Standard Disclaimer
wanderingwidget has, is, and does not plan in the future to make any money on any of the fics here archived. They were written and are provided for pure entertainment purposes.
Pairing: House/OMC; House/Wilson; Wilson/Julie
Warnings: possible ooc-ness, lack of betafish, and a whole heck of a lot of angst.
Summary:It’s a game they play because they know it’s safe, an inside joke to raise eyebrows. It’s just a game. A demented - masochistic - game.
1.
It’s a game they play because they know it’s safe, an inside joke to raise eyebrows. It’s just a game. A demented - masochistic - game. House turned his thoughts off of that track, derailing them with all of the subtlety of a brick wall at a hundred seventeen miles per hour. He wondered - often - if that were really better than letting the thought run its course. He figured it was, even after all this time, because at least a wall was faster than a long fall.
Speaking of Fall, it was definitely that time of year. The trees were wearing their fancy colors and the grass was waging its final battle of the year, desperately trying to stave off the inevitable. The wind is chilly, but not too cold, the sun warm on the backs of his hands, still nice enough to be outside, just not for long.
“Pumpkins.” He said.
Wilson arches an eyebrow at him, lips pressed into a small smile, wondering where this non-sequitor is heading and whether or not he’s bought a ticket.
“For carving.” House said, once it was obvious Wilson wasn’t saying anything. “Halloween’s in two weeks.” He added. He sipped his coffee and waited.
“Since when do you care about Halloween?”
“I love Halloween. All those trusting little brats demanding candy from total strangers. Tummy aches. Food poisoning. Razor infested apples.”
“That’s a myth.”
“A man can dream can’t he?” House batted his eyes.
Wilson shook his head, but he was smiling. “And what’s brought on this sudden Martha Stewart possession?”
“Julie would probably want to carve them with flowers or shapes or something artsy.” House made a face.
“I’ll have you know that I’ve already got a pumpkin.” Wilson said.
“It’s artsy, isn’t it?”
“It’s a cat.” Wilson conceded after a minute. “At least I think that’s what it is.”
They share a laugh. Leaning towards each other, eyes meeting and reflecting gentle mirth.
“There you are.” A pair of familiar breasts appeared in House’s line of vision.
He leered. “Ah, Drs. Cuddy, how nice to see you again.” He addressed them. “You’re looking particularly perky today.”
Wilson took refuge behind his coffee cup, eyes still dancing.
Cuddy rolled her eyes. “Clinic. Now.”
“I’m on my coffee break. Union rules.” House gave a ‘what can you do about it?’ kind of shrug.
“Dr. House, if you’re not in that clinic in ten minutes I’ll—”
House blinked innocently. “You’ll—?”
“I’m thinking.” She said.
Wilson almost choked on his dregs. House shot him a reproachful look. When he looked back to Cuddy she was sporting a particularly evil little smile. House wasn’t sure but he thought that even her breasts had taken on a sinister stance.
“Dr. Murphy’s wife’s about to have her baby, and he’s been begging me to find him a substitute for the rest of the semester —”
“Look at the time, break’s over.” House levered himself up and aimed towards the Clinic.
“And I expect you to actually see patients!”
2.
Greg looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Probably, he has. They’re sitting in his apartment eating Chinese takeout and listening to - of all things - the Monster Mash.
“This would be the Halloween Party Julie’s throwing?” Greg asked, in the same manner that he’d asked a particularly dense patient if he liked having a smelly bacterial infection on his nether parts.
James nodded, his mouth full of muushoo pork.
“The one where she expects everyone to dress in ridiculous couples costumes and eat those horrible things on crackers that she makes?”
Another nod.
“The one with the horrible cardboard ghosts and the —”
“Are you coming or not?” James punctuated with his chopsticks. He half fears that Greg will say ‘no.’ Then again he’s half-afraid that he’ll say ‘yes’ too.
“What are you wearing?” Greg jiggled his eyebrows and took a fairly pornographic bite of General Tsao’s Chicken.
James stared as he slid the chopsticks out of his mouth, then blinked as Greg started chewing, loudly. He half-suspected he did that on purpose. “If you must know, Apollo. Julie's going as Artemis.”
Greg blinked. “That’s just wrong.”
“Better than last year.” He pointed out.
With a theatrical shudder Greg took another bite. “You realize that now I have to go.” He said, conversationally.
James just rolled his eyes.
3.
It was less than a week until the party and House had spent the entire time trying to con anyone not actively brandishing a violent significant other into going to Wilson’s party with him. At least, he told himself, he was being an equal opportunity letch. And that was true.
His current target was Foreman.
“No.”
“Oh, come on. I’ve got it on good authority that it’ll get you brownie points with the boss.” He said, one hand shielding his words from the non-existent ‘boss’ over his shoulder.
Foreman flipped to the sports section. “Answer’s still ‘no.’” He said.
House rolled his eyes, caught Chase trying to sidle out through the door he’d just walked in through, and put on a surprisingly good reassuring face. “Don’t worry. There are depths to which even I won’t sink.”
Later that day - over a soggy Reuben and bad, bad coffee - Wilson said “You know you could always come stud.”
House looked down his nose, it looked much larger reflected in the black java mirror. “And deal with your wife trying to set me up with her sister again?”
“Nancy’s not coming, Lucas’s sick.”
House sighed with relief.
Wilson looked pleased. “So will you stop harassing the staff?” He asked hopefully.
House gave him a look.
“Right.” He said, mostly to himself. “Of course not.”
But House did stop, the next day, returning to his old routine of making everyone’s life just that little bit worse.
4.
The night of the party, five minutes before the guests were to arrive, it occurred to James to be worried. Greg never capitulated, especially not when he was getting such interesting reactions. It was ominous. Then again, so was the cardboard skeleton hanging on the back of his front door. It was grinning at him like it knew something.
“Ready?” Julie was smiling vibrantly, her teeth porcelain white against her Mediterranean skin. She was wearing a golden breastplate over a simple white shift and she looked beautiful. She looked like a goddess. By way of answer he kissed her, and almost tripped over his own costume. He was wearing what Greg would certainly call a ‘dress’ at some point. It left an uncomfortable expanse of his chest bare, and it was so long that he’d actually been afraid to change into it upstairs, but better too long than too short he figured.
Julie chuckled and pulled away, surreptitiously checking her lipstick in the hall mirror. There was a knock at the door and the first of their guests had arrived.
Greg didn’t show until over an hour later. When he finally did the first thing James did was collect his jaw from the floor. The second thing he did was thank G-d that he’d answered the door instead of Julie. Greg was dressed as a pimp, complete with feathered hat and blinged out cane, wearing a bright blue suit that turned his eyes into molten sapphires and - wonder of wonders - an actual tie.
That wasn’t the kicker though. No, that was the rent boy on his arm. The one with the spiky blond hair, barely there tee-shirt, and too-tight leather pants. He didn’t even look legal, and James was trying very hard to think of him as legal. He said another silent prayer.
Greg smirked. Bastard. “Nice dress Wilson. You gonna let us in or are we going to have to find a more happening party?” His arm was around the kid’s waist. The kid’s arm was around his.
“Who?” James stayed in the doorway, not out of any desire to keep them from view, but because his brain hadn’t had time to re-establish communication with anything below his collarbones.
“This is Patrick.”
“Pieter.” The kid corrected with a smile and a Russian accent. James noted, almost absently, that he had a tongue piercing.
“Oh.” He said, and allowed Greg to push him aside. This was going to be a disaster.
He was only partly right. Greg and Pieter were perfectly well-behaved. Even Julie managed - with the help of an extra shot - to be charmed and amused by the situation.
No. The disaster started and ended with him. Though, technically, it really started with the cocktail shrimp. Specifically Pieter and his method of eating cocktail shrimp. This method included a lot of tongue and a fair amount of moaning and was being employed for an audience of one in the hall leading to the kitchen. Greg liked to shock, but he wasn’t much for public displays.
James wouldn’t have seen anything at all, and the evening would have gone off without a hitch, if Julie hadn’t sent him back to get another bottle of rum. The scene was something out of one of those artsy porn films, the ones done by directors who thought they were ‘pushing the envelope’ and porn stars who thought they were actors. The doorway to the living room had been hung with orange and black streamers and the only other light was coming from beneath the kitchen door at the far end of the hall. It left them in a monotone twilight and lent a surreal tone to the entire exchange.
Greg was leaning against the wall, his left shoulder just brushing the frame of that Van Gogh print that Julie had picked up the last time she’d visited Chicago with her sister. The kid, Peter -no- Pieter, was in front of him, one hand pressed flat against the wall next to Greg’s right ear and the other with the shrimp. Greg’s hat and tie were nowhere to be seen and James found himself unaccountably disturbed by that until a flash of light brought his attention to the look in his eyes.
Pieter was smirking, moaning around the shrimp, eyes lidded. Bite. Swallow. And suddenly Greg pulled him into a hard kiss, all teeth and tongue and force.
Intellectually James knew that he should turn away before either of them noticed him, take the long way to the kitchen and grab the rum and maybe another bowl of ice because no doubt they were running out and Julie might come back herself for that. At the very least - he knew - he should look away, give them some privacy. But his brain had lost communication with the rest of his body again and this time his eyes had joined in for the fun of it. Something seemed to be burning in the vicinity of his stomach. And then his mouth declared an active rebellion.
“House!” It didn’t come out loud, but it came out with an edge that made his friend jerk back and stare at him, eyes bright over Pieter’s shoulder.
“Go. Mingle.” Greg jerked his head back towards the streamers and the party, then slapped Pieter’s ass lightly as he went. “Well?” He said once the kid was gone. His face wasn‘t readable in the half-light, but his tone was. He was annoyed, and amused, and maybe a little frustrated.
James’s mouth, having fired the first shot, abandoned the battlefield and denied any culpability. “What. You.” He stopped, pressed his hand over his mouth and forced a deep breath in through his nose. He moved towards Greg and stopped when the other man pulled himself up.
“What the hell were you doing?”
They were less than three feet apart now and James could see a glint of something in his eyes, the press of his lips. “Getting my money’s worth?” He said.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Then what did you mean?” Greg was playing the slow card.
“How far were you planning on going?”
Greg rolled his eyes. “What, here, don’t worry I wasn’t planning on banging him in the hall if that’s what you’re afraid of.” He pushed away from the wall and went to walk around James.
James stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “That isn’t what I meant.” He said again.
Greg sighed. “Don’t worry Dad, I brought rubbers.”
“Condoms break.”
“He’s clean.”
The fire in his belly resolved itself into anger. “And how do you know that?” He saw his own anger reflected in Greg’s eyes, but he didn’t get an answer. “Everybody lies Greg, right, isn’t that what you say?”
Greg held his eyes for another minute, then tried to push past him. Maybe it was the anger, or desperation, or fear that made him do it. Maybe it was the last hour spent trying to get discreetly drunk. Maybe it was something else altogether. But his mouth rekindled its rebellion and he pulled Greg into a kiss that was three parts tequila and one part something dark and ugly.
Greg kissed back, free hand skirting up his exposed ribs and stubble rasping against his cheek. His tongue was forceful and greedy.
James could taste shrimp and cocktail sauce. He pulled away.
Greg’s smile was small and bitter as he pulled back. “Go to your wife Wilson.”
James felt like he was going to be sick, but there was a line as long as conga line outside the downstairs bathroom and Julie was still waiting for the rum. The fake cobwebs mocked him as he re-emerged.
Neither Greg nor his whore were anywhere to be seen.
“Are you alright James?” Julie asked.
He nodded, tried to smile, and ignored her concerned look.
5.
It was more than a week before House saw more of Wilson than the back of his head as he turned down another hall at the hospital. He told himself that Wilson was probably busy, or maybe angsting, and that he’d come back sooner or later. In the meantime he amused himself by assigning the minions to go over his clinic paperwork and translate his less than P.C. commentary into something more acceptable and less legible. They hated him more than ever and that alone made it worth it.
So when he looked up to see Wilson standing in his doorway, hands on hips, eyes narrowed in that determined way of his, it was unexpected. But he wasn’t surprised. House paused his game.
“You done giving me the silent treatment or just enjoying the view?”
Wilson remained silent.
“Lock yourself out of your office again?” He jerked his head towards the balcony. “Help yourself.” He hit START and resumed blowing up monkeys. He heard the door shut.
“We need to talk.”
Three of the little bastards ambushed him and he died in a wonderfully graphic explosive flash of light. GAME OVER his game informed him. RESTART? It asked in optimistically green lettering. “You were right.” He said. “It didn’t look like a cat. Julie’s pumpkin.”
“House.” Wilson still had his hands on his hips, and there was something else trying to get into his eyes, something other than determination. Interesting. “Did you fuck him?”
Something dull burned in his leg, something sharp slid between his ribs. House dropped his game on the desk and pulled out the bottle, popped a pill and chewed it. Blessed chemical relief washed everything else away. “Why do you care?”
Wilson looked like shit, now that he took the time to look. There were shadows beneath his eyes and his tie was only half-heartedly knotted around his neck. “I want you to get tested.”
House considered this for a moment, giving it all the due attention that someone who’s not really capable of caring about anything could give, then raised his eyes back up to meet Wilson’s. “No.” He said.
“Greg, this is your life we’re talking about here.”
House nodded, but remained meaningfully silent.
Wilson sighed. “Did you at least use a condom?”
Honestly, he didn‘t know. Honestly, he didn‘t care. “What, I look stupid to you?” He wondered if Wilson could read the truth in his eyes.
“You really should get tested.” He said again, but even as he said it he sounded defeated.
“Annual physical isn’t for another three months. You can poke and prod me all you like then.” He hoped that this was the end of it. That Wilson would leave it at that.
He wouldn‘t, of course. “Greg, I’m asking you as a—”
The door flew open. “House!” Cuddy and her breasts barged in. “Do you really have your Fellows in there rewriting your paperwork?”
He checked his watch. “Look at the time, I’m already late for clinic duty.”
Both Wilson and Cuddy watched with shock and amazement as House levered himself up and limped out through the door, heading towards the elevator bank and - presumably - the Clinic. Then Cuddy turned to Wilson, who was giving her a look.
“What?” She asked defensively.
6.
James knocked on the door again. He knew Greg was home, and he knew that he was being ignored, and he knew that he could just use his key. But it seemed too much like playing dirty, using the man’s own key to get in and pick a fight with him. So he knocked, and hoped that none of the neighbors would call the cops, and waited for Greg to get bored of listening to him and answer the door.
It took another ten minutes of knocking. Ten minutes which James spent losing the feeling in his fingers and toes and the tips of his ears. He could see his breath, white and viscous in the frigid air, and he realized that he wasn’t really sure what it was that he wanted to fight about.
Greg opened the door in jeans and tee-shirt, feet bare, and stared at him evenly for a full minute before snorting and turning back into his apartment. He left the door open behind him and James didn’t need any more of an invitation. The apartment was almost suffocating hot after the cold outside and he shrugged out of his coat with all of the frozen-fingered skill of a dog trying to undress itself. He left it on the coat rack and followed Greg into the living room.
It looked pretty much as it always did, overcrowded with books and the piano in the corner, and strewn with mostly empty take-out boxes of various shapes and sizes. Greg was seated at the piano, having sacrificed his comfortable couch for his comfort zone. James took the couch, and they looked at each other.
All of three seconds later Greg broke the silence. “Well, I’m sure you didn’t come over just to stare at me. Say whatever line of bullshit you came to say already.” No one did an offensive defense like Greg House.
James sighed. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I’m worried because I care? No, of course not.” He answered his own question, ran a hand through his hair, and dropped his head to stare at the carpet between his feet. “Did it ever occur to you to just tell me you were gay?”
“What, and play the brooding emotional stereotype?” Greg shrugged. “Pink isn’t my color.”
“How long?”
This seemed to genuinely confuse Greg. “How long… What? How long have I been a fag? How long have I been wanting to take you wardrobe shopping? What?”
James gave him a look, then stood. “You want a beer?”
“Classy, offering a man his own booze.” Greg replied.
He returned with two opened beers and took the couch again. “How long.” He said. “Have you been paying for sex?”
Greg rolled his eyes, took a pull, and shook his head. “Since I could put together twenty dollars on short notice.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know that. It just.” He took another pull. “It’s not your business.”
James frowned. “You playing sexual Russian roulette isn’t my business?”
“No. It’s not.” Greg’s look was even and, not exactly cold, but not warm either.
Oh G-d, he thought. It would be like Greg to keep his mouth shut, to diagnose the problem himself and then ignore it, just like he’d tried to ignore the infarction and. Oh, G-d.
Apparently Greg had been working on his empathy, or maybe he was just that good at reading James, or maybe James’s thoughts were that obvious, but he leaned forward and said, very slowly “I’m not sick, Wilson, so stop worrying.”
James blinked. “How do you know?”
Greg raised an eyebrow at him.
And suddenly James was standing, beer forgotten on the coffee table, and he was pulling Greg up and there were lips and tongues and hands and Greg was moaning into his mouth or was he the one moaning and suddenly it was much more than too warm in the apartment and then. And then Greg was pushing him away, collapsing back onto the piano bench and swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were closed.
“I thought.” It’d made sense a few lifetimes earlier, when his mind had been filling him in on all of the jokes, the looks, the soft smiles and casual touches.
Greg laughed, a bitter bark that drove James another step back. “You thought you could change the rules.” He said. His eyes were open now, and staring at him with the same hunger he’d seen in the hall on Halloween.
He wasn’t making any sense. James said as much, and if it hurt to see that condescending little smile on Greg’s lips he didn’t let himself know it.
“This isn’t how you play the game.” Greg said by way of answer, but if that was an answer then James was really missing the question.
“You think this is a game?”
“I think you’re married.” He said it sharply, eyes and tone flat, like a schoolteacher who’d brook no argument.
James could feel that burning in his stomach again.
“Go home, Wilson, go back to your wife.”
“And where do you go?” James asked, wearily sitting back down on the couch.
Greg shrugged, and gestured around his apartment, to the overstuffed bookshelf and the empty mantle and the leaning towers of cheap cardboard. “I don’t go anywhere.” He said.
7.
And that seems to be that. Things don’t go back to normal, but a new comfort level is achieved. This one includes less flirting and more acerbic barbs and, at least once a week, House wonders if maybe - maybe - they could have done it.
But he’s too pragmatic not to realize that the game is finished, with no one in the winner’s circle, and the timer’s run out on the restart button. Sometimes his traitorous conscience mutters at him, saying things like ‘it was never a game’ and ‘bastard bastard bastard.’ Sometimes he thinks he can feel his heart breaking, but that can’t be, because a heart is just a muscle and a muscle can’t break. Tear, yes; Die, certainly; But not break.
“House.” Wilson says from his doorway, dragging him out of the perilously philosophical depths of Tetris, file in hand. The look on his face is somewhere between mild surprise and something else.
It’s not fair, House thinks, for someone to be able to tear apart your heart just by saying your name. “Wilson.”
“You’re clean.” And now House can pin down that something else, it’s relief.
He snorted. “I already told you that.” He said.
Wilson gave him a strange look, this one totally unreadable. House, behind his desk, felt a cold stab in his heart and a familiar dull throbbing in his leg. He pops a Vicodin and forces himself not to chew it. “Did you and Julie enjoy the show?”
Just like that, the look is gone. “Yeah. Julie said to say thank you, and that she was surprised you even remembered.”
House shrugged. He’d spent Wilson’s anniversary with a sweet redhead with a monkey tattooed on his ass. He couldn’t remember his name. “Still coming over for the game?”
“Yeah. Still ready to loose your hard earned money?”
He rolled his eyes. “You wish.”
He turned the Game Boy off, and spun his chair around to stare out through the windows. Fall was long past over, the trees only skeletons against the gray skies. It was snowing.
Definitely, House thought as Wilson wandered away to meet with patients, or do paperwork, or do whatever someone who actually liked to work did at work, definitely Game Over.
THE END
