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"Bye," Wilson says, leaning in for a quick kiss. He's outside the door before it hits him. What the hell was that?
It’s part of his normal morning routine, kissing his wife goodbye. Morning kisses feel particularly important given how often he works late. He’s pressed his lips against Sam’s, Bonnie’s, Julie’s.
And now, apparently, House's.
A good friend would let it go. Would understand that he was running on autopilot, and maybe have a tiny bit of compassion for a man heading into his third divorce. Would absolutely not mock him endlessly for it.
He groans. This will be hell.
*
It’s a busy day, so it’s easy enough to avoid House. Wilson eats lunch at his desk, and checks in on a few of his patients. When he gets back to his office he senses something’s different but doesn’t quite know what, even though he’s certain who.
He’s been back at his desk for maybe an hour when it finally registers. There’s a heart-shaped photo frame, a snap of him and House inside. He forgets when exactly it was taken, but they do look suitably smitten - drunk and smiling.
Wilson imagines, briefly, that this might be the end of it. Then he remembers who he’s dealing with.
*
The thing is, if he goes to a hotel room instead of back to House’s place, House has won. So he has to go home (wait - when did he start thinking of it as - best not to go there) and brave it out.
“Honey, I’m home,” House sings out when he comes through the door.
Wilson looks up from the couch. “Darling! How was your day?” He flutters his eyelashes.
Leaning into this is the only way it might be tolerable.
“I need a back rub,” House says.
Wilson wiggles his hands. “Come here, sweetheart.” He meets House’s eyes. Forces himself not to look away.
He breathes out as soon as House gives up. “D’we have any pizza?”
“I’ll order,” Wilson says.
*
But it’s never that easy.
“Omigod, Dr Wilson, congratulations,” a nurse whose name Wilson knows he should remember says to him two days later in the corridor outside his office.
“What?”
“On your engagement!” She beams.
“My -” He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “Okay.”
*
“You ask him.”
“I’m not asking him.”
“Foreman?”
“This is none of our business. And also stupid.”
“Come on. Please?”
“If you care so much, you ask.”
On account of how the doors in the hospital are not soundproofed, Wilson is prepared for the tentative tap on his door, and to see Cameron hovering there. “Hi, Dr Wilson. Um - there’s a lot of talk going around about how you and House are - engaged?”
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Wilson says immediately. And then. He doesn’t know quite why. But the devilish part of him - the part of him most frequently seen in the presence of one Gregory House - prods him. “Gay marriage still isn’t legal in New Jersey. Which is an outrage, by the way.”
Cameron’s mouth opens and closes again. “Oh.”
Wilson grabs the heart-shaped photo frame. “Don’t you think I wish I could marry him?” he asks, turning it toward her. Earnest now. “It kills me I can’t -” Here he pretends to choke up; he waves a hand over his eyes. “Sorry.”
Cameron’s almost tearing up, and Wilson would almost feel guilty were he not so proud of himself.
*
The next day, several staff emails include links to a petition in support of legalizing same-sex marriage.
*
“Honey,” House says bitingly from the door of Wilson’s office, “Can we talk?”
Wilson feigns innocence. “Sure.”
Once the door’s closed behind him, House hisses, “Cameron thinks you’re in love with me.”
Wilson shrugs. “You’re the one who told people we were engaged.”
They glare at each other.
“You’re toying with her emotions, you know,” House finally says, before half-stomping, half-limping off.
*
When Wilson gets home (no, to House’s place), there’s gay porn playing on the TV.
He forces himself not to visibly react. “I’m ordering Chinese, you want anything?” he asks.
House looks up from the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table. His hands are at his sides, thankfully. “Bit busy right now.”
Moans and grunts emanate from the TV. Wilson pretends it’s not happening. “I’m going to order in the next five minutes, let me know.”
“Do you think this guy looks like me?” House asks, and then Wilson looks at the screen.
“I couldn’t possibly comment,” he says. His heart’s pounding.
“He has a smaller penis, obviously,” House adds.
Wilson hides out in the kitchen for a few minutes until he’s able to breathe normally again.
*
The next day at work he orders four dozen red roses to be delivered to Dr Gregory House; they’ve turned up by the time he sticks his head around the door. “Lunch?” he says, as though he hasn’t noticed them.
“If you wanted to get into my pants, you didn’t need to sacrifice so many defenceless flowers,” House responds.
“What’s the right number of roses to get into your pants?”
House’s mouth curls into an appreciative smile at this, and for a moment Wilson thinks he may have won this round. He’s getting up, they can grab some food in the cafeteria and have what passes for a normal conversation between them, they’ll put the stupid kiss behind them - but then House grabs his hand. “Come on, honey,” he says, swinging their hands together cheerfully. “Let’s go eat.”
*
Wilson realizes he’ll have to kiss him again. Properly, this time. In public. That’s the only way House will back down.
House will back down, won’t he? Or is this going to end with blowjobs in the hospital lobby, Cuddy scowling disapprovingly, his own patients losing all respect for him?
That floor would be hell on his knees.
He has a terrifying vision, suddenly, of taking his best friend to bed out of sheer stubbornness on both their parts.
Terrifying, by the way, is absolutely the word he’s using for it. Even if erotic would be more accurate.
*
He decides to postpone the kiss to try one more thing, involving holding a boombox over his head, Say Anything style, though he swaps out the Peter Gabriel song for ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’.
Everyone in the cafeteria is watching as House hobbles toward him. “Well, this is just cruel,” he says.
Wilson can’t tell if he’s serious. He sets the boombox down, the song still blasting. “House -”
“I can’t jump into your arms the way she can. Shame on you for mocking a poor cripple.” House waggles his finger disapprovingly.
“Try it. I’ll catch you.” Then Wilson freezes because he’s heard it, how sincere he sounds.
House leans closer, murmurs in his ear. “You know you’re going to have to kiss me now if you want to keep this up, right?”
Wilson is extremely, uncomfortably aware of this fact, yes. And how that too-brief moment of House’s hot breath on his ear has made him want to do it. How House’s proximity is making him forget all the reasons he shouldn’t kiss his best friend at work, with a good third of their colleagues watching them with curiosity.
Oh, screw it.
He grabs House’s face in both hands, brings it toward him. Slams their lips together. His mouth opens against House’s, his tongue licking its way inside. This is not a morning goodbye kiss, this variety: it’s how he kisses when he wants to make someone breathless and panting, when words aren’t enough and he has to show someone just how much he loves them.
(Shit. He loves House. This is not an ideal time or place for that epiphany.)
He’s distantly aware of applause. Of the song. More immediate is the scratch of House’s stubble against his own skin, the press of House’s tongue against his own, the hands that have somehow slipped around his waist.
“This is a hospital,” Cuddy hisses at them, and they jump apart. The world floods back in. She rolls her eyes. “Save it for your sleepovers.”
Wilson bends to pick up the now silent boombox. He’s trying not to look at House, but then he does, and oh - House is looking back at him, one hand rubbing his jaw, his eyes wide, his mouth still open in a way Wilson recognizes (he’s kissed that expression into many mouths in his time) but never expected to see on this particular face.
Time stands still again, as though the cafeteria intersects with some strange space-time vortex, and then House flees and Wilson’s stupid treacherous heart cracks.
*
He’s not crying in his office. Not over this. He’s chewing on the insides of his cheeks trying very hard not to cry in his office over this, because shedding tears over anything other than a dying patient, in this space, would be unforgivable.
He’ll go to a hotel. He can sob there. Later. After he does his job. Wilson pulls himself together and welcomes in his next patient.
*
House is waiting in the passenger seat of his car. Wilson jumps. “How did you get in?”
“Don’t ask,” House says.
He gets in. “Thought you had the bike today.”
“Leg’s acting up. Thought you could drive us home.”
Wilson silently registers the us. The home. He starts the car, letting the fear that’s been coiled around his heart for hours evaporate. “How bad is the leg?”
“Waiting for the pills to kick in.” A tiny pause. “Leaned on it too long when some idiot kissed me in the cafeteria.”
“Unacceptable behaviour in the workplace. I’d sue for sexual harassment.”
“Right? No one should kiss like that if they can’t finish the job.”
“Cuddy frowns on hospital nudity.” Wilson bites down on his lower lip to hide quite how ridiculous his smile wants to be.
“She’s such a prude.” House glances over. Spots the stupid smile. And - in what might be the most miraculous moment of their entire friendship - doesn’t call him on it. Doesn’t make a joke. Just says, “God, I really want your mouth on my dick.”
“Not till we get home.” Wilson tries to sound firm. Sensible. Not in danger of crashing the car.
“Mo-om!” House whines. Then catches himself. “I can’t say that in bed. Daddy?”
“Please no.”
“Dr Wilson,” House says, delighted with himself. “The love doctor.”
Why was he worried? Wilson wonders as he drives home at a speed that is definitely not under the limit and House monologues about big, hard prescriptions and administering it orally. Nothing’s changed.