Not Just A Puzzle

"This is stupid."

House glanced over at Minerva, whose eyes were lambent in the darkness and glaring at him from the front passenger seat. "She's twenty-six, she's hot, and we don't get out much. This is an opportunity."

"She's an idiot," his raccoon dæmon said disdainfully. "She's a squirrel, for God's sake! We have higher standards than to stoop to a squirrel just because you won't put the effort into a functional relationship."

House braked for the light. "You're just mad because if I do get lucky with her, it'll be casual sex and you won't get anything out of—ow!" She'd nipped his hand. Not hard enough to break skin, but it'd still hurt. "What the hell was that for?"

"Because you're not even interested in sex with her, and we know it. This is just avoidance."

The light changed, and he drove a little farther up the road before pulling over. If his dæmon's tone were anything to judge by, this wasn't a talk they should have while he was trying to drive. "Avoidance of what?"

"Maybe the fact that we could've seriously hurt Wilson when we laced his coffee with amphetamines? We didn't pull his file to check what antidepressant he was on or what else he was taking; we didn't monitor him—"

He gave her a look. "This attack of conscience might've been a little bit more helpful before the fact, don't you think?"

She climbed over the gearshift—thankfully not jostling it out of 'park'—and onto his lap, letting his fingers trace absent designs in gray-brown fur. "We were curious. And when we're working on a puzzle, we never let it go or give a damn about ethics. That's who we are." A short pause. "But that doesn't mean, now that we have the answer, we can't feel guilty about how we got it."

All right, fine, so maybe he did, but still… "And he shouldn't feel guilty about dosing us with antidepressants for weeks?" The last thing he needed was to worry about Wilson drugging his food, especially considering how much of his food was bought by or stolen from Wilson in the first place.

"Considering we faked cancer awhile ago to get them implanted directly into your brain," she said dryly, shuffling back off his lap and returning to her seat, "I can see how he might think we wouldn't be completely opposed to taking them."

"As pain control, not for depression," he reminded her. "We're not depressed."

"No, we're garden-variety miserable," she retorted. "But we have a friend who is depressed, for a reason he wouldn't tell you and Rona wouldn't tell me." He was silent, considering, so she went on, "We knew when he was having an affair, we knew all those times he was divorcing, we figured it out when he was sleeping with his patient, but this he wants to hide?"

Point taken: that was definitely more interesting than a couple of hours in a bar with Honey the Flaky Vegan. If it were bigger than the myriad marital woes, bigger than that screwed up liaison with Grace, then it was sufficiently important to warrant his full attention.

And this seemed like the ideal time to address the matter: it wasn't like Wilson would be asleep, not after a dose of amphetamines that high, and House wasn't so tired yet that he couldn't assemble puzzle pieces if he had to. "Fine," he agreed, pulling back onto the road and turning in the direction of Wilson's hotel. "But just because I happen to be carrying that key card I pilfered from his wallet."

—

Twenty minutes and a little haranguing of the desk attendant later, he and Minerva took the elevator up to Wilson's floor. She shuffled along at his left side, so his cane couldn't accidentally catch her tail (they'd only needed to make that mistake once), and fidgeted with impatience in front of Wilson's door while he dug in his wallet for the key card, then shoved it into the slot and waited for the buzz that signaled the engagement of the mechanism before bursting in.

"You really need to get an apartment," he said without preamble, switching on the lights and smirking when Rona whined and Wilson pulled a pillow over his eyes. "I just wasted"—he checked his watch—"five minutes of my valuable time convincing the idiot at the desk I had a valid reason to see you at two in the morning."

"It'd better be," Wilson groaned, his voice muffled by the pillow, "because the residual amphetamines in my system are doing a fine job of screwing with my sleep without your help. Can you at least be merciful and turn the lights down?"

He dimmed them by about half, then went and sat down on the foot of the bed, lifting Minerva up beside him to save her the trouble of climbing the bedclothes.

Rona's penetrating lupine gaze rested on him for a moment, then she nudged Wilson's arm with a paw, and he sat up, the pillow dropping to his lap. He looked bleary-eyed and exhausted, like he'd been fighting for sleep there was no way he was going to get, and the rumpled sheets suggested tossing and turning.

"What're you doing here?" Rona's eyes had taken on an eldritch glow in the half-dark, and her words, spoken around a yawn, only emphasized Wilson's obvious fatigue.

"Same thing I do when I'm too far away from her," he said, tilting his head in Minerva's direction. "Closing distance."

His dæmon moved from beneath his hand to settle a few inches from Rona's outstretched forepaws. She didn't get too close, since Rona had arranged herself around Wilson's body, but the approach was enough. "Dosing you with amphetamines was over the line," she said for them both. "We weren't actually trying to hurt you."

Rona moved forward a bit and bent her head, touching her muzzle to Minerva's smaller one, and he relaxed as he sensed Wilson's forgiveness: they were essentially okay.

"I know," Wilson said, only a little ruefully. "I should've just told you I was on them, knowing the insane things you do when you're curious."

"There's a fine line between genius and insanity," Minerva said, affronted.

"And you don't need us to tell you which side of it you were on today," Rona countered, curling her lip slightly to expose a glint of teeth. "In the future, there are better, less lethal ways of expressing concern, all right?"

"I tried to just ask you," he reminded Wilson. "You were the one who wouldn't talk." Which was more than slightly hypocritical, considering how much good he seemed to think candid conversation would do House.

"We've been over that," Wilson said dryly, "and given the object lesson, I won't forget it any time soon. Any chance you might let me not-sleep in peace tonight?"

He made a show of exchanging a glance with Minerva, like he was actually considering it, then shook his head. "I still want to know why you went on them in the first place. You've had practically a boatload of reasons to be depressed all year—outside of your regular, extremely depressing practice—so why now? What's pushed you over the line into pharmaceutical aid?"

Wilson narrowed his eyes. "You completely blew off the handout of 'respect for others' privacy,' didn't you?"

"Of course," he said. "I went back for seconds in the 'devastating wit and charm' line instead."

"They threw in twice the usual amount of ego for free," Minerva added, giving House a sharp look and saying, Either help me or shut up. Then, returning her attention to Wilson, she jerked a paw at Rona and said, "We're trying to take her advice here. Spill."

Wilson sighed and leaned back against Rona's flank, too tired to muster more than a modicum of annoyance. "Did it occur to you—plural—that it might not kill you to respect my wishes for once and leave it?"

"'Course it wouldn't kill us," Minerva said. "Do I look like a cat to you?" She took a step or two closer to the wolf dæmon and wheedled, "Come on, Ro. Please?"

Rona looked to Wilson, then back at Minerva and shook her head. "Look. It's nice that you're making an effort for not completely selfish reasons, but we're not on the verge of a breakdown, and other than that, it's not your business."

"Can we not talk in circles?" House said testily, breaking in before Minerva had to argue again that it was indeed their business. "It's late. We're tired. But we're here because you're on antidepressants and we do, in fact, give a damn—so just tell us why you're on them so we can all drop this and go to bed."

When there was no response, he said matter-of-factly, "You know I'll find out in the end—I always do—so you might as well get whatever it is off your chest without making me dig and save us both the trouble."

There was a long, weighty silence; then Wilson sat up, exchanged a look with Rona that House couldn't read and gave a very slight nod. She moved from behind him, a few padding steps closing the distance between them, and House felt his stomach clench, realizing what was about to happen only an instant before she bent her head and maneuvered it beneath his left hand, slightly coarse fur and warmth in an utterly unfamiliar shape.

Unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, considering what it meant.

He heard Wilson's breathing hitch and lifted his hand so the sensations flooding the other man's body would stop and let him think straight. "Okay. Can I have something less grand gesture, a little more verbal?"

"I felt…and I was uncomfortable with it," Wilson said, his voice admirably steady. "Especially since—for God's sake, House, you may hate the Icarus metaphor, but most of this year it looked like you were falling and convinced impact was preferable to letting me catch you."

He held Wilson's eyes, guiding Minerva against him with the hand that wasn't suspended above Rona's head. "Contrary to what you seem to think," he said deliberately, "it's not your job to break my fall. I almost let you once, and I didn't like the result." Tritter had nearly broken Wilson's life because House had been too stubborn to bend, defying Wilson's advice and Cuddy's and even Minerva's. If he fell again, he wasn't crushing Wilson under him.

"I'm not saying I'm going to martyr myself for you," Wilson retorted. Then, more quietly, "I want you to let me in—if not that way"—he indicated Rona, his gaze lingering for just a second too long on the hand over her—"then just what we had and I'll understand, but I'm sick of being walled out."

"And between that and being afraid I'd reject this,"—no need to pin it down with a name—"you worked yourself up so much you needed antidepressants. Right?"

Wilson nodded.

"And she didn't just do that because your judgment is coming off drugs?"

Wilson shook his head, and House let his hand fall, threading his fingers through the thick ruff of fur at Rona's neck and listening, satisfied, to Wilson's gasp and Rona's tail thumping softly against the sheets before nudging Minerva forward with his free hand and watching her move, scrambling over Rona's back and reaching to close nimble digits around Wilson's fingers.

Heat shot down his spine to pool in his groin and House managed not to gasp, but just barely: there'd been sex after Stacy, certainly, but most of it had been purchased and none of it meaningful, so Minerva had refused to be touched.

He'd told himself then it didn't matter, that physical pleasure was enough, but this particular intimacy was one he'd missed.

Wilson's free hand stroked Minerva's back, and he grinned when she purred and House stifled a groan. "Tease." Reaching over Rona, he closed his hands around Minerva, taking her from Wilson and setting her on the floor before giving Rona a nudge. "Not room for four bodies. Off the bed. Off!" He could hear Minerva chirping, obviously as impatient as he was, and the moment Rona was out of his way he toed off his shoes and scooted up to the head of the bed, crushing his lips against Wilson's and sliding his hands beneath fabric, exploring the planes of back and torso and delighting in the hot exhalation into his mouth.

He let his lips part and his tongue glide over teeth and then past them, stroking Wilson's tongue and palate; the other man's mouth was stale and faintly sour with broken sleep but the kiss, warm lips and tongue moving against his own, was fully satisfying and—oh, definitely not enough; his jeans were becoming uncomfortable and Wilson's hands beneath his shirt weren't helping matters.

He could hear their dæmons by the bedside, Minerva's chattering and purring and Rona's whining and it was loud, but not louder than the pounding of his pulse in his ears and the rustle of the sheets on the bed. Finally, they broke for air, haste-clumsy hands fumbling with clothing, and House was glad of his jeans and t-shirt because they came off as easily as they'd gone on.

And then skin met skin, sensitized and flushed and Wilson's hand closed around him with just enough pressure—he reached forward to reciprocate; Wilson was hot and hard and slightly slick in his fist. The angle was a bit awkward when they moved and his right wrist collided every so often with Wilson's left; but it was only a minor annoyance.

Wilson's breathing was ragged and he managed a strangled, "Ohmigod!" before House resumed the kiss, matching the rhythm of tongue against tongue to that of feverishly stroking hands and rocking hips—heat and need and—oh!—not enough contact—and apparently Wilson thought the same, because he felt the other man's free arm encircle his torso, pull him closer; and he reached with his own unoccupied hand to cup the back of Wilson's head, insinuating his fingers into soft hair and feeling warm, sweat-slick skin against the heel of his hand—awareness began to fall away as sensation promised to consume everything—

Faster—faster—exquisite heat and friction and tension coiled tight and mouth devouring mouth and then—ah!—and ecstasy ecstasy ecstasy—wet heat was spilling over his hand and Wilson was shuddering against him, twin cries smothered between them, and then they broke apart, gasping in the hazy warmth of the afterglow.

"God," Wilson breathed. "Oh God."

He couldn't resist. "Yes?"

"General statement," Wilson managed, "not talking to you." He moved a little, resting his head on House's shoulder and an arm on his torso. "All right?"

"To lie on me after sex?" He raised an eyebrow. "Generally, you're supposed to okay the less intimate thing first and move up, but it'd still be kind of stupid if I decided to have issues now."

Wilson chuckled, shook his head faintly. "I didn't mean—I meant…never mind what I meant," he said at last. "It'll—everything'll wait 'til morning."

"We'll be here," Minerva promised, sounding as blissfully sated as he felt. "And it was more than all right."

"We know." Rona's voice was affectionate, but Wilson's exhaustion was there, too, and House glanced over the edge of the bed to see Minerva nestled into the curve of Rona's flank, eyes half-lidded. Rona's were already closed, and he could hear Wilson's breathing slowing and deepening with coming sleep.

He wiped his sticky hand on the edge of the bedspread and pulled the covers in around them, then reached for a pillow and shoved it under his head, feeling…peaceful. Obviously, the combination of post-orgasmic endorphins and the company of a—friend? Partner? Figure it out in the morning—was excellent against restlessness.

He could sleep, and they'd figure everything else out in the morning.

TBC…

Author's Notes:

You will recognize 'Minerva' as the name of the Roman goddess of wisdom and war (and, as Minerva Medica, patroness of healing and doctors); 'Rona,' although it can also be a Hebraic or Gaelic name, is used with its English meaning: 'counsel power' or 'advisor to the king.' (No explanation needed.)

Raccoons symbolize curiosity, cleverness, unique perception, dexterity and deception; wolves (among other things), guardianship/teaching, perseverance, cunning, intuition, communication, and loyalty to the family group.