Sex and Pancakes
Today wasn't the first time Wilson had been a little late for work recently, so House didn't give it much thought. Especially since the patient Cuddy had found for him was turning out to be more than just a case of intestinal flu, after all. He wouldn't have agreed to looking at the girl at all originally, but she'd talked him into it.
Well, she talked him into it, then she reminded him that she lied to cover his ass in court and told him that he owed her big time. Which he did. And so eventually he said okay, he'd look at the barfing woman even though sick people were just plain repulsive.
Which they are, of course.
Except. Except except except. Turned out the barfing woman had a more interesting problem.
(Only House was not going to tell his readers much about that, because he wanted to hide the fact that he had next to no knowledge of medicine whatsoever by disguising a potentially-fascinating case with a lot of witty dialogue. House knew very well that a memorable character can be created with nothing more than an attitude and a few dozen lines of unforgettable dialogue. And House wasn't stupid.)
Which meant that Wilson had been late to work four days in a row, and House had yet to do anything about it, like follow him to his hotel room and be highly inappropriate, or hide in the back seat of his car and scare the crap out of him (something that is much, much funnier than it sounds).
And then it was Saturday morning, which meant that Wilson couldn't be late to work because, well, duh, he didn't have work.
So House drove—okay, rode—to Wilson's hotel room and prepared to be highly inappropriate.
He didn't have a copy of the key card, a huge oversight on his part, but he settled for rapping on the door. And rapping on the door. And rapping on the door again, and kicking it once for good measure, and hitting it with his cane for better measure. Wilson, obstinate as the northern end of a southbound jackass, refused to answer.
"Hey," he called. "Open up."
He would've taken the time to come up with a better smart remark, or any smart remark at all actually, but sometimes you were smart and sometimes you just didn't really feel like thinking because you wanted your socially-retarded best friend to open the door already.
There was silence.
"If you insist," House said, "I can go downstairs and work my charm on the maid until, overcome by lust, she comes up here and opens the door."
And that wasn't very funny, but he didn't want to waste time looking for a better.
"Go 'way," someone mumbled. They sounded like Wilson.
"You know me better than that."
"Whaddaya want, House?"
He grinned and glanced down the hallway. No response was necessary, because in a minute Wilson would, out of curiosity, drag his lazy butt from the depths of his lumpy mattress and cross the room just to see what he wanted.
Sure enough, he heard footsteps, and the knob turned beneath his hand.
Unfortunately, Wilson looked fine.
"Hey," House growled, "this isn't fair. You know how the story goes; you don't show up, so I, in my oh-so-sexy, Byron-esque way, hop on my motorbike and cruise down to your place very worried and you hesitate to answer the door. After which I am forced to resort to great feats of pesky I-really-do-care-about-you-only-don't-show-it-properly—"
"House—"
"—strength, and when I do manage to gain entrance to your humble rented abode you are miserable, because you have had your not-so-humble ass whupped, or because you are all-out depressed and suicidal, or because you are—"
"House—"
"—stone-cold drunk, or, for that matter, stoned, or some combination of the above—"
"House. Hey. Over here."
"—after which you and I, whacked-out on suppressed lust that has chosen to manifest itself in incredibly hot sex, fall into bed and—"
"Okay, that's it. House. Pay attention."
Wilson was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at him. House shrugged. "Only telling you the way it's supposed to go."
"There's nothing wrong with me. You get that, House? Nothing wrong with me. All right?"
House shrugged again and twirled his cane, something he always did when he was bored, and said, "Everybody lies," something he always said when he was not calling Chase a wombat or making cracks about Cuddy's cleavage or telling Foreman to break into cars (even though, the one time he actually saw Foreman do that, it was way, way cool).
"Yes, well, I'm not lying," Wilson said, in a highly infuriating way, looking very much like the kind of child House always wanted to punch in school.
"Then why'd I drive down here?"
"I don't know. Who am I, Sherlock Holmes?"
"That's a terrible line," House said. He sat on the bed himself and kind of inched a hand onto Wilson's knee.
Wilson glanced at him and shifted away.
"Can we just skip to the sex part?" House asked.
"No."
"But this is a story. You know how they go. You've been in hundreds."
"And if you want to have sex so badly, try one of those. I've read a fairly good one where we've been taking a shower together and—"
"I am insulted. Sorely wounded, Wilson, sorely, sorely wounded."
"Then pop a pill and complain to someone who cares."
"Hey!" House was not happy about the current state of affairs—not happy, not happy at all. Things weren't going well at work and Cameron, who was supposed to be fawning over him, had found a whole new love interest and decided she was going to be Stoic. And, in a fit of righteous inspiration, he'd up and fired the lot of them. But he knew they'd come back, because they wanted their fat salaries. So he wasn't really worried.
"Hey what?" Wilson fiddled with his tie, which he wore constantly, even in his off hours, and smirked.
"You're not acting like yourself," House said. "In fact, this whole thing is very out-of-character for you, Jim, unless you're going to break down and we're going to have a page and a half of emotional comfort."
"And you don't call me Jim."
House thought about all the times he'd talked to Wilson without addressing him by name and conceded the point.
"Look," Wilson muttered, "if you leave now I'll forgive you eventually. You don't even need to do one of your drawn-out drugs-in-the-coffee I-care-about-you acts again."
"Well—" House considered. "What'll you give me for it?"
And now Wilson laughed, though it was a wry laugh, halfway between humor and heart-wrenching sorrow, and—oh, forget it.
"Pancakes," Wilson said, and House nodded.
"It's a deal."