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It was an impossibly hot day in New Jersey. It was around noon, and the sun was beating down mercilessly, not a cloud in the sky to lessen the blow. They were on the fourth day of a heat wave, and it felt like it was never going to end. The days stretched out with the horrible heat. The air conditioning in House’s apartment was struggling to keep up. Even with the curtains drawn and the air up as high as it could go, the place was stiflingly hot. The air was thick and heavy and made you want to do nothing but lay on the floor and melt– which was exactly what House was doing. He had been alternating between lying on the floor and standing in front of the freezer in search of relief. It certainly didn’t help that another person was occupying the space. House’s apartment wasn’t small, but on the hottest day of the summer, sharing it with another fully grown man was not fun. Wilson was sprawled out on the couch, occasionally shifting so his skin wouldn’t stick to the leather. House groaned as he hoisted himself off the ground to stand in front of the freezer once again.
"You know, you'd be a lot more comfortable if you weren't wearing jeans," Wilson said to him, not for the first time since the beginning of the heat wave.
"I'd be a lot more comfortable if you would stop bumming around on my couch," House tried to put as much contempt into his response as possible, but he just sounded miserable.
On top of just being incredibly hot, the weather was absolutely not helping with his pain. He had been downing Vicodin like you wouldn't believe, much to Wilson's dismay. House opened the freezer once more and leaned his head in. The initial breath of cold air on his sweaty skin felt like heaven, though that didn't last for long. The cold air was quickly beaten by the stifling heat, leaving House once again without relief. As House began to hobble to a new spot on the floor, Wilson peeled himself off of the couch and stood in front of him. When House stopped, he swayed a little. He was leaning heavily on his cane. If you were to nudge it even the slightest, he would topple right over.
"I've had enough of listening to your misery. Take off the jeans. You're going to give yourself heat stroke," Wilson began lecturing the man before him.
"Getting hot for me, Jimmy? I thought it was just the heat wave," House quipped feebly.
Wilson just sighed in response to that. "I'm serious, House. You look five minutes away from passing out. Go change into something a normal person would wear in 105° heat." His voice had a very final sound to it. He wasn't taking no for an answer. He was tired of House's lack of self-preservation.
"My choice of clothing will not make that big of a difference."
"A difference nonetheless. Go." He took a small step back for House to get by and pointed to his bedroom.
House just continued to stand there. It wasn't that he wanted to remain miserably hot. He certainly didn't enjoy this. Not only was his outfit completely inappropriate for the weather, but the rough fabric of his pants was rubbing against the overly sensitive scar tissue of his thigh. If Wilson were not there with him, hell, he'd probably lounging around completely naked. But the gnarled pit on his thigh was something he never wanted to reveal to anyone if he could help it. Since the infarction initially happened, Wilson had only seen what remained of his thigh a handful of times– when he was left taking care of House after Stacy had left –and those times had not been much of a choice. It wasn't about thinking he'd be judged or ridiculed, House gave very little thought to what others thought of him. No, it was that House himself didn't even want to see the mangled skin. Whatever the opposite of someone's pride and joy was, that was what his thigh was to him. Something to be hidden and neglected. If not for the pain, he would choose to forget it exists at all.
"House." Wilson's voice was firmer this time.
And yet, House remained still. "I can't" He spoke softly.
"You're making yourself miserable. Seriously, if you're not going to take care of yourself, dammit, I'll do it for you."
And House knew that was not just an empty threat. There had been many times in the past when Wilson was left taking care of House when he refused to do it himself. Feeding him or bathing him or getting him to bed when he was too fucked up to do it himself. Wilson cared more for his well-being than he did. He'd be damned if he just stood by and watched House melt.
"I can't," He said with more emphasis this time. Anger was seeping into his tone.
Once more, Wilson sighed. "What do you mean you can't? Did you forget how to put on pants? Heat get to your brain?"
"Because I don't want you to see me." House finally admitted. Resentment dripped from his voice. "Because I'm damaged and disfigured and I don't want you to see that. I don't want you to see that part of me. I don't want to see that part of me. As far as you're concerned, right now, it doesn't exist. Is that a good enough answer for you?"
Wilson stood in stunned silence for a moment. Those were words he never expected to hear from House. Not because of his fear of vulnerability, but because this was House. House who did whatever the hell he wanted, whenever he wanted, with no regard for what others think. House who did not let a single opinion about him make even a dent in his ego. House who could not possibly give less of a shit about what others thought. Yet here the older man was, standing in front of him, admitting to so deeply hating something so shallow as his physical appearance. The physical, something House had so far distanced himself from.
"I don't even know where to begin with that."
"How about nowhere?"
"Do you really think I care? Do you think some scar will scare me off? For god's sake, I'm an oncologist, what I see in an average day of work is worse than any scar on your body."
"You say that, but-"
Wilson cut him off. "No buts. Your scar is not going to make me love you any less. I am not going to run screaming from this apartment or take pictures to laugh at behind your back."
"That's not what I care about, dammit! I know you won't. I can live with disgust and I can live with laughter. I don't want you to see me differently. Do you know the looks I get just walking around with a cane? 'Oh, the poor cripple, pity him, his life must suck so much.' You’re able to look past that, but could you look past this?" He motioned to his bad leg with his left hand.
“Jesus, Greg.” As he heard his first name, House looked away from Wilson. “Do you… Do you really believe that I’d do that? That I’d suddenly think differently of you just because of your leg? I’ve stood by you through so much, so many things that should have made me see you differently, and you think the way you look could possibly change that?” Wilson nearly sounded exasperated. “For a genius, you seem pretty damn stupid sometimes.”
With that, House met Wilson’s gaze once again. “You sure know how to sweet talk a man,” Was all he could manage to say.
“C’mon. I know you’re miserable,” Wilson moved to support House to his bedroom.
And he was. Internally, he was clawing to get out of the rough, heavy denim. He was hot and in pain and overstimulated. The sweaty fabric rubbed against his skin horribly. He wanted almost nothing more than to get out of those pants– almost. No amount of reassurance could change House’s mind. No amount of reassurance could change so many experiences before. No amount of reassurance could wash away years of self-loathing. But he couldn’t get himself to put up a fight. He was weak from the heat and the pain. He allowed Wilson to all but carry him to his bedroom.
House deposited himself onto his bed once they entered the room. Wilson began digging through his closet, looking for suitable clothes. His closet was a disaster, there was absolutely no organization, no rhyme or reason to anything. That was a battle for another day, Wilson thought. After sifting through the random assortments of clothes in House’s drawers, he found what he was looking for. A pair of shorts, stuffed into the bottom corner of a drawer. They’d probably been sitting there for years, untouched since the infarction. For good measure, he also grabbed a different shirt. It was made of very light cotton.
“Here, change into this. I’m not letting you give yourself heat stroke on my watch,” He helped House off the bed and handed him the clothes.
House peeled off his sweat-soaked shirt easily. Nudity did not phase House one bit. Bodies are bodies, everyone has one. It was nothing Wilson hadn’t seen before. Not even the scars on his torso bothered him. The symmetrical scars across his chest– of which Wilson had a matching set –and the gunshot wound carried none of the same shame, none of the same disgust as the one lower down. Next came the hard part. Seeing anxiety climb onto House’s face, Wilson turned around.
“Does that make it better? If I’m not looking at you?” He asked. His voice was gentle. He almost felt bad making House do this, but he’d certainly feel worse if he allowed him to drop dead from heat stroke or dehydration from sweating.
“It would be better if you weren’t doing this at all,” House tried to put contempt in his voice, but all that came through was… something Wilson couldn’t totally put his finger on. Perhaps shame, or anxiety, or maybe even desperation– all things you would never hear from House.
Even after that, though, he did proceed to change into the shorts. Slowly, gingerly, he pulled them on. He tried to have them ride as low on his hips as possible. The shorts fell about ¾ of the way down his thigh, showing just the lowest part of the marred skin. Far too much for House’s comfort. Regardless, he did have to admit that it already felt a lot better. The air, though not cool, was hitting his skin, and the light, smooth fabric caused much less irritation than the denim had.
“Are you happy now?” He spat at Wilson, defeated.
He slowly turned back around. “Yes, actually, I am.”
Though it hurt him to upset House like this, he took comfort in the fact that he already looked just a tad more comfortable. He looked the man in front of him up and down, not to see his scar, just to see him. He had gotten House out of his comfort zone. That zone was tightly guarded, with barbed wire and armed guards. The fact that he had been allowed to do that made him adore House all the more. Wilson was his safe space. Wilson was the one he could feel safe enough to do that around.
House was like a feral cat. A hungry, cold, feral cat. A cat who would come into your yard, maybe in search of food, and hiss at you and bolt if you got too close. You could start to put out food for the cat, and slowly, over the course of months (or in House and Wilson’s case, two decades), you could gain its trust enough to scratch its belly and even invite it inside for short periods. Everybody else in your neighborhood would see the cat as a nuisance, an angry pest, but you saw past that. You saw the trust and the love hidden deep, deep down. This was just a cat. A cat who had learned to distrust since the day it was born. A cat shaped by its circumstances.
“You gonna continue eye-fucking me, or do you wanna go back into the room with the only fan in it? My show should be on soon.” It was a good sign that House was still being, well, House. He wasn’t shutting Wilson out immediately after this show of vulnerability, at least not yet.
Wordlessly, Wilson slipped an arm around House’s waist and led him back into the living room. The fan was not doing much to decrease the temperature, but it was certainly a lot less stuffy in there with the moving air. The two plopped down on the couch together and shifted a comfortable distance away. It was much too hot for snuggling, though Wilson wanted nothing more than to hold and comfort and reassure his lover at that moment. He leaned forward to grab the TV remote off the coffee table and handed it to House.
“You know I love you, right?” Wilson asked, facing him. While this was meant to be reassurance for House, the answer would hopefully assure him, too.
“I think your sappiness will kill me before the heat ever does.” A pause. Then, as House met Wilson’s gaze, “I know. I love you, too” His voice was quiet but very certain.
The two spent the rest of the day watching crappy reality shows and daytime dramas. Wilson paid little attention to the television, though. Most of the time, his eyes rested on the man next to him. He was taking in all of his features, drinking up the sight of him as if he were a tall glass of ice water. The trust House had in him made him just that much more beautiful. House was his. House let himself be his.
***
The heat slowly died down to tolerable levels over the next couple of days. As House and Wilson entered the apartment one day after work, House made his way to the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Wilson asked as he toed off his shoes.
“Changing,” House replied.
That was an odd thing for House to do, considering he went to work in the same thing he’d wear around the house. He had to be up to something. Wilson decided to let it be for the time being and began to settle in for the night. He entered the kitchen and opened the fridge in search of a cold beverage. As he did, he heard that oh-so-familiar three-legged gait enter the room. He had been gone for a suspiciously short amount of time. Now Wilson really wondered what he was up to.
“You want anything while I’m in here?”
“I’m good,” House responds. His voice sounded smaller than it did just minutes earlier.
Wilson grabbed his drink and turned to exit the kitchen. The sight in front of him shocked him. There House was, once again wearing the shorts. This time, on his own free will. Wilson knew immediately that he could not make a big deal out of this– or any deal at all, for that matter –because it would risk scaring House away. But this was a big freaking deal. He had to force himself to move as if nothing was happening. He had already stood still for too long, and House was studying him intensely. The two sat together on the couch, this time closer together. They went about their usual evening routine, which consisted of turning on whatever sports game was on at the time and chatting away about nothing at all the way only old friends can. Though he was clearly trying to hide it, House seemed just slightly on edge all night. He was clearly out of his comfort zone, but, like Wilson, was also not trying to make a big deal out of it.
Late into the evening, Wilson laid his head on the other man’s shoulder. House leaned into the touch, resting some of his body weight onto Wilson. “Thank you,” Wilson said quietly. Though he did not want to screw it up, he needed to say something.
House turned his head to look down at him. “For what?”
“For trusting me.” He almost regretted saying it, fearing that he would scare House off, but he said it as casually as possible.
House sat silent for a moment. Wilson began to tense. He fucked it up, he knew it. He made too big of a deal and-
“Yeah.” House finally breathed. His voice was barely audible. He cozied himself against Wilson a little bit more.
That word was all he needed to hear. His body once again relaxed against the other’s and they sat in comfortable silence for the rest of the night. There was a new feeling of comfort in the air, and it warmed Wilson’s soul. House, his House, trusted him.