When House got home from the stupid conference, the first thing he heard was a series of moans, coughs, and whimpering breaths.
He walked into the bedroom, where Wilson had been staying while watching his place.
Wilson was curled on the bed, arm around his chest, looking feverish, miserable, and quite seriously ill.
House walked the rest of the way in, and sat on the edge of the bed next to his friend, reaching to lay the back of his hand against Wilson's forehead.
The younger doctor was burning up, shivering, and apparently unaware of House's presence.
House checked his friend's pulse, and got a stethoscope, listening to Wilson's labored breaths.
There wasn't any apparent fluid buildup, so House attributed the labored breathing to the fever.
Wilson finally seemed to be aware of him, brown pools of misery directed towards his face.
House chuckled, pushing Wilson's thick mop of sweaty hair out of his friend's face.
"When I told you to stay here, I didn't expect you to get sick all over my sheets."
Wilson's lower lip trembled slightly as he spoke, voice wavering and hoarse, "I'll change them when I go…"
He sat up, and tried to get off the bed, but collapsed less than a foot away from the bed, breathing quickly and shallowly, trembling all over.
House stood, rather amused, and rolled Wilson over, scooping him up and depositing him back on the bed.
Wilson seemed to have slipped back out of awareness, and simply curled around himself, shivering.
House patted Wilson's shoulder, because Wilson wasn't going to notice, and left to tell Matheson he was going to take some time off to make sure the assistant head of oncology didn't die of what appeared to be the flu and incompetence at taking care of himself.
Matheson, who didn't particularly like dealing with House's annoyingly maverick—though usually impressively helpful—approach to medicine, had no qualms about not having to deal with House for another week.
Wilson moaned, quietly, as House slipped a thermometer under his tongue.
"Hurts…" he moaned, turning his head away from House's hand.
House rolled his eyes, "what does?"
"Everything…" said Wilson, pitifully, brown eyes fluttering open, but not managing to focus on House's face.
House removed the thermometer when it beeped. 103.
He sighed, and sat on the bed again, resting his hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Wilson."
No response.
He gently shook the shoulder.
A moan, and a slightly inward curling, but nothing else.
House was kind of relieved. He didn't mind taking care of Wilson, as long as Wilson wasn't going to remember.
"Hey, Jimmy," he said, pulling his friend's arms around his neck, "smells like you've been here a while."
A soft whimper was the only response. Wilson seriously stank.
House got Wilson to at least sort of hang on, and slid his arms under his friend's body, carrying the limp oncologist to the bathroom.
Wilson whined quietly in his throat, as House lifted.
"Yeah," said House, almost fondly, "I know it sucks."
Wilson stirred, as House put him on the toilet, and started undressing him.
His brown eyes wandered up to meet his friend's blue ones, and he mumbled as he sat, swaying, "s'rry 'm…."
"Hmm?"
"Mm…"
Wilson closed his eyes, evidently too tired to finish his sentence.
House snorted, and pulled Wilson's shirt off.
Wilson whimpered.
House got rid of the pants and boxers, and then got his friend into the tub, and started cool water running… not cold, but not warm enough to contribute to the fever, either.
Wilson drew his feet away from the water, coughing miserably, his arms wrapped around himself as he shivered.
House put a towel around Wilson's shoulders, helping him at least feel a little warmer.
Wilson pulled it tighter around himself.
By the time the bath was over, Wilson was deeply asleep, not even stirring when House washed the shampoo out of his hair with cold water.
House let the water drain, and dried Wilson off in the tub, then carried him into the living room, and set him, still butt naked, on the couch, covering him with a blanket.
He changed the sheets, then sighed, as he prepared to pick up his friend once again.
The younger doctor was shorter than House, but stockier. House could carry him, and not be in danger of dropping the slumbering doctor, but only because he himself was in pretty good shape.
House sat on the other half of the bed from Wilson, reading.
Wilson stirred and moaned and whimpered in his sleep, dreaming.
House reached over a few times, laying a hand on the younger doctor's shoulder, which seemed to calm him slightly.
Eventually, House decided Wilson needed some hydration, given his chapped lips, and dug in his cabinet for any kind of clear fluids, finally emerging with a slightly past-date can of chicken broth.
He microwaved it, then waited for it to cool off slightly, and poured some into a mug.
Wilson took some effort to wake, and when he did, he wasn't very coherent.
But House propped him up with some pillows, and Wilson drank the broth when House held the mug to his mouth.
He slept, after that, and House sat by him for a while longer, before getting bored, having finished the book he was reading, and going out into the living room to watch the soaps he'd told Wilson to tape while he was at the conference.
Via the point at which Wilson had stopped taping the shows, House judged that he had fallen ill enough to stay in bed maybe three days ago…. which sucked, because it meant he hadn't taped the season finale…
House must have been tired from the drive back, because the next thing he knew, he was hearing rather unpleasant sounds from the bedroom.
He walked in, and found Wilson covered with vomited-up chicken broth.
The younger doctor was just barely awake, but he was aware enough to be miserable.
House gripped his arm, and pulled him to a sitting position, as he continued to vomit—the sheets were already soiled, there was no point in trying to keep Wilson from puking on them now.
Eventually Wilson seemed done, and House got a sponge and wiped off the worst of the liquid, before carrying the again-sleeping doctor to the bathroom for the second bath of the day.
Apparently that soup had been a little more past date than he'd thought, because the vomiting continued over the next two days, though there was no sign it had been going on before House gave Wilson the broth.
Of course, there was no sign that Wilson had gotten out of bed in days, before House gave him the broth, so maybe he just hadn't had anything to puke up.
In either case, it seemed to subside by the third day after House got home, by which point Wilson was more coherent, but just as weak, if not more.
He was, at this point, definitely dehydrated, but that didn't account for just how weak he was.
He literally couldn't get out of bed—hell, he could barely get his head off the pillow.
House took blood and saliva samples to the hospital, and they came back positive for Epstein-Barr. Not particularly surprising, but confirmation that this was probably mono, not the flu.
House sat on the edge of the bed, watching Wilson sleep.
He sighed, and gently put his hand on his friend's chest, shaking him.
Wilson stirred, and opened his eyes.
"You need to drink something."
Wilson nodded miserably, and tried to sit up, but just couldn't manage it.
House pulled him up against the pillows, and pushed his hair out of his face.
Wilson tried to hold the cup, but again, it wasn't happening.
He seemed upset, but House didn't really have any idea what to say, so he ignored it.
Wilson drank the juice House had gotten, and then closed his eyes, exhausted.
House checked his temperature with his hand.
Down significantly from the last few days.
"Wilson," he said, "you there?"
Wilson opened his eyes, tiredly, and nodded.
"You know what's going on?"
Wilson nodded, his head nearly tipping forward onto his chest as he did.
House helped pulled the blanket up over his naked form, from where it had slipped off when he got the younger doctor sitting.
"You know how you're sick?"
Wilson shook his head, obviously struggling to stay awake.
"Pretty sure you've got yourself a nice case of mono, Jimmy," said House, amused by Wilson's sleepiness.
Wilson nodded, but this time, his head just drooped forward onto his chest.
House snorted, and checked his friend's temperature again, before walking around to the other side of the bed to settle down and read.
Wilson slept most of the day, waking once in a while to mumble something at House, but being too tired to get the whole sentence out.
House did understand some of the partial mumbles, like when Wilson asked to go… to the… and House figured he needed to go to the bathroom, and carried him there.
Wilson sat on the toilet, leaning over House's arm, which was the only thing that was keeping him from sliding off entirely.
Once he was done, House picked him up again, and carried him into the bedroom.
Wilson wouldn't let go of House's neck, that time, holding on and clinging to his friend.
House gently pulled Wilson's hands off, uncomfortable with the contact.
Wilson slept.
Eventually, Wilson was awake more of the time, and smiled when House entered the room in the morning.
House sat down on the edge of the bed, smirking.
"Hey, sleeping ugly."
Wilson rolled his eyes, unaffected.
House smirked again, and sniffed, "you need another bath."
Wilson frowned.
"Another?"
"Yeah. I already gave you two, when I got here and found you all stinky, and then after you puked all over yourself."
Wilson scrunched up his face, "you have me a bath… *twice*."
"Yeah. So?" House sounded slightly defensive.
Wilson hugged the sheets and blanket up to his chest, protesting, "*so* you saw me naked!"
House chuckled, "yes, and I had sex with you while you were feverish as well."
Wilson actually believed him, and gaped, feeling utterly… well, violated.
House rolled his eyes, "jeeze, you're gullible. My point was you stank and were covered in vomit. It wasn't an invasion of privacy, I was just cleaning you up."
Wilson considered for a moment, then nodded, okay with it.
"Can you… uh, just stand outside, or something?"
"No," said House, immediately.
Wilson sighed.
House was going to get the most fun out of this he possibly could…
"Great…"
"What?" said House, faking innocence, "you might fall asleep and slip under."
"Then come in at the sound of drowning."
"No."
Wilson frowned.
That last no hadn't sounded particularly cheerful or joking.
He smiled slightly, and pulled himself to a sitting position on his friend's arm, "you were worried, weren't you?"
"No," said House, with firm conviction, but Wilson didn't believe him in the least.
Wilson opened his mouth to call House out on his lie, but was interrupted by House scooping him up out of the bed, and carrying him out of the bedroom.
Wilson smiled sleepily, as House carried him to the tub
He decided it didn't matter if he got House to admit it.
He knew House cared about him, and that was good enough for him.