," he said, taking House's wrists again and putting his hands firmly back where they'd been, on the couch.
"I want -- "
"No."
House closed his eyes and Wilson saw him trying to breathe deeply, the muscles in his shoulders knotting. He kissed the side of his throat, the same place House had bitten his own.
"Hold still," he said, reaching down to undo House's belt buckle. He could feel his erection through his trousers.
"Bed," House said.
"No -- "
"Yes. My -- " House made a frustrated noise. Wilson cupped his face with one hand.
"You all right?" he asked.
"I won't be," House said. Wilson nodded and stood up, slowly, offering his arm. House pulled himself up and reached for his cane, moving as quickly as he could towards the bedroom. "Are you coming?" he called over his shoulder.
"I'm admiring your ass," Wilson called back, but he followed hastily. House eased himself onto the bed, swung his leg up using his hands, and looked up at him.
"You could -- "
"House, and I say this with every possible degree of affection, shut up."
"If I had a nickel for -- "
Wilson put his hand over House's mouth and pushed him down on the bed, until they were lying nose-to-nose. House grinned behind his hand and then licked one of his fingers. Wilson took his hand away, slowly, and kissed him.
House's whole body relaxed by degrees. It was flattering, in a very weird way.
He sat up and finished removing the half-off belt, then undid his flies. He waited for House to hitch his hips up a little, so that he could slide the pants off entirely, but instead he saw him raise his hands to his face, rubbing it anxiously.
What a ball of nerves. Fine, he'd done this without undressing someone before...
He tugged them just below the line of House's hip, enough to get his boxers (blue linen. Nice.) down around his thighs. Without looking up, he could tell House was about to say something stupid, so he breathed in and blew warm air across his cock instead.
Instead of whatever he was going to say, House said "Ahhck -- hmh -- mm." which was much more fun.
Part of him, the entire time, was watching from outside with fascination; so this was what House was like with his lovers, with Stacey and Lila and all the rest of them, the women that had made him furious first with envy and then because they had no clue what to do with House and then because they hurt him. He hurt them back, but that was irrelevant; they hurt him more.
The rest of him, the parts of his mind that were involved in how he licked his way down House's cock and felt House's hand in his hair, were enjoying themselves thoroughly.
The bed had been a good idea. House did buck his hips, wanting more, and he could barely manage it lying flat -- on the couch it would have been out of the question. Wilson grinned to himself and did a trick with his tongue he'd actually learned from Wife #2 (not an entirely useless marriage) and House moaned. It was possibly the least-controlled thing he'd ever done in the entire time they'd been friends. Wilson dug his fingers into House's hip and House moaned again and tried to push him away and yeah, that was going to happen --
Wilson swallowed, twice, then grinned again and looked up at House, wiping off just the bare corner of his mouth with his thumb. House was lying limply, one arm dangling off the bed, eyes blinking at the ceiling.
"Now you may talk," Wilson said magnanimously.
***
There had been some talk, true, and then there had been some more touching, and House's amazing hands again, and then some quiet, while they rested. He'd actually almost fallen asleep, lying across the bed with his head on House's chest just below his ribcage, when House touched his ear, finger tracing the curve of it down to his jaw.
"Mmh?" he asked, twisting slightly to look up at him. House was staring at the ceiling.
"I lost my virginity when I was fifteen," House said, apropos of nothing.
"Well done, young Gregory," Wilson answered drily.
"We were living in California. I would have slit my wrists if I thought it would get me away from the base for a few hours. I didn't even get off for school. There was an on-base high school for gifted kids."
"Gifted kids?"
"Who the government wanted to cultivate into gifted officers and gifted arms specialists and gifted military surgeons."
"Ah." Wilson wondered vaguely where this was going, but if it was going to involve House and some muscular Marine, he was all for it.
"They had an athletics program that got me off the base two hours twice a week, so I signed up."
"I'm guessing you and your dad -- "
"Yeah." House paused -- not quite a hesitation. "The bus picked us up Tuesdays and Fridays and took us to the beach, about half an hour away. Had to pay for my own wetsuit, but I was running a pretty tidy papers-on-demand operation by then. I could afford it."
"What did you need a wetsuit for?"
"And a surfboard."
Wilson lifted his head. "You surfed?"
House extended his thumb and pinky, wiggling them slightly. "Totally rad, man."
Wilson laughed. "Were you any good?"
"It's just balance, and knowing how the wave was going to go. I always knew."
"So you met some girl surfing, took her to the weenie roast, danced to the Beach Boys..."
"I deliberately missed the bus back one time. Nobody noticed. It was April, I thought I could sleep on the beach, get a job...somewhere, doing something."
"You ran away from home?"
"I got picked up by the surfing instructor, who thought I had a legitimate excuse for missing the bus. He called my dad, said he'd look after me, I was too chicken to speak up..."
"Sounds like you."
"I was fifteen."
"Sorry, do continue."
"He bought me dinner."
Wilson bit his lip. "You lost your virginity to a surfing instructor?"
"I look awesome in a wetsuit."
"Did you...enjoy it? I mean, he didn't..."
House shook his head. "No. I definitely enjoyed it. He wasn't the smartest bum on the beach, he probably still thinks it was his idea."
"You never even told me you liked...uh, this. Not in years of friendship."
House shrugged. "Never seemed relevant. After college, I didn't have that hey, it's just experimentation excuse anymore. Dating women is easier. Well, okay, dating women is a lot harder, they're all insane, but dating men is professionally difficult. You never told me, either."
"It's...different. Jesus, you knew when you were fifteen? I didn't know until I was out of med school."
"But you've done this before."
"Once. Well, twice, but only once with someone whose name I actually knew."
House started to laugh. "You had anonymous gay sex?"
"It wasn't like -- "
"You had anonymous gay sex."
Wilson glared. "Is there a reason I shouldn't have?"
"You, James Wilson..."
"I was -- frustrated."
"Clearly."
"It's not funny."
"It's very funny. What about this other time? If you were out of med school -- do I know him?"
Wilson shook his head. "He was just after my first divorce. I should have told you, but...I didn't think it would be important. And it wasn't. I thought maybe..."
"Maybe if you tried it with a man you'd shake off the feeling, because it had to be a feeling," House said slowly. "Because you liked your wives, you liked having your wives, you just didn't like living with your wives or imagining the next fifty years with them. You...were fixated on someone you couldn't have, and you thought that meant it was just the possibility of the thing, not the thing itself."
Wilson stared at him.
"I read a lot of psychology books," House said. "I probably should have noticed sooner."
"You didn't notice at all," Wilson replied. "I'm the one who kissed you, remember?"
House nodded. "How long?"
"Oh, let's see...three hours after we met, I think. Took me a week to realise it. Took me two years to figure out why I thought you were an asshole and still liked you."
"And thirteen to kiss me."
"Yeah, but be fair. From kissing to sex only took a day and a half."
House closed his eyes and actually smiled, without the faintest hint of sarcasm or bitterness or irony.
"The day your divorce goes through," he said, "I'll expect that singing telegram."
THE END
UNLESS
YOU WANT THE OPTIONAL GOOPY HAPPY ENDING THAT HOUSE DISAPPROVES OF.
***
"HOUSE!"
Cuddy was trying to be heard over the noise in the hallway, but it wasn't working. "HOUSE! What the hell..."
"They just arrived," Cameron said, staring haplessly at the four men in red striped jackets standing outside House's office. Foreman's patented Eyebrow would have been in his hairline if he had any hair. Chase was grinning. "I don't know why they're here."
"It's a singing telegram," Chase said. "For House!"
Cuddy stared at him.
"What, I didn't send it!"
"WHO DID?"
"I can't tell. It's something about intubation, and uh...surfing?" Cameron said.
"Dr. Cuddy?" Chase said faintly. He was peering through the blinds on the conference-room side, past the glass divider and into House's office. Cuddy joined him.
"Oh my," she said. "Is it warm in here?"
"What are you -- oh," Cameron said. "Oh my."
"Did you know about -- "
"No, but I want season tickets," Cameron said quickly.
Dr. Wilson, lab-coat still on, was standing with his back to the door, both hands on Dr. House's face, holding him quite still while they kissed. House already had his hand in a very inappropriate place, unless he was giving Dr. Wilson an exam for testicular cancer.
Cuddy sighed. "Only House would come up with a totally new sexual identity just to fuck with me."
"I don't think it's you he's fucking with," Chase replied. Wilson let House go and said something quietly, their foreheads almost touching. The singing-telegram men offered Cuddy their business card and then went on their way.
House looked up over Wilson's shoulder, caught the spies looking in at them, and leaned forward, biting Wilson's neck.
THE REAL END.
Rating: R for graphic sexual situations, as if canes and cigars weren't symbolic enough.
Summary: Dead patients, car wrecks, drug overdoses, journalists, Comatose Charlie, and orange chicken. Must be love. House/Wilson.
Notes: Thanks to
simon, setissma, and juniper200 for betaz, and for not making fun of the whole surfing-instructor thing. Rad, man. Chapter 1 - Chapter 2
***
House's bike wasn't in its parking spot when Wilson left the building after paging him twice and getting informed by Chase that House had left for the day. He didn't answer his phone, either. Wilson was beginning to be just a little ticked off that House had talked about him freaking out, but he gave it up as a lost cause and made for House's apartment, where there was probably something edible. Probably.
House's bike was parked here, which was a promising sign at any rate.
House himself was parked on the couch, leg propped on the coffee table, with a beer nearby and a plate of food on his lap.
"Chivalry is dead," Wilson said, dropping his briefcase and loosening his tie. "Is it just a goal to beat me to every meal?"
"What? I got you some orange chicken," House replied. "You were the one who was all eager to have dinner and talk about intubation."
"I was treating patients! Patients with life-threatening cancer!"
"And I was eating delicious sweet-and-sour beef," House answered. Wilson sighed.
"Did you get potstickers?" he asked hopefully.
"Did I get potstickers. No, I've learned nothing from the last decade," House answered. "Everything's in a bag in the kitchen."
Wilson took down a plate and opened the bag, inspecting each take-away box before serving himself.
"Are you making art with it?" House called.
"I don't like my -- "
"Rice getting on the chicken, I know."
"Then you know that I'll be in there in just a minute, darling, and why can't you talk to me from there? It's ten feet."
"I want to show you something."
"Oh ho!" Wilson uncapped a beer from the fridge and carried his meal into the living room, dropping onto the couch next to House. He glanced sideways at him, trying to determine his mood and whether blowjobs were still an option. House reached forward and picked up a thin stack of paper, offering it to him. Wilson glanced through them, expecting a case, while on television someone in the OC had an argument about relationships with someone else.
"This is...a photocopy of the hospital regulations handbook. Wow, I thought you dipped yours in blood, used it in some occult ritual, and then burned it."
"Sexual Harassment on top. Diversity Tolerance on bottom."
Wilson snickered, but dutifully looked through it while he ate, taking note of the red arrows House had apparently drawn to mark out what he should read. House idly flicked channels.
"Mmmh. I love lawyerspeak," Wilson said eventually. "It's okay to date co-workers so long as we don't catch you doing it and you agree that you'll never break up and if you do one of you will quit and never return. Also, according to this, every nurse on our floor could sue you for creating a sexually hostile work environment."
"Not if I tell them I'm doing the head of Oncology. Then I'm just their funny gay friend," House answered. "Keep reading."
Wilson sighed and turned to the Diversity Tolerance photocopies. After a while, he set them down.
"So, that was a mixed message," he said finally. "Legally we can't be fired for the love that dare not speak its name, but it's not cool to date your co-worker, and we both know that Diversity Tolerance isn't worth the paper it's printed on."
"I like to be informed," House said without looking at him.
"And what does this inform you of, exactly?"
"I don't know."
Wilson put his plate down on top of the paperwork. "Listen, if you're scared or something -- "
"I'm not scared."
"It wasn't a dare, House."
"You're right. You're in the middle of a divorce. For you -- "
"Is that what this is about? Jesus, I wasn't saying we shouldn't try it. I'm just saying, can we please not talk about it at work. And don't give me any out and proud crap, once the divorce is final I'll send you singing telegrams about your sexual prowess if that's what you want."
House was silent for a moment. Then he made the face, the face he always made when he was trying to brood but something was too funny. Eventually, he grinned.
"Singing telegrams?" he asked. "Then you can put on your straw hat and we'll go punting down the Thames..."
"You," Wilson said, turning to him, "Have been a smartass for the last time today -- "
House fought back valiantly, but he hadn't been expecting a sudden wrestling match and he had the remote in one hand; by the time he gave in and shouted "Okay okay okay!" Wilson was straddling him, holding his wrists against the back of the couch.
Wilson was straddling him.
Holding his wrists against the back of the couch.
This was interesting. Gratifying, too.
House looked up at him, gravely. "The OC's still on."
"You tivo'd it," Wilson answered, bending to kiss him just below the ear. House made a noise that Wilson had never in all honesty expected to hear. "And I am tired..." House made another noise as he kissed his jaw, "...of being distracted."
House's mouth was warm and tasted like apricots from the food he'd been eating; Wilson took his time, not planning on being interrupted by sudden bouts of unconsciousness this time.
"This doesn't worry you?" House asked, tilting his head back to rest it against the edge of the couch, eyes still closed. "You saw me and Stacy -- "
"And you and Lila before her, and you and Andrea before that." Wilson let go of his wrist and tugged his shirt out and up, sliding a hand underneath it. "And even if there was a you and Thomas or a you and Aaron or a you and anyone, I was there. Remember?"
House actually gasped when Wilson curled his hand against his chest and raked his fingernails back down to his belt buckle.
"You can't screw this up, because you might be smarter or meaner or louder than I am, but I am way more stubborn than you are," Wilson said. "So now I'm going to take your clothes off and do things that will make even you unable to sulk. And you won't stop me."
House gave him a look, mouth slightly open, eyes wide, that was...hungry. Wilson kissed him again while he was working the back of his shirt out of his trousers. When he leaned back to pull it off, House reached up and tried to undo his top button. Aha, so this was how it was going to be...
"No," he said, taking House's wrists again and putting his hands firmly back where they'd been, on the couch.
"I want -- "
"No."
House closed his eyes and Wilson saw him trying to breathe deeply, the muscles in his shoulders knotting. He kissed the side of his throat, the same place House had bitten his own.
"Hold still," he said, reaching down to undo House's belt buckle. He could feel his erection through his trousers.
"Bed," House said.
"No -- "
"Yes. My -- " House made a frustrated noise. Wilson cupped his face with one hand.
"You all right?" he asked.
"I won't be," House said. Wilson nodded and stood up, slowly, offering his arm. House pulled himself up and reached for his cane, moving as quickly as he could towards the bedroom. "Are you coming?" he called over his shoulder.
"I'm admiring your ass," Wilson called back, but he followed hastily. House eased himself onto the bed, swung his leg up using his hands, and looked up at him.
"You could -- "
"House, and I say this with every possible degree of affection, shut up."
"If I had a nickel for -- "
Wilson put his hand over House's mouth and pushed him down on the bed, until they were lying nose-to-nose. House grinned behind his hand and then licked one of his fingers. Wilson took his hand away, slowly, and kissed him.
House's whole body relaxed by degrees. It was flattering, in a very weird way.
He sat up and finished removing the half-off belt, then undid his flies. He waited for House to hitch his hips up a little, so that he could slide the pants off entirely, but instead he saw him raise his hands to his face, rubbing it anxiously.
What a ball of nerves. Fine, he'd done this without undressing someone before...
He tugged them just below the line of House's hip, enough to get his boxers (blue linen. Nice.) down around his thighs. Without looking up, he could tell House was about to say something stupid, so he breathed in and blew warm air across his cock instead.
Instead of whatever he was going to say, House said "Ahhck -- hmh -- mm." which was much more fun.
Part of him, the entire time, was watching from outside with fascination; so this was what House was like with his lovers, with Stacey and Lila and all the rest of them, the women that had made him furious first with envy and then because they had no clue what to do with House and then because they hurt him. He hurt them back, but that was irrelevant; they hurt him more.
The rest of him, the parts of his mind that were involved in how he licked his way down House's cock and felt House's hand in his hair, were enjoying themselves thoroughly.
The bed had been a good idea. House did buck his hips, wanting more, and he could barely manage it lying flat -- on the couch it would have been out of the question. Wilson grinned to himself and did a trick with his tongue he'd actually learned from Wife #2 (not an entirely useless marriage) and House moaned. It was possibly the least-controlled thing he'd ever done in the entire time they'd been friends. Wilson dug his fingers into House's hip and House moaned again and tried to push him away and yeah, that was going to happen --
Wilson swallowed, twice, then grinned again and looked up at House, wiping off just the bare corner of his mouth with his thumb. House was lying limply, one arm dangling off the bed, eyes blinking at the ceiling.
"Now you may talk," Wilson said magnanimously.
***
There had been some talk, true, and then there had been some more touching, and House's amazing hands again, and then some quiet, while they rested. He'd actually almost fallen asleep, lying across the bed with his head on House's chest just below his ribcage, when House touched his ear, finger tracing the curve of it down to his jaw.
"Mmh?" he asked, twisting slightly to look up at him. House was staring at the ceiling.
"I lost my virginity when I was fifteen," House said, apropos of nothing.
"Well done, young Gregory," Wilson answered drily.
"We were living in California. I would have slit my wrists if I thought it would get me away from the base for a few hours. I didn't even get off for school. There was an on-base high school for gifted kids."
"Gifted kids?"
"Who the government wanted to cultivate into gifted officers and gifted arms specialists and gifted military surgeons."
"Ah." Wilson wondered vaguely where this was going, but if it was going to involve House and some muscular Marine, he was all for it.
"They had an athletics program that got me off the base two hours twice a week, so I signed up."
"I'm guessing you and your dad -- "
"Yeah." House paused -- not quite a hesitation. "The bus picked us up Tuesdays and Fridays and took us to the beach, about half an hour away. Had to pay for my own wetsuit, but I was running a pretty tidy papers-on-demand operation by then. I could afford it."
"What did you need a wetsuit for?"
"And a surfboard."
Wilson lifted his head. "You surfed?"
House extended his thumb and pinky, wiggling them slightly. "Totally rad, man."
Wilson laughed. "Were you any good?"
"It's just balance, and knowing how the wave was going to go. I always knew."
"So you met some girl surfing, took her to the weenie roast, danced to the Beach Boys..."
"I deliberately missed the bus back one time. Nobody noticed. It was April, I thought I could sleep on the beach, get a job...somewhere, doing something."
"You ran away from home?"
"I got picked up by the surfing instructor, who thought I had a legitimate excuse for missing the bus. He called my dad, said he'd look after me, I was too chicken to speak up..."
"Sounds like you."
"I was fifteen."
"Sorry, do continue."
"He bought me dinner."
Wilson bit his lip. "You lost your virginity to a surfing instructor?"
"I look awesome in a wetsuit."
"Did you...enjoy it? I mean, he didn't..."
House shook his head. "No. I definitely enjoyed it. He wasn't the smartest bum on the beach, he probably still thinks it was his idea."
"You never even told me you liked...uh, this. Not in years of friendship."
House shrugged. "Never seemed relevant. After college, I didn't have that hey, it's just experimentation excuse anymore. Dating women is easier. Well, okay, dating women is a lot harder, they're all insane, but dating men is professionally difficult. You never told me, either."
"It's...different. Jesus, you knew when you were fifteen? I didn't know until I was out of med school."
"But you've done this before."
"Once. Well, twice, but only once with someone whose name I actually knew."
House started to laugh. "You had anonymous gay sex?"
"It wasn't like -- "
"You had anonymous gay sex."
Wilson glared. "Is there a reason I shouldn't have?"
"You, James Wilson..."
"I was -- frustrated."
"Clearly."
"It's not funny."
"It's very funny. What about this other time? If you were out of med school -- do I know him?"
Wilson shook his head. "He was just after my first divorce. I should have told you, but...I didn't think it would be important. And it wasn't. I thought maybe..."
"Maybe if you tried it with a man you'd shake off the feeling, because it had to be a feeling," House said slowly. "Because you liked your wives, you liked having your wives, you just didn't like living with your wives or imagining the next fifty years with them. You...were fixated on someone you couldn't have, and you thought that meant it was just the possibility of the thing, not the thing itself."
Wilson stared at him.
"I read a lot of psychology books," House said. "I probably should have noticed sooner."
"You didn't notice at all," Wilson replied. "I'm the one who kissed you, remember?"
House nodded. "How long?"
"Oh, let's see...three hours after we met, I think. Took me a week to realise it. Took me two years to figure out why I thought you were an asshole and still liked you."
"And thirteen to kiss me."
"Yeah, but be fair. From kissing to sex only took a day and a half."
House closed his eyes and actually smiled, without the faintest hint of sarcasm or bitterness or irony.
"The day your divorce goes through," he said, "I'll expect that singing telegram."
THE END
UNLESS
YOU WANT THE OPTIONAL GOOPY HAPPY ENDING THAT HOUSE DISAPPROVES OF.
***
"HOUSE!"
Cuddy was trying to be heard over the noise in the hallway, but it wasn't working. "HOUSE! What the hell..."
"They just arrived," Cameron said, staring haplessly at the four men in red striped jackets standing outside House's office. Foreman's patented Eyebrow would have been in his hairline if he had any hair. Chase was grinning. "I don't know why they're here."
"It's a singing telegram," Chase said. "For House!"
Cuddy stared at him.
"What, I didn't send it!"
"WHO DID?"
"I can't tell. It's something about intubation, and uh...surfing?" Cameron said.
"Dr. Cuddy?" Chase said faintly. He was peering through the blinds on the conference-room side, past the glass divider and into House's office. Cuddy joined him.
"Oh my," she said. "Is it warm in here?"
"What are you -- oh," Cameron said. "Oh my."
"Did you know about -- "
"No, but I want season tickets," Cameron said quickly.
Dr. Wilson, lab-coat still on, was standing with his back to the door, both hands on Dr. House's face, holding him quite still while they kissed. House already had his hand in a very inappropriate place, unless he was giving Dr. Wilson an exam for testicular cancer.
Cuddy sighed. "Only House would come up with a totally new sexual identity just to fuck with me."
"I don't think it's you he's fucking with," Chase replied. Wilson let House go and said something quietly, their foreheads almost touching. The singing-telegram men offered Cuddy their business card and then went on their way.
House looked up over Wilson's shoulder, caught the spies looking in at them, and leaned forward, biting Wilson's neck.
THE REAL END.
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