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Wilson frowned at his bow tie in the reflection of Cuddy’s office bathroom mirror. Partially because the tie was crooked, and partially because he was working through some plumbing-jealousy. A private bathroom? C’mon. He was a department head and the de facto captain of the House Keepaway Team, which deserved hazard pay, and definitely a private bathroom. Next time his annual review came around, he was going to have some negotiations about a remodel. Possibly also involving a request for a trap door to parachute out of when House barged in. Or, better yet, a trap door to drop House into a cage full of Star Wars-style monsters, ala Luke in Jabba’s Palace, where he’d have to battle them with wits and cane in order to earn his hourly bothering-Wilson-time.
The fantasy of a sweaty and artfully dirt-stained House sparring beasts was taking a weird, somewhat erotic turn when Wilson spied the man himself lurking in the shadows of Cuddy’s office.
“Funny thing. I was told I’d find a sexy doctor all dressed up for me in this office tonight,” House drawled when he realized he’d been spotted, propping himself against the bathroom door and dragging his eyes up and down Wilson’s tux, “Know anything about that?”
“Pardon?” Wilson blinked his most innocent eyes over at House, earning the expected smirk.
House—also dressed in a tuxedo, which was a bit like seeing a Hell’s Angel in silk stockings—slipped a folded piece of hospital letterhead out of his jacket and held it sharply between index and middle finger. “This letter in Cuddy’s trademark girly cursive snuck into my backpack. Right between the folds of the new Victoria’s Secret catalog. Odd how she knew that’s the one place I’d be sure to find it.”
“Anyone who’s been subjected to your company for extended periods could guess that.”
“But who would willingly subject themselves to more of my company, knowing that?”
Wilson shrugged expansively, “The person who wrote this dirty letter luring you here, apparently.”
“How’d you know it was dirty?”
“It lured you. Ergo, dirty.”
“Decent speculation. Care to guess what else it said?”
Wilson leaned quietly back against the sink, elbows propped on the rim.
“It promised that if I were to return the frou-frou favor,” House gestured from his impeccable tie to his shining shoes, “there would be more favors to come.”
“Wow.” Wilson did not use a ‘wow’ tone of voice. “I guess Cuddy finally fell for your charm offensive. Emphasis on the offensive.”
“But Cuddy’s not here,” House twirled his cane, stepping closer, “so who will dispense my favors? Keep in mind, I encountered this letter between a spread on crotchless teddies and garters, so my expectations are high.”
Wilson’s blood pressure could relate. House hooked his cane on the sink and planted both hands on either side of Wilson’s carefully nonchalant posture.
“I could page her,” Wilson attempted an airy tone and missed by about seven miles, “emergency in office bathroom. Bring crash cart and lingerie.”
“That might get a little awkward, since she didn’t actually write the letter.”
“But you said—”
“You wrote it.”
Wilson blinked, abruptly back on steadier ground. House was always going to find out, now they could stop whatever this exercise in torturing Wilson’s unmentioned and unrequited attraction was and get back to their usual deductive jousting. He asked the next natural question: “Why would you think that?”
House grinned and flourished the letter beneath Wilson’s nose. “The scent. Cuddy always dabs perfume on her wrist, like some sort of paperback romance protagonist, and it infuses anything she writes by hand. No expensive lilac and honeysuckle, no Cuddy.”
Wilson matched the grin, ready to admit an honorable defeat and explain it all, including how House was still actually the loser in this scenario, when House continued, “This letter reeked of someone else’s raging hormones.”
Sweat broke out under Wilson’s collar. “Hmm?”
“If Cuddy hasn’t finally broken and decided to beg me to service her after hours, then the question becomes: why would you want me looking positively edible in black tie, in a darkened office, all alone at night?”
“Why…” Wilson’s voice failed him. House was so close, Wilson could’ve drawn his own Holmesian olfactory conclusions if he wanted to—which he didn’t of course, he was too busy getting his shit together from where it had spilled all across the tile when House started doing something that looked a hell of a lot like hitting on him.
In some kinds of light, the blue of House’s eyes was electric and all-consuming. These cheapo bathroom fluorescents fell under that category, apparently. Wilson couldn’t look away.
“Why tonight?” House gently straightened Wilson’s bowtie, the backs of his fingers against Wilson’s neck while his thumbs brushed over the fabric. “What’s so special about this particular Saturday evening, after all this time?”
Time. There wasn’t time. Or maybe there was—maybe this beautiful, insane moment of perfect miscommunication could still be saved.
House’s eyes were glued to Wilson’s mouth and Wilson’s own gaze fell to watch House slowly, deliberately suck his lower lip into his mouth. And bite down. Dear god.
I can fix this, Wilson thought wildly, I can—I can close the door. Lock the door. Push House up against the door. Kiss House.
Kiss House.
He licked his lips and boldly grabbed House by the waist to put his plan in motion when suddenly, they weren’t alone anymore.
“Oh my god! Wilson, I can’t believe you did it.” Cuddy clasped her hands to her impressively elevated breasts with glee, “He’s actually here! And dressed!” She scurried forward—as opposed to her usual harried bustle, a tribute to how happy she really was—and hooked one arm into House’s elbow while the other rustled in her cleavage to produce a five dollar bill. She handed it to Wilson. Wilson wanted to die. He wanted to die right now.
“Best five bucks I ever lost,” she crowed.
House’s face had cycled from shock to confusion to disbelief, then jumped to a familiar sullen blankness. Wilson had gone through at least five stages of grief and was pretty sure he was inventing a sixth as they spoke. One of his hands—the one not holding payment for his sins—was still on House’s waist. He dropped it before House decided to amputate.
“You sold me out…” House’s growl was so low it scraped hell’s basement, “for a single digit bet with the whore of Princeton?”
“I prefer Doctor Whore, if you don’t mind,” Cuddy cut in dryly.
“I do mind. And I’m leaving.”
But Cuddy wasn’t about to let her prize get away that easily. She adopted a linebacker stance, and House may have had the better part of a foot on her, but the smart money was still on Cuddy. “Oh, you’re staying. You’re staying and you’re gonna be the star of the show, my friend.”
House ground his teeth and turned on Wilson. Wilson’s knees were already liquid and he seriously considered hitting the deck and begging with raised hands for Cuddy to leave and House to pretend that the last thirty seconds had just been some terrible dream.
“What? Show?”
“You must have heard about the benefit,” Wilson insisted, fighting down desperation, “there’ve been posters and announcements and mailings and I know I mentioned it—”
“—and you also know that I purposely scrub anything hospital-related about benefits, donors, charity, expense, or money from my brain.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Wilson did know. That’s why he’d figured House would miss the trap and take the bait and then be too temporarily flummoxed by the lack of lascivious Cuddy to make his escape before he could be boondoggled into—
“Listen,” Cuddy resumed her usual businesslike tone, “the bachelor auction starts in five minutes. You’ll be a late listing because I honestly didn’t think Wilson could get you here. But you’re coming with me to the stage and I’m not letting you out of my sight until I hand you over to whatever lucky date scores you.”
House mouthed the words ‘bachelor auction’ in silent horror. Then, reproachful gaze settling once more on Wilson, “You…literally…sold me out.”
Betrayal was House’s kryptonite. The big kahuna of weaknesses because there were so few people he let get close enough for it to even be a possibility.
“House, I didn’t think—I mean, I didn’t know that you would—”
House didn’t need to point out that Wilson’s protests were pathetic, but he did anyway. “Shut up.”
One stubbornly lustful track of Wilson’s mind was still imagining the road not taken, and in that world he was getting deliciously beard-burnt and finding out if House’s elegant pianist fingers felt as good as Wilson had imagined in certain private late-night scenarios, and fuck his entire life goddammit.
In a last, desperate bid for this shattered crystal moment—ground into dust beneath Cuddy’s spike heels—to not completely destroy their relationship, Wilson asked, “House. Can we, uh, continue this conversation later?”
“Sure. Over your freshly dug grave.”
“Okay,” Wilson watched Cuddy drag House over the threshold, “that’s fair.”
He took a deep breath. Hmm, nope, no amount of breathing exercises were gonna cut it. “Fuck it,” he muttered to himself like a prayer, and followed House and Cuddy out onto the floor.
“I could still make a run for it,” House raised his cane menacingly, “don’t think this will slow me down. It’s amazing how effective it is as a battering ram.”
“I’ll add that to your list of special features,” Cuddy retorted. She pulled House bodily onto the makeshift stage and then shoved him into a folding chair next to a guy Wilson vaguely recognized from Radiology. He had a permanent squint and no chin.
“Well,” House gestured at his neighbor, “at least I know why Cuddy’s so desperate for my body. Financially, that is. Without my studly good looks, this would be a bloodbath.”
Radiology-dude—maybe Jamison? Harrison? Definitely a ‘son’ of some kind—intensified his squint in House’s direction, then Wilson’s. Wilson moved his shoulders in a familiar conveyance of helplessness and the guy sighed, stood, and offered his seat.
“Thanks…Bryson,” Wilson tried, taking it.
“Henderson.”
“Sorry!” Wilson sank into the chair and watched their competition slink towards less shark-infested waters, “Dammit.”
Cuddy offered some last-minute reprimands. “Alright. Just sit tight until I call your name. If you try and escape, I’ll slice your Achilles tendon and sell whatever’s left of you, got it?”
House just glowered, so Wilson put a hand on the back of his chair and shot a weak smile at Cuddy, “We’ve got it.”
She turned to him and consulted her list, “I put you in the middle of the pack, Wilson, to perk up the bidding after we go through the, ahem,” her gaze was drawn to Henderson-not-Bryson, “opening acts. You sweetened up the donors, like I asked?”
“Yep. Pretty sure Mrs. Merrick is ready to drop her grandson’s college fund on a dinner date with yours truly.”
Cuddy grinned, pleasantly evil, “And House likes to call me a whore. Stay safe tonight, boys.” And with that, she spun about face and returned to the podium, picking up the microphone and beginning her opening schmooze. “Ladies and gentlemen! May I present the evening’s main attraction: a bachelor auction of this hospital’s very own handsome—and unattached—doctors.”
The cheering hit startling intensity. It had a feral note. Wilson did not trust the look in the eyes of some of those front-row white-haired powder-faced women.
Cuddy gestured for a lantern-jawed doctor with wavy golden hair to step forward. Wilson had definitely not seen him around the hospital before, and wondered if Cuddy had brought in a ringer to get the money flowing. Then he wondered what constituted a ringer in a bachelor auction. He turned to House to make what was shaping up to be a decent male prostitute joke, but was pierced with those stormy blue eyes. Right. He was still deep, deep in the doghouse.
“Let’s have a round of applause for our first victim—I mean, bachelor,” Cuddy laughed high and fake, “The bidding starts at one hundred dollars. And remember, it’s for a good cause.”
As the numbers rose, House fiddled with his tie. Fiddling turned to fussing turned to the tie being torn apart and the top few buttons following the trend. Wilson watched with undisguised interest.
“Just trying to sully the merchandise a bit,” House explained.
“Well, it didn’t work,” Wilson replied in an undertone, mindful of the audience, “You look twice as—what did you say earlier? Oh, yeah, twice as edible now.”
House returned his gaze, eyes still hot, but less so with anger. “Too bad. If you hadn’t been so eager to sell me into human trafficking, then I’d be blowing you in Cuddy’s office right now.”
Wilson’s mouth went dry. It took a couple tries to get out the reply, “No, you wouldn’t. You were just screwing with me.”
“I was trying to screw you, unaware that I’d been lured to my doom under false pretenses.”
“False pretenses are the only kind that work on you. You have no right to be mad, this isn’t even in the top ten worst things I’ve done to you. Not mentioning what you’ve done to me.”
House only responded with a disgusted scoff.
Wilson was still thinking about what House had said re: certain activities they could’ve-would’ve-should’ve been undertaking in Cuddy’s office at that moment. Possibly, he’d be thinking about it for the rest of his life. He certainly would never be able to catch sight of Cuddy’s innocent bathroom sink without imagining himself clutching the porcelain for balance while House went down on his knees and—
“You wouldn’t,” Wilson burst out, barely schooling his volume, “I mean. Even if we’d…you wouldn’t have—”
“I give incredible head, but now you’ll never know,” House asserted calmly. “My future date on the other hand—well, she, or he, or they, have caught me in a particularly vulnerable moment. I may let them do all kinds of wicked things to me.”
Wilson might have whimpered.
House shifted his injured thigh with one hand, glare casting out on the sea of potential buyers. “So. What exactly am I looking down the barrel of here? Debauchery or…” House inspected the audience with a glimmer of genuine alarm, “defenestration?”
“You think someone’s going to bid on you, not for the sake of a dinner date, but to…” Wilson heard it when he said it out loud. “Oh my god, you’re going to be assassinated.”
“Yes. There are a thousand Mata Hari’s out there, arsenic ready and knives sharpened, just looking to get me alone.”
“But Cuddy—”
“Doesn’t care if I get her the money with my dick or my death.”
Wilson managed to trip while sitting down, a remarkable feat. “Right. Sidebar: do you think that the winners of the bachelors in this auction have the right to demand sex from their prizes? Related sidebar: do you think it’s legal, generally, to sell sex in the state of New Jersey?”
“Legal or not, for this kind of money, any of us victims would be lucky to escape with our virginity intact.”
Cuddy had moved swiftly through several men in the course of their conversation, and each had topped out in the low four digits. Wilson didn’t have House’s empirical experience with the price of modern sex work, but he imagined tonight’s funds were exceeding that of your average reach-around. He thought with a chill of what that hungry-eyed Mrs. Merrick may expect for her generosity.
He returned with difficulty to a gently mocking, “Right, because your virginity is a big concern.”
“No, the big concern is that some disgruntled donor is about to purchase my ass for the slaughter.”
“I’d never let them do that. To your ass.”
“My ass is officially out of the realm of your concern. It belongs to my future owner. And I hope they know they’re getting the Maserati of asses for their piddling donation.”
“I mean. Maybe a used Maserati. Like, the ’84 Birturbo your unsettling uncle offloads on you for your sixteenth birthday when you’re willing to drive anything.”
“Shut up.”
“Or, no, the Chrysler TC—looks like a hunk of junk but they slapped an expensive label on it, and still, it was garbage.”
“So, you watched a documentary on the worst cars of the past half-century and were waiting for the right metaphor to roll out your knowledge. You’re impressing no one, nerd.”
“Jerk,” Wilson rejoined tolerantly. Then, “Oh, shit, I think I’m coming up next.”
House nodded, reviving slightly at the prospect. “Cuddy’s lucky she caught you in the bachelor phase. By my scientific observation, the Wilson only remains in singlehood for a maximum of six weeks before the matrimonial urge takes hold.”
“Had to get that joke in there.”
“Alright, we have a real treat coming up next,” Cuddy’s gaze flashed back towards them, her smile all teeth. She’d taken to her role as auctioneer like a fish to vodka. Wilson was even more scared of her than usual. “Long-time donors will be familiar with the handsome face of our nationally renowned Oncology department, Doctor James Wilson!”
House whistled and slapped Wilson’s backside as he stood. “Go get ‘em tiger. Or rather, get gotten.”
Wilson marched grimly forward.
He pulled his modest-yet-playful smile out of storage and tacked it on. There was a swoon in the front row, which buoyed his ego a bit. House immediately cat-called at him, “Show some skin, doc!” which should’ve punctured that, but instead he stood a little taller. Screw House—or rather, don’t screw House—was the new theme of the evening. Wilson was exactly what Cuddy had said, the handsome face of a nationally renowned Oncology department, and they were about to put a hefty dollar value on exactly how worthy he was. Screw House (don’t screw House) and his hissy fit tantrum, Wilson had made the right move playing dirty pool to get him here, and he shouldn’t feel bad about it.
Obviously, he did feel bad about it. Because he was a dumbfuck.
But the bidding started and offers poured in and at least he knew he was an adorable dumbfuck that a whole bunch of wealthy locals were ready to lay down cold hard cash for.
Wilson was personally crossing his fingers that the retired anesthesiologist Dr. Chin would win his riveting company. They’d spoken many times at these events before and she was smart, funny, a brilliant conversationalist, and best of all, a stone cold lesbian. She was currently being egged on in the bidding by her wife, a charming and excitable redhead with a big honking laugh and a soft spot for a certain useless bisexual oncologist. The three of them could discuss the latest medical breakthroughs and hospital gossip and their grandchildren and maybe even tennis, he imagined dreamily.
However, he wasn’t surprised when Dr. Chin was forced to drop out with a gracious smile as the bidding threatened to reach five figures (Wilson felt a little nauseous thinking that he was expected to put out a modest used sedan’s worth of value over one dinner), and Mrs. Merrick ultimately raised a triumphant hand.
“Going once, going twice…sold! Mrs. Merrick, Doctor Wilson is all yours, for a very generous $8,500. Make sure not to break him, we’ll need him back on Monday.”
Mrs. Merrick shouted a haunting reply of, “No promises!”
Wilson gratefully left the stage to a round of good-natured applause. He started heading with no particular speed for his elderly date, who was occupied with signing away a chunk of her fortune to the hospital in exchange for the pleasure of a singular night of his company. Life was weird, sometimes. Or all the time.
“Nice pull,” a familiar Aussie accent drawled, “I do hear women get better with age.”
Wilson’s frown cemented as he found himself nose to nose with an unpleasantly cheerful Chase. He might be the least circumspect of House’s team, but this was still a high percentage of brash to be getting on with in public—he must be pretty sloshed. Actually, all three of House’s ducklings were swimming nearby with identical tipsy grins. Wilson felt the prey tingle in the back of his neck that usually only activated when House was nearby with a syringe.
“Well, I just hope she doesn’t think I put out on the first date,” Wilson cautiously zinged back, assessing the situation. “Why are you here? After you turned Cuddy down on getting sold off yourselves, I figured you’d steer clear in case she took drastic action.”
“Eh, free booze,” Chase gestured enthusiastically with his glass, “and then we heard through the grapevine that there might be a special guest…”
“And we decided it was worth the risk,” Foreman completed the thought.
Cameron’s smile was far more devious than Wilson had ever seen as she explained, “The boys and I decided we’d all chip in to buy ourselves a doctor. It is, as Cuddy has said ad nauseum, for a good cause.”
Wilson spun to look with dawning horror back at House, sitting grumpily onstage with his chin propped on his cane, little knowing the jeopardy nipping at his heels.
“You wouldn’t,” Wilson said, or more accurately, begged.
“Are you kidding?” Cameron raised a carefully penciled eyebrow, “That man makes us violate personal, legal, and medical ethics on a daily basis and you think we’re gonna draw the line at participating in a charitable event?”
But it’s my fault he’s here, Wilson didn’t say, because he knew it wouldn’t do anything except ensure House’s team thought he was truly pathetic. “You’re stuck with him day in and day out,” he took a logical tack, “It cannot be worth some…small embarrassment…to spend even more unnecessary time with him.”
“Oh, I think you’re seriously underestimating the size of the embarrassment that’s going to take place tonight,” Chase countered. “You’re right, we’re stuck with his miserable hide for seventy hours a week. That’s an awful lot of humiliation to make up for in just one evening.”
“But I think we’re up to the task,” Foreman added with faux humility.
Cuddy’s voice snapped Wilson’s attention back to the stage. “Next up, the famous—or should I say infamous—Doctor Gregory House!”
House stood and bowed, throwing his arms out wide like he was accepting an honor. He’d apparently decided on ‘unctuous bastard’ as his defensive maneuver. His horrible, too-wide joker grin certainly wasn’t winning him any allies. Even the applause had a malicious edge to it.
“We’ll start the bidding at the usual hundred dollars. Do I hear one hundred dollars, starting with just one hundred dollars, to have this…man, to do with as you please for an evening?” Cuddy said ‘man’ in the way most people said ‘cockroach’ and House’s smile cracked. He could smell the Terro.
A dozen hands immediately went up. Cameron’s was held the proudest.
Cuddy zipped through the three-figure range, cutting loose the fly-by-nights and zeroing in on the big spenders. There were plenty. House was a prime cut, and there were just too many damn people in this room that he’d insulted, assaulted, or committed malpractice on, who were all too happy to drop money on the chance to poison his steak. Not to mention a few people—inexplicably gorgeous people, as a matter of fact—with enough sociopathic leanings to find House’s caustic personality charming.
“One thousand,” a balding guy in a suit that was impeccably tailored yet still somehow hung badly from his stocky frame made the jump to four digits. Wilson racked his brain for why this person looked so familiar. Acid churned in his stomach as he remembered an incident from a past hospital benefit involving House becoming bored and acquiring a tray of spicy shrimp canapes, which ultimately resulted in one very angry, sauce-stained, and fragrant millionaire.
That had been the last time Cuddy forced House to attend one of these things. She’d been smart to choose the lesser of two evils—just look where they were now.
“Two thousand,” Wilson raised his hand. The words were out before he could stop himself. He thought about it as an intrigued whisper rippled through the audience, then decided he didn’t want to stop himself. He owed House a rescue from this mess, given that he’d created it. And if he also was positively boiling over with vicious jealousy at the thought of any of these other people (hot, rich, amoral people) getting their hands on his House? Whether to hurt him or…not? Well, that was an issue he could think about sometime between now and never.
“Three thousand,” Cameron countered. She bluffed confidence but Wilson could tell she wasn’t used to playing fast and loose with that kind of money.
He leaned in towards their little cabal. “I’m a department head.” Wilson’s voice was almost but not quite a growl—his vocal chords were too out of practice. “I’ve been getting six figures for longer than you’ve been out of med school.”
Chase grinned, somewhere between childish joy and pure malice. “And I’m a rich boy with daddy’s pocketbook and something to prove.” He chucked Cameron’s chin, and it was a measure of how pleased she was that she didn’t slap him for the privilege. “Go on, honey, buy yourself something nice.”
Foreman added his own evil grin to the mix. “Make sure you get enough to share. Oh, and Wilson, we’ll be sure to send what’s left of him back to you when we’re done.”
“I have three thousand, do I hear four?” Cuddy asked hopefully as Wilson clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms.
A towering ruler-thin blonde lifted a manicured hand and purred in low accented tones, “Four thousand.”
She had to be six and a half feet tall, and at least five of those feet were made up of impossibly long and willowy legs. Why what appeared to be a Russian supermodel would be here, and why she was bidding on House of all people was a mystery, yet it also weirdly tracked with House’s aforementioned hot-sociopath-attracting magnetic aura.
So, fine, now Wilson was bidding for a date with House against a femme fatale, a pissed-off millionaire, and a bunch of his colleagues. Just another Saturday night, nothing to see here, folks.
The Cameron/Chase/Foreman triad, led by a determined Allison, pushed the bidding steadily forward. The shrimp-grudge millionaire lost interest when they passed the ten thousand mark, as did most from both the seeking-revenge and seeking-into-the-lunatic-genius’s-pants parties. However, the Greek goddess in Versace didn’t waver.
Cuddy looked like her next ten birthdays had all come at once.
Wilson watched the ping-ponging back and forth between the two women, then watched House watch them. On the surface, House wore a tiresomely satisfied smile at not one but two blonde beauties battling to own him for a night. But Wilson knew him—really knew him—and could spot the nervous signs in the twitch of his fingers, the way he chewed the inside of his cheek. Maybe the Russian was actually an assassin, and House knew it? No, that would be crazy. Would it?
The bidding started to slow. The lithe foreign figure hesitated before matching thirteen thousand (yes, $13,000) dollars. Victory gleamed in Cameron’s eye.
“Fourteen thousand.” The millionaire previously known as shrimp was back in the game! Playing dead, apparently, but not anymore.
“Fifteen.” The Russian, competition smoking up her blood.
“Sixteen.” Cameron, with Chase tugging at his collar behind her, no doubt visions of student loans dancing in his head.
This was getting out of control. Cuddy looked like she was going to cry tears of joy. House grinned like he was planning an orgy with his growing cult, but his eyes said he was seconds away from bolting to go practice medicine illegally in Mexico.
Wilson pulled his checkbook from his inside jacket pocket and, with no little dread, flipped to the register. It was perfectly balanced, every charge neatly labeled and accounted for (dry cleaning, parking ticket – House, groceries, groceries – House, dinner – House, new shoes – goddamn House), with a running total at the bottom indicating the amount available in the account. It was his everyday expense and House-expense account. In other words, an exceedingly tidy sum.
He pulled out a pen, added ‘saving friendship – House’ next to the account total, and resigned to dipping into his retirement fund in the near future.
“Twenty-five thousand, three hundred and nineteen dollars, and forty-four cents.”
Silence fell. A few gasps and titters fractured the quiet, spreading until the whole room buzzed, and Cuddy had to tap the microphone to be heard.
“Twenty-five thousand, three hundred and nineteen dollars…and forty-four cents.” Cuddy quirked an eyebrow at Shrimp Spectacular, Russian Legs-for-Days, and the Doctor Doom Squad. They looked respectively disgusted, disappointed, and dumbfounded. “And at more than double our highest winning bid so far, I’m gonna call it. House is all yours, Doctor Wilson. As usual.”
Relief and defeat surfed through the following applause, sprinkled with a few approving whistles and one shouted “about time!” in Wilson’s direction. About time for what? For Wilson to finally spend his actual last penny on saving House’s wretched carcass?
He knew what it was “about time” for—he wasn’t completely oblivious—and he also knew that it wasn’t going to happen. Worst case scenario, he’d just earned himself a whole new form of House-mockery, with bankruptcy to boot. Best case, House would recognize he’d done him a solid and thank him and—yeah. He couldn’t even imagine it without laughing. He handed his $25,319.44 check over to the giggling hospital staffer and consigned himself to the fact that he was, simply, an idiot.
House descended from the stage, moving like a particularly rude laser-guided missile through the crowd towards Wilson. On his way, House snatched a glass of champagne out of an elderly man’s grasp, drained it in one go, and then replaced the empty glass in a different stranger’s hand where it was extended mid-gesture. Wilson wished he’d had the foresight to down a vodka. Or five.
Up close, Wilson could confirm House was still sporting two-tone emotions, smug frosting up top but a thick layer of apprehension right beneath. Maybe Wilson wasn’t about to be showered with praise, but maybe he wasn’t going to be relentlessly ridiculed for his bleeding heart, either. Hope springs eternal—or he was just continuing his dumbfuck ways. Whichever.
In any case, he couldn’t help the prickle of pride and pleasure he felt as House, his House, legally under his ownership for one glorious night, rolled to a stop just a touch too close.
House leaned in even further, bright blue eyes drilling deep as he evaluated and then diagnosed: “Guilt. Thought so.”
“Yeah.”
House’s squint intensified. “But what else?”
“You know, you could try shutting up, just for the novelty. Even experiment with gratitude if you really wanted to shock me. After all, I just saved you from a night of humiliation and ritual torture. Or, possibly, the world’s weirdest foursome with your demented fellows.”
House shot an interested look over at his disappointed kiddies. “Hmm. If it was the latter, then I think you actually owe me money for missing out.”
“Ha. Ha. You’re going to be buying me dinner for the rest of eternity, by the way.”
“Hey, how are you going to buy my meals now that you’ve frivoled away your savings to preserve my chastity?”
“You’ll just have to sell your body.”
“That did work out pretty well just now.”
Wilson smiled. It was an unavoidable side effect of actually finding House as charming and witty as House thought he was.
“Congratulations on your purchase, James,” a languorous old-money alto intruded on the moment, “though it does put a kink in our scheduling.”
Wilson followed House’s sudden high-intensity glare over his shoulder to the source of the voice which was, of course, Wilson’s own winning bidder. In the excitement of emptying his bank account to buy up his best friend, he’d forgotten that he himself had been sold for a respectable amount shortly prior. To a wealthy widow with a habit of latching onto Wilson’s arm like a limpet and touching his tie too much with her bejeweled fingers. Right.
“Sorry,” House said, which was always an alarming thing to hear from him, “but cougar-bait here paid more for my company that you did for his. So. Run along.”
“I don’t think so, Greg—may I call you Greg?” Mrs. Merrick rumbled, the picture of pleasantry, “And you must call me Marjorie. James has told me all about you, of course. Practically a mythic figure at this point.” She sized House up unflinchingly. He did the same. “Under different circumstances,” she continued, “I might suggest the three of us simply dine together, but in all honesty, I rather had my heart set on getting James here…alone.”
“That might not be a good idea. Wilson isn’t cleared for work on antiques.”
“House—”
Marjorie Merrick laughed the laugh of someone who’d had people killed for smaller slights. Wilson wondered if he needed to look out for red sniper beads on the back of House’s head—more than usual that is.
“I’m sure you boys can go out and play another time,” she simpered, “For now, I’m afraid I’m claiming buyer’s privilege. He owns you, but you don’t own him. I do.”
House’s frown sharpened dangerously, eyes luminous under knit brows. “Wilson, give me your checkbook.”
“What, why?”
“Because I left mine in my other cummerbund,” House huffed, then gave up on waiting and dove into Wilson’s jacket with both hands. He unearthed the checkbook somewhere after Wilson’s dignity and just before his last shred of sanity. “Alright, Mrs. Moneybags with a taste for hot young oncologists, I will double what you paid to keep him for myself.”
“Well…” she pursed her lips, considering, “That’s a very generous offer. I’m sure the hospital would appreciate—”
“No, I mean I’ll pay it to you. Congrats, you’ve doubled your investment, make sure to hit up the slot machines on your way out.”
Avarice twinkled briefly in her rheumy eyes, but was squashed in the end by what Wilson deeply feared was lust. “I couldn’t possibly,” she declared.
“Listen to me, you decrepit bitch—”
“House!” (Wilson’s contribution. Obviously.)
“—you’re a big donor to this hospital, and you might think that makes you untouchable. But all it means is that your address is written down somewhere in Cuddy’s office. Somewhere I can find it. So, you can either take this nice big check with all the zeroes or you can take Wilson with the knowledge that I’m completely unhinged and I know where you fucking live.”
House stared her down. Merrick remained imperial and unmoved. Wilson checked for the nearest fire exits and wondered if it was too late to return his purchase to the store.
Unexpectedly, the stand-off broke as Marjorie shook her head and let out a matronly click of the tongue. “And here I hoped all the stories I heard about you two were wrong. Thought I’d have a chance for some fun.” She heaved a sigh, diamonds rattling on her substantial bosom. “Go on, James, spend the evening with your man. You won him fair and square, after all. We can have dinner another time. No hard feelings.” She winked at House as she departed with royal grace, taking all the wind from House’s sails with her.
“Christ. She knows how to take the fun out of a romantic gesture.”
“You mean a bald-faced threat of violence?”
“That’s as romantic as I get.”
Wilson tried to edge away from the red-alert danger of that conversation. “It’s a good thing she didn’t take the check. Would’ve bounced.”
“Right, because you paid your last red cent for me.” House tucked the checkbook back where he’d found it then grabbed the front of Wilson’s jacket, low, around the second button, and reeled him in. Wilson’s respiratory system decided to take a smoke break. “You bought me because you wanted me. Even that dusty old tramp could tell.”
“I don’t—”
“I saw how you looked at me in this tux. You might not have realized it, but you meant every word you wrote in that filthy, filthy letter.”
Wilson’s mind raced through the language in that particular, damning missive. There might have been some colorful lines about wanting to get House in a tuxedo purely for the pleasure of getting him back out of it. Repeatedly. While spread across various pieces of office furniture.
Wilson tried to cook up a rebuttal, possibly involving framing the ghost hand of Cuddy at work in the letter for the really horny passages, but House wasn’t having it.
“You just told every person in this room that you want it and you want it bad. That’s a vulnerable state for you to be in. No way I was letting anyone else spend the night with you, getting to sup from the font of passion I sprung.”
“Font of—House, are you having a stroke?”
“Could be. You should probably do a full physical to make sure.”
House was so close. Their noses brushed. Wilson still wasn’t 100% back with the breathing thing. He wondered if he was the one having a stroke.
“House.” The syllable came out fractured. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you what you paid for.”
House kissed him. A serious kiss, a two-weeks-into-the-relationship, open mouth, familiar tongues and getting ready to steal all kinds of bases kiss. They’d skipped ahead. Naturally. Right past the chaste and the juvenile and the tentative to House gripping Wilson by the hair as Wilson felt a moan escape his mouth only to be caught in House’s.
Wilson let his eyes close, the better to feel House with and ignore the zillion curious looks he could feel pinging off him like arrows against the armor of House’s strong, calloused hand pressed against the tender skin of his neck, keeping him upright, keeping them together.
It was missed-a-step-going-down-the-stairs, stomach dropping out, ‘hey, who’s flying this plane?’ scary and it was so incredibly fucking good.
A bureaucratic cough tickled at what remained of Wilson’s frontal lobe. He ignored it, very much occupied with chasing the taste of champagne in House’s mouth and learning the soft lines of his back via the fierce mapping of hands.
The cough sounded again, louder, and was accompanied by a smack to the back of House’s head that knocked his nose into Wilson’s cheekbone and sent them both stumbling back a step.
“Hey!” Wilson complained vaguely, affronted that someone would break into their very private moment. After all, it’s not like they were making out surrounded by a crowd of wealthy benefactors and judgmental colleagues. Oh, wait.
“Hey, yourself, you horny chucklefuck,” Cuddy shot back, hands balanced on sculpted hips. “Can’t believe I thought you were the sensible half of this disaster duo.”
Wilson sagged slightly, casting a surreptitious glance around. They were definitely the focal point of the event, outdoing even the free bar and Dr. Maybe a Male Prostitute taking turns letting women hang off his bicep with their feet dangling above the ground.
House’s answering scowl was undercut by how impressed he was by the confidence and virulence of Cuddy’s opening insults. “What’s the problem, boss? Am I not servicing the customers enthusiastically enough?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t service anybody, at all, with any level of enthusiasm. Particularly in sight of the guests. Poor Mrs. Hinkley looks like she’s going to have a coronary.”
House followed her gaze, performed a wig-to-toe super-fast deductive scan, and replied, “It’s my fault the broad’s repressed? Her husband clearly doesn’t have an issue.” House gestured at the pair in question, “Mr. Hinkley looks like he’s recording this moment for the spank bank. Maybe you should go give them some couples counseling.”
Cuddy had reached the ‘I’m tired, I give up, go give your patient malaria to cure their broken toe’ stage of acquiescence in record time. “Joke’s on me for thinking that this might be a good thing. Give you something—someone—fun to do, and keep you out of trouble. Now, I realize that you’ve just got a new way to be disruptive and inappropriate.”
House smiled, and it was strangely free of cruelty. “Yeah. You really should have guessed that.”
“I should have,” Cuddy agreed, not looking or sounding half as irritated as she usually did when kicking House for of one of his ‘disruptive and inappropriate’ moments. “Wilson, how about you get your new acquisition out of here, before you’re both brought up on public indecency charges.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” House offered a syrupy grin before Wilson could get his head to stop spinning long enough to reply, “we’re saving those for our first anniversary.” He rearranged his grip from Wilson’s jacket to his tie, beginning to haul him through the crowd by the black-silk-bow.
Wilson’s protests did nothing to dent House’s insistence on the makeshift leash. He gave up and just held on to House’s wrist to ensure things didn’t cross the line from exciting to emergency-room.
He contemplated the possibilities with elation buzzing hot up his spine. Maybe they were headed for the parking lot. Maybe House was going to take him home. Get him away from prying eyes and they could reenact some of the particularly explicit passages from the letter that started it all—or really, why wait that long? Wilson wouldn’t turn down a crowded fumble in the backseat of House’s beat up old Dodge Dynasty. He’d commit some pretty serious crimes for that crowded fumble, actually, all bruised elbows and steamed windows…
“What are you doing?” Wilson finally asked as they breached the swarm of well-dressed elites and broke onto the cool, quiet, darkened hallway.
“I’m looking for a utility closet,” House replied tightly.
“Are you in need of utilities?”
“Yes, specifically, the utility of a dark place I can shove you into so I can get you off right now. Before I drag you home and really dig in.”
Wilson almost didn’t have enough blood left in his brain to form one last rational question: “We have…offices? In this building?”
“Not close enough.”
“There.” Wilson pointed at the electrical symbol adorning a discreetly tucked-back closet door.
He didn’t care that he was being trucked down the hall by the neck like a misbehaving retriever, he didn’t care that there was a greater than zero chance they would accidentally bump the wrong fuse and electrocute themselves, he didn’t care that there were probably a hundred other reasons not to do this—he didn’t even care that he didn’t care, that he couldn’t think of those reasons, that he was so far gone that they were just specks on the horizon of common sense.
The door, when House grabbed it, came open easily. Unlocked. “God loves me,” House declared, then pulled Wilson over the threshold.
He closed the door by throwing Wilson’s weight back against it and himself against Wilson. Wilson grabbed whatever he could reach, a scruffy cheek under his palm, an overtaxed shoulder clutched tight in hungry fingers.
House slid his cane neatly into a bundle of pipes propped against the wall, freeing both hands for mischief, which he immediately got into. While one hand did the important work of holding Wilson tight with a grip on the folds of his jacket, more adventurous fingers started feeling up his ass, leaving no rise or dip unexplored. He was so completely absent self-consciousness and it was humbling to experience, for Wilson to be wrapped up in the eye of House’s storm.
Wilson had never really wondered how House pulled women like he did. It wasn’t a mystery. He knew. He understood in a quiet locked-drawer part of himself that he would fall just as fast, faster, and now it was coming true and he was coming apart because it was happening so fast and they hadn’t even talked about it but he still couldn’t care, he might never care about anything but keeping House in the circle of his arms for as long as he could beg, borrow, and steal him away from the world.
House ground a thigh between Wilson’s. His answering gasp was sharp and desperate. House deigned to use speech, just for a moment, informing Wilson in a wrecked baritone: “I’m gonna take you now. Unless you tell me to stop.”
“I wouldn’t. I won’t.” Wilson chased House’s mouth before anything else spilled out, before he started begging for it when he didn’t need to. Because for once House wasn’t hiding his feelings behind a dozen layers of snide remarks and base deception, and Wilson knew that they were mirrors right now, reflecting back each other’s pent-up years of unanswered want.
He’d thought House’s lips were dangerous before, ratcheting up the filth in front of witnesses just to get a rise out of Wilson (and oh, did he get one), but this was more. This was House panting against his jaw, mouth slack and breath hot, totally off-target because who could bother with precision when his hands were busy wrestling with buttons and zippers.
House teased through the layers of fabric but Wilson didn’t feel the smooth, warm encircling of fingers he expected, that his brain was boiling over for. Did House want to hear him ask for it? He would, he would without question, he’d grab House’s palm and lick it wet and shove it back where he wanted it and enjoy House’s expression just as much as the pressure and the friction he needed so badly.
But House leaned away and bent his good knee and Wilson let House grip his arms automatically for balance as he descended. He watched with a dry mouth and thumping heart as House settled with a reflexive wince and a grunt on the pebbly industrial carpet.
It took a long second for Wilson to put together the embarrassment of evidence and realize House didn’t want to use his hands.
He hadn’t thought—not really, even with what he said—it was just a fantasy he’d left behind in Cuddy’s office—
You don’t have to. It’s alright. Don’t hurt your leg. Just stay with me, that’s enough.
“Shut up,” House said to Wilson’s unvoiced objections, because their silence was irrelevant when they knew each other so well. “I do what I want.”
Of course, House demonstrated none of what Wilson associated with this, especially with the often uncomfortable trial run of a first time. Not shy, not nervous, not tentative, just a long bundle of confidence and impatience.
“Just checking in.” Wilson’s voice didn’t shake as he parried back, which was a plus. “After all. You know. Zero to fellatio in ten minutes.”
“And all it took was twenty five grand.”
“Mmm. You’re anything but cheap.” He didn’t add—couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to live past it—that just the mere sight of House pooled lithe on the ground at his feet with those arctic ocean eyes trained on him and him alone was worth every damn penny. Better, that he knew behind House’s crass innuendo was a promise that he was doing this freely, and for free.
Wilson tried to control his harsh breathing as House efficiently parted his slacks, batted away his shirttails, and pulled him out of his boxers. That was a losing battle as he watched his cock part House’s lips and higher brain function burned away in the sudden, engulfing heat.
His nails scrabbled against the flat paint-chipped surface behind him as he resisted the urge to clutch at House’s face and hair. House clearly thought that restraint was dumb as hell, because he grabbed Wilson’s dominant hand and guided it pointedly to the back of his head. Okay. Wilson tested his grip, pulling just a little and groaning when House’s eyes fluttered shut and he moaned around Wilson, the little noises vibrating the fine muscles of his tongue and mouth and throat.
Wilson’s vocabulary quickly diminished to expletives and House’s name, repeated over and over, supplication and blessing in one simple sound.
The wet sucking sounds echoed in the cramped, metallic closet space, ramping up the illicit factor. House wasn’t just keen, he was greedy, like he’d been waiting for so long and he couldn’t sit back and let this pass him by for another second.
Of course. Wilson bit his lip on another groan as he realized, House knows I won’t enjoy anything he’s not enjoying. And House’s fundamentally selfish nature had no interest in pretending anything for another’s sake. The feedback loop of he wants it – he wants me to know he wants it – fuck he really wants it – I love how much he wants it, was every bit as arousing as the punishing pace House set with his hot, determined mouth.
Wilson wanted this to last. He wanted it to last for a lot of reasons, the obvious one being plain lust (who in their right mind would ever want feelings like this to stop), but just as important were pride (he couldn’t lose it after just a few minutes of even such devastatingly skilled oral, for fuck’s sake he was an experienced adult) and fear (oh no oh fuck what if this is it and House flees to a different continent after this dear god don’t let it end).
House had other plans. He was as unrelenting and singly focused and obsessed with proving his point as he ever was with medicine.
It wasn’t looking good for Wilson’s pride.
Lust was fine, though, and fear—well, there was only one way to find out how well founded that was. And maybe…maybe this was House’s way of saying that he wasn’t going anywhere. He was exactly the kind of bastard who would graduate to intensely intimate sex acts to avoid having an honest conversation about what they meant to each other. Not that Wilson was in a position to complain.
He was, in fact, in a position that gave him an outrageously debauched view of House’s mouth stretched over him, perfecting the art of suction. His wicked eyes flicked up, met Wilson’s, then turned almost demure, half-closed, with lashes splayed across pink cheeks, the familiar lines of the most familiar face in Wilson’s world, now in Wilson’s hands.
Had he imagined House doing this before tonight? How many times had he touched himself and pretended different, strong, sure hands were caressing him? Had he been so wrapped up in wanting House that he hadn’t even noticed it consuming and transforming everything? That he could write a letter detailing the longing and love he wanted to grace House’s body with and pretend it was just a joke from someone else and not even think about what it meant that it had flowed from his heart like second nature.
Wilson’s fingers tightened unthinkingly in House’s hair. It had to sting, but House just grabbed a white-knuckled handful of Wilson’s loose shirt and held him fast. Wilson couldn’t hold in the sound, didn’t even think to be quiet given the circumstances, prudence being the very last thing on his giddily empty mind. He just gave in and trusted House wouldn’t take more than he could and would in fact take only and exactly what he wanted, and he savored the waves of pleasure and aftershocks of conscious thought sparking against the rocks—he’s here, he’s mine, he wants me, he’s mine.
Afterward, House held on a little too long, a little too hard, tongue teasing at the edge of agony until Wilson whimpered and House relented and released him with a satisfied grin.
Wilson’s head fell back against the door, faster than he meant, minor impact making the stars he was already seeing linger.
“Completionist,” he accused with his first steady breath.
“Only,” House coughed, scraped the heel of his hand over his mouth, “with the things that really matter.”
Wilson’s expression turned unforgivably soppy and affectionate at that, which is probably why House barreled immediately into a blunt: “So, have I put a dent in my hospital mandated concubinage?”
“I don’t know,” Wilson pretended to think about it, “what’s the going rate on quickie closet blowjobs these days?”
“Maybe fifty bucks, depending. So, multiply that until you get twenty-five thousand, three hundred and nineteen dollars…”
“—and forty-four cents—”
“—and forty-four cents…” House whistled. “Hell, I’m gonna be down here a long time.”
Wilson grinned, feeling punch-drunk laughter ready to burst out of his chest, and reached down to drag House back to his feet. “Well, you can take a break. Just a short one.” He caught House by the neck and kissed him, free hand skating down House’s spine, flattening their bodies together as he leaned against the door to take more of their combined weight.
House smelled good. God, very good. It wasn’t the kind of thing Wilson usually allowed himself to notice, but he noticed it now. And he felt good. A sneaking twinge of guilt soured the edge of his mood as the anxiety center of his brain dwelled on more than a decade of missing out on all this—
“Stop it,” House muttered against his mouth, “I can feel you tensing up. Are you thinking? Because that’s very insulting.”
“Sorry. I’ll stop thinking immediately.”
“Good. The only thing you should be thinking about is exactly how you want to make me work off the rest of my debt to you. I hope all sexually.”
“You would. But maybe I’ll take it out in household chores. Make you handwash every last dish…” Wilson slid his hand down the front of House’s tuxedo, fingers curling around his hard-on through the dress pants, “tell you to go to town with the vacuum…” He started up a teasing, rubbing pressure that made House choke a little and bury his face in Wilson’s neck as he kept murmuring, “absolutely lose your mind with the feather duster, get in all those nooks and crannies…” his other hand massaged a slow path between House’s shoulder blades before leaping to grab his ass, eliciting a pleased hiss that Wilson wanted to eat, “make you polish the floors and then fuck you on them.”
“Stop,” House gasped and pushed Wilson’s hand away, stumbling back a step. Then he explained, deadly serious, “This tux is a rental.”
Cameron, Chase, and Foreman, passing in the hall at just that moment, heard an eruption of familiar laughter.
“I cannot believe we missed that shot,” Cameron complained, “Cuddy had it all lined up for us.”
“I know,” Foreman agreed, “But we shouldn’t be so surprised, Wilson’s damn mission in life is to get House out of all the jams he gets himself into.”
“Sounds like they’re doing the jamming together, now,” Chase commented, leaning an ear with interest towards the closet door, “To each other. If you catch my drift.”
Foreman rolled his eyes. “We do. Because we’re not braindead.”
“Would you like to be?” Chase fluttered his eyelashes, then blinked. “That was supposed to be a come-on, not a threat.”
“You suck,” Foreman sighed.
“I do. Or rather, would you like me to?”
“It’d take the edge off,” Cameron agreed, grabbing Chase’s nearest hand. Chase twined his other hand with Foreman’s, and the latter didn’t shove him off as he was prone to do when they were still on hospital grounds.
“Whataya say?” Chase grinned at him, Cameron doubling their hot-blonde-twinkling-smile power over his shoulder.
Foreman took in the sight, sighed again, and said, “I’m driving.”
Back in the closet, Wilson had grabbed House by the waistband, and was still deciding whether or not to have mercy on House’s dry cleaning bill. “It’s not like you experience shame. If I make you ruin these pants, you’d probably just leer at the poor rental people…”
“…and tell them they missed a hell of a party.”
“Exactly.” Wilson repressed a little zip of naughty pleasure at the thought.
“But more importantly,” House settled Wilson’s hands safely on his hips, “I made promises about getting you home to finish what I started.”
“Mmm,” Wilson was too distracted by House’s fingers sliding into his hair to answer for a moment, “I’m not sure you’re in any condition to drive.” He swiped a runaway thumb over the tented front of those well-fitted rental trousers, skipping away before House could protest.
“And you are, dope for brains?” House kissed Wilson’s endorphin-boosted grin pointedly. “Better figure something out. I’m not big on delayed gratification.”
“Ten years of waiting too much for you?”
“I don’t think I can wait ten more minutes.”
Wilson let House ravage his mouth, feeling his tuxedo come even further apart as House’s hungry hands explored, but stubbornly didn’t allow Wilson to do the same to him. With each playfully frustrated touch Wilson’s mind stopped skipping gears and the warm whitewater rush of emotion in his veins slowed to an easy river-rhythm. It was a comfortable stand-off, commonplace to their relationship, and the familiarity shone a brilliant spotlight onto conclusions some deep, quiet, sensible part of Wilson’s mind had drawn a long time ago.
This was more than just dopamine and oxytocin, more than just a hook-up and the culmination of stockpiled sexual tension, and Wilson just wasn’t built to shut up and enjoy the good things.
“There’s something I need to say.”
House cranked an eyebrow up, his comedic exaggeration unbearably cute when Wilson was mid-drowning in long buried feelings. “There’s something you need to say now. Right now. In this closet. Before we go violate the speed limit so I can have you spread out naked in my bed as fast as humanly possible.”
The words were almost enough to drive Wilson off track, House’s fingers slipping between the black buttons of his shirt to scratch his chest almost finished the job, but House wasn’t the only stubborn one in this damn electrical cupboard.
“Yes. I need you to know what you’re getting into. How I feel. Because I can’t live with just a one night stand, House.”
House rolled his eyes. “It’ll definitely take me more than a night to finish you off twenty five thousand, three hundred and—”
“I think I started falling in love with you in New Orleans.”
House’s expression calcified from the fringes of shock to a study in neutrality. It scared the hell out of Wilson. Yet, it wasn’t the worst possibility, it meant that House cared at least enough not to openly radiate disgust or dismissal.
“And?” House pressed, gaze analytical and severe.
“I started falling and…I never stopped.”
House’s lower lip disappeared into his mouth as he chewed thoughtfully, synapses firing invisibly behind the cold shield of his usually dynamic features.
Finally, he nodded once and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. Okay! You want me to say it in Yiddish?”
“I don’t…I don’t want, or need, you to say anything. I just needed to say it.”
“Okay,” House repeated for emphasis. “You said it. And maybe after I’ve given you upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of orgasms you can tell me again and see what happens.”
“Alright.” Wilson’s jaw worked with the effort not to scream. “When do you think that will be?”
“Eh, maybe next week,” House shrugged in that loopy marionette way he had, “I’m a fast worker.”
“So, next week…”
“Next week you can drop the other-L-word bomb again. You might find something worthwhile in the wreckage. After all, you have extremely low standards.”
The ice cracked and Wilson caught a glimpse of that magma core that had drawn him to House in the first place and kept him huddling for warmth nearby when everyone else just saw an uninhabitable wasteland. Wilson kissed him, hard, trying to taste it, completely heedless of the potential for burning carnage. He did love House. He loved him so much but it didn’t hurt nearly as badly as he’d thought it would to admit.
“Nope,” House once again evaded Wilson’s attempts to muck up that still-near-pristine tuxedo (God, only his tie was loose, everything else was horribly, horribly clasped and buttoned, how was Wilson supposed to live like this), “Home. Bed. Living fantasies tonight, got it?”
“Yeah, got it,” Wilson breathed, and allowed himself to be lugged out of the closet in much the same way as he was initially introduced to it.
They clattered down the hall and into the low-light abandoned lobby, the sounds of the ongoing party indistinct in their disinterested ears. Something sharper and closer made Wilson draw up short, suddenly extremely conscious of how loudly his disheveled clothes advertised their recent debauchery.
House and Wilson spotted the source at the same time. Cuddy. Making a beeline for her office, dragging behind her the mysterious golden hottie from the early bidding, in a manner not dissimilar to House’s current grip on Wilson.
Cuddy and House’s eyes met. Narrowed. Wilson exchanged a ‘they’re sexy but insane, what can you do?’ shrug of companionship with Cuddy’s maybe-doctor boytoy. Wilson wondered distantly what she’d had to do to pry the man away from his rightful owner.
House stage whispered to Wilson, “She’s at least three Manhattans in, plus the six inch heels, no way she catches us.”
Cuddy seemed to reach the same conclusion, resigned to calling across the lobby with a sharp gesture at Wilson’s crotch, “Zip up, you slut!”
And in a rare moment, Wilson decided to let the part of himself that connected puzzle-piece to House’s soul call the shots, and shouted back, “You first!” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating where the back of Cuddy’s dress was flapping in the breeze.
She grinned back, easy, un-insulted, and verging on proud. Then she waved them off and disappeared with her catch into the night-black depths of her office.
“You know,” Wilson pointed out as they made their escape from the hospital, “we kind of owe her one. I wouldn’t have written that letter if she hadn’t asked me to connive a way to get you into the auction.”
“I think your unbounded lust for me would’ve eventually overflowed some other way, but sure. Point to Cuddy. In fact, I think I’m going to have that letter framed.”
“No.”
“And carefully labeled. ‘Written proof of James Evan Wilson’s intense craving for my body.’”
“No.”
“I’m going to hang it in my office. Next to the Johns Hopkins diploma. On top of it, maybe.”
“Not if I burn it first.”
“I already made copies. You’ll never get at the one in the safety deposit box.”
“You’re deranged. When they said, ‘watch out for the crazy ones’ they were talking about you, specifically.”
“Uh huh. And you’re the one who’s in love with me. So, what does that make you?”
Wilson paused as they reached House’s car, gently disengaging House’s hold on his shirtfront so he could smooth both hands down his arms and lean in close to whisper, “Happy. It makes me very happy.”
“And crazy,” House insisted.
“And crazy,” Wilson agreed.
“Good. Because that means no one will believe you if you repeat what I say next.”
“And what’s that?”
“That I knew I was going to keep you forever, from the first time I saw you in jail in New Orleans.”
House kissed him, just a quick see-you-at-dinner-tonight-honey kind of kiss in passing on his way to the driver’s side, like they’d been together for years. Which, Wilson supposed, they had. And they were going to be together forever, according to House.
Wilson believed him.