In the silent room your breath echoes a thousand times before it dies, so by the time you've fully dredged the last bits of sleep from your mind, you're amazed that he hasn't woken yet from all the noise. Somewhere outside, people are celebrating—somewhere there are fireworks, somewhere there are kids skipping around and merrily etching their names in the sky with sparklers. You try (and fail) to find a clock in this foreign place but just understand that it's dark, dark and late without celebration, only a hint of panic and longing.
You're both naked underneath the sheets. How you ended up here, you can't really remember honestly. He was unpacking his bedroom—that you do know—and maybe you tripped, maybe you pushed him, or maybe you both finally gave in to the force straining between you, snapping the frayed rope with the first grab at each other's clothes.
It was quick, it was simple, and it was only about the high: you both wanted to fly and dazzle the world, fall to the earth with a purpose, and your hands were steering. Calling this glorified hand job making love would put the act to shame—affection was barred, your lips never graced the other's skin. Mutual need made that frenzied moment nothing more than a carnal hunger.
And that's what you're afraid of.
You want to know that he's not going to disappear at first light, leaving you with two hundred dollars less in your wallet.
You want to know that he's going to look at you when he wakes up and remember your name.
You need to know that he won't find a better model once you start to fall apart, and you also need to know that if he does come back, that he'll stay.
You need to know that this won't be a one-time thing and that you two won't be playing some convoluted, ambiguous game for the rest of your lives.
You need to know that he won't be running back to someone else as soon as this is over.
You need to know that you're good enough for somebody.
Asleep, he's so peaceful, his boyish features completely serene as they melt into the pillow with each exhale, his brown eyes flitting around under his eyelids, and you can't help but love him. You can't help but want to stroke his hair from his eyes and run your fingers down his cheek; but once he wakes, you have no idea what to expect because he's going to remember every second. Neither of you were drunk or stoned or what have you.
You fear for that moment, so you drink in and savor each tick of the clock that passes, each time he sighs into the sheets, each time you get infinitesimally close to touching his face. In orbit your hands seems to travel, and you're so near that you can feel his body heat.
When his eyes suddenly snap open, you guess that he could feel yours too.
In barely a second your arm retracts and you sit up in bed, rubbing the ensuing cramp from your bad leg. Wait for it, wait for it, your mind tells you. It's coming—the revelation to end all revelations is on its way. And you can barely stand to look back at him, but you still do because, hell, you still need to see his face.
"Ngh…House?" Eye contact made, but still waiting. Confusion rising, still waiting. And it's so predictable: eyes squinting, head turning, then bam—squinted all the way shut, bridge of the nose pinched, and out comes the "Wow," but with no more sound than a whisper while his lids explode outward. As he finds your eyes again, his are wider than the moon.
"True life," you croak. "We jerked off our best friends." Somewhere in there was supposed to be your normal sarcastic bite, but it was weak.
Silence, a long silence, until you fall back beside him and look him square in the eye.
You want to kiss him, you need to kiss him—but you need him as a friend more than anything and a kiss could seal away everything you cherish. In the meantime, your hands shake, your breath shakes, and your acerbic shield shakes too, tumbling to the ground until the only part of you that you can still feel is the raw and the vulnerable, pained against the outside air.
Against your better judgment, your hands reach out towards them, still quivering, still unsure, always unsure, but he doesn't stop you like you'd expected. He lets you take his face in your hands, lets your thumbs wander over his closed eyes—everywhere, you trace his features everywhere and even the skin beneath your fingernail bursts into a desperate fire.
Soon you start to feel him nodding slightly under your touch—with one last stoke of his lips, you pull his face across the mattress and into your own, softly, for screwing this over like you've done so many times before is simply not an option.
He's not caught by surprise, but he gasps anyway as your lips gently brush, diving in for more as soon as the contact breaks, going deeper and deeper until the only idea that you're aware of is the essence of Wilson surrounding and soaking your being with an aura that's driving your senses wild.
You never acknowledged that those hypothetical scenes that occasionally popped in your head—ones of you kissing him up against a wall at Princeton-Plainsboro—were actual desires. You never knew how much you needed him, that you may have a cane for your leg but you have a Wilson for your psyche.
He's everything to you.
"Don't leave me," you mutter between needy, tongue-filled kisses, and you're surprised you said it out loud.
And you're even more surprised at his breathy reply: "No, never."
"Never?" you sneak in before he sinks into your lips again.
"Never."
This, this makes your eyes sting, and you don't want him to see you cry, even over him, over this pounding sense of relief and love obliterating your cynicism for just a moment so you can believe him wholeheartedly.
Some part of you wonders whether it's midnight yet, if the new year has arrived.
The other part of you, the part still consumed with Wilson, doesn't care—with the number of new years that you will be witnessing with him by your side, you might as well have been asked to count the stars.