Hi all! First of all, I want to go on record as saying: I have not abandoned The List. I've just had major writer's block with it, which has only just now resolved. So I think to help it stay away I'll go back and edit the chapters.
Anyway, onto this, Perfect. It is inspired partly by the linebyline community over on LiveJournal, and partly by Edwin McCain's song "I'll Be". If you listen to the song you'll see why, especially at the end of the fic.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own. Don't make any money. sigh
Well, enough of that. Onto the story!
--
Wilson couldn't speak. He could find no words at all to even begin to describe what he was feeling at that moment.
It seemed almost too perfect, the way the cane, that trademark bitchin' fire cane, had snapped perfectly in half and was left lying there, so forlorn. It reminded him of a book he'd read, but in his daze he couldn't remember the name.
He kneeled down next to the fallen object, which somehow looked at pitiful as he himself felt. The paint had chipped a bit right at the spot of the break, and the paint chips littered the ground under the broken cane, like tears. Like the tears Wilson knew he himself would soon be unable to hold back, let alone stop once they started.
The only thing he could think- well, only two things- were "Why?" and "How did this happen?" The cane was really quite far from the edge of the roof, so it's unlikely he'd simply fallen off when the cane snapping had startled him. So how then…
"Wilson," said a voice behind him, "what are you doing?"
He stood up abruptly, clutching half of the cane, the top half, in his hands. And there stood House himself, perfectly fine, looking at Wilson as if he had completely lost it.
It was a familiar look, and then Wilson couldn't stop, he was crying, tears of joy though, and he blindly grabbed a hold of his friend and hugged him tight.
House was quite startled by this, but then relaxed slightly and gently rubbed Wilson's back until he calmed down enough for speech.
"I…I thought you… the roof… your cane's broken." Wilson said, still holding onto House's arm as if to assure himself he was solid and not simply a ghost.
"Why would you think that?" House was being uncharacteristically gentle, not hinting that Wilson was stupid or anything, simply asking a question.
"The broken cane. And Cameron seemed really shook-up when she came to get me, like she was going to cry-" here House's eyes got their rather thoughtful look- "and there's an ambulance right below us."
"We're in a hospital, Wilson. There's going to be ambulances." Here House couldn't hide the note of derision in his voice, but he tried to temper it by adding "But it's sorta understandable why you'd jump to that conclusion. What with Amber…you know. That was only a few months ago."
Wilson was still rather stressed out and shell-shocked, so the pair set in silence for a while. Finally Wilson asked, "Where were you when I first got up here? It would have saved a whole lot of trouble if you hadn't been hiding from me."
"I wasn't hiding from you. I was sitting on the bench there-" he pointed to the wooden object, which was around a slight corner and so invisible to anyone standing in the doorway. Wilson hadn't even known it was there. "-waiting for my Vicoden to kick in. Which brings me to why you're here. I…um… there are a lot of stairs here, and I just went up them twice in the last hour."
Wilson recognized this as House's way of asking for help. Wordlessly he wrapped his arm around House's shoulder and helped his friend slowly limp down the stairs. It must be a bad pain day, Wilson thought.
When they were about three-quarters down, House stopped, and so Wilson was obliged to as well. It was then that he realized just how close together the two were, and he began to feel a little uncomfortable.
"Um… do you want to start moving again?"
"Eventually," said House. "But first, I wanted to say… it was actually kinda sweet- in a totally uncool way, mind you- how you care so much if I die."
"You're my best friend, House! What do you expect?"
"I honestly don't know…" he said, and his admittance of that meant he dropped the walls around him, if just for a split second. And Wilson happened to look in his eyes at that second, and was blown away by everything within them, all the pain and hope and everything else.
"Wow," he breathed unconsciously, before he could stop himself.
"Wow, huh? I can work with that." House said, leaning in and softly kissing Wilson's lips.
And the kiss was so tender, so loving, that all of Wilson's unanswered questions, the ones he'd asked himself for a while now, about his feelings, about House's, were answered in a second. And the answers were all "yes."
So Wilson was the one to deepen the kiss, a fact which surprised even him. But then, he suddenly stopped caring, because what else mattered at that moment?
When they finally parted, Wilson said, "That kiss was perfect."
House smiled, and then kissed him again.
--
When Cameron noticed the subtle changes in the way the two acted around each other from then on, she couldn't help but smile and mentally pat herself on the back for a job well done. Sure, she could've found a nicer way to do it, but these circumstances just occurred so perfectly. And, House had even thanked her, in that roundabout way of his.
Yes, it seemed that things that are meant to be do work out perfectly.
--
Ah, I love manipulative Cameron.
As a note, the "wow? I can work with that" line is borrowed, after editing from a book called Wicked Lovely. But it was too House to not use.
Anyway. Sorry for my extraordinarily long author's notes. Please review; they make my day as always.