What goes on in House's head? No one can quite figure it out, even though Wilson comes close to it sometimes. When those blue eyes sparkle, or something totally inappropriate comes out of House's mouth, nobody sees it coming. The uncanny way he can solve cases, the Vicodin always handy by his side. The way he can be an ass to people but they still stay by him.
Wilson sighed as he rolled over on the couch, hearing House still awake in his bedroom. Probably reading, or pacing around. Anything but sleeping. Wilson was getting a taste of the sleepless life that night, and wasn't used to it yet. Wilson didn't even really know why he was still awake, there wasn't anything pressing on his mind. He was simply reminiscing and held the hope that the memories would sink with him into his dreams. He heard House limp into the living room and to the closet, digging for his Vicodin bottle out of a jacket pocket. "At least say 'hi' when you're still awake," House grumbled.
"Hello. How did you know I was still awake?"
"You snore when you're asleep."
"You try living on a couch."
"Sorry, best I had. You didn't want ME to sleep on the couch, did you?" House flashed Wilson a pathetic look.
"No, of course not."
"Good, because I wouldn't anyway."
"Figured as much.," Wilson shot back, "not like you sleep anyways," He said, a little more quietly.
House disappeared back into the bedroom without so much as another word. In his mind, Wilson replayed the scene from a couple days ago. He had come home early from work, and although he didn't know why, he had entered House's apartment quietly. He had sensed something was wrong with his friend for the past few days, and although he didn't really consider it spying, he still felt a pang of guilt at being so quiet. He heard the radio in House's room playing some old Doors song and he peeked into the room. He saw House sitting on his bed, staring out the window and clutching his leg, and as Wilson watched, House buried his face in his hands. At this, Wilson crept back to the door, opening it and closing it loudly, and his friend came out looking like nothing was wrong. The image of his defeated friend was the image that carried into Wilson's dreams that night.
Would he ever tell House that he had seen him in that state? Only when House admitted to being in that state in the first place. In some ways it was mildly unnatural. He had never pictured his friend as being vulnerable, anything that screamed vulnerability, House shunned. Wilson had been on the biting receiving end of the shunning more than once in his life from his best friend. Wilson did remember that when it mattered most, when Wilson was at his lowest, House broke character and pulled him out of his hole with such practiced ease that he almost wondered why House didn't show that side more often. "Now we're even." House had said to him a couple days later, and Wilson knew House referred to when he did the same for House.
"It was just an evening up of the score for you wasn't it?" Wilson had growled, mildly irritated.
"Yep, that's about it. You helped me, I helped you, I'm calling even."
"Selfish…" but Wilson stopped when he saw the look in House's eye. He nodded then. "Ok, even." He knew it ran deeper than that, but he knew House needed to think the way that he did. He also knew that House would have done the same thing anyway, debt repaid or not.