Does it really matter anymore?
It's always the same -- he says something, House's brows knit together and he fixes Wilson with that gaze so blue Wilson could fall into it and drown, House is silent as if to say "Do you really believe that? And here I'd thought you were capable of abstract thought all these years."
And then Wilson fumbles with his reply, and House smirks, and oh God he wants to wipe that smirk off his arrogant face but he can't because there's always that mantra of Can't hurt House can't hurt House running in the back of his mind.
And then House always smiles triumphantly, knowing he's won. Again.
Wilson shakes his head and turns away. Because he's really tired of this. Because it's raining. Because they're both getting soaking wet. Because they're fighting and he doesn't know why. Because he just can't do this anymore.
And something in that list must have communicated itself silently to House because suddenly there's a hand on his shoulder, and he's being shoved backwards until a wall stops him, and that same hand is holding him in place while the thumb of the other traces a long, questing path up the line of his lower jaw --
House's eyes have turned dark, that fierce almost blue-black that always reminds Wilson of a sea squall sweeping in out of a lowering sky, wind and rain swamping the unwary and incautious before it.
Both hands wrap around the back of his neck then, and pull him forward just enough, and at the same time House leans forward just enough, and
And
he's gone overboard, but it's not cold here in the rushing waves. He's warm, the warmest he's ever been in his life; it spreads outward from the pit of his belly as he searches frantically for something, anything to hold onto
fights for air; he breaks free for just a moment and hauls in a breath but is promptly pulled back down by the relentless grip
water's in his eyes, his hair, trickling down the back of his neck, stopping up his ears so he can't hear the storm warnings, the calls of the Sirens
quiet as he sinks, clinging tight to the anchor that's brought him to these shimmering blue depths
I hope I'm wearing a lifejacket.
fin
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
-- T.S. Eliot, 1917