Hey there! People who left a review – I send you big sunny thanks! People who remained in a clandestine 'alerting' – come on! I value your opinions, tell me what you think of it! Besides, I haven't yet finished the third chapter, so I'm open to suggestions. Thanks to all of you who are reading it, anyways :) You're on the threshold of the second chapter.

So, here's the recipe. First, you take a pair of scissors and you make sure their blades are sharp enough to get the job done. Second, you place them between the index and third fingers of your right hand and check out their mobility. Third, your left hand grabs a puff of the air in this room where the absense of sounds renders the quietness almost ear-drum splitting, while all the dumb roars bounce off the floor and ceiling hither and thither. And now the final stage: you can cut the silence in shreds.

Sure, when there are no scissors at hand, you are bound to speak.

"House, pass me the remote."

"I already did. You're holding it in your hand, Wilson."

Oh, right. There it is, indeed. Who would have thought?

"House, make me a cup of coffee, would you be so kind."

"I've already been so kind. I've made you coffee twenty minutes ago, Wilson."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"You can make tee, then."

"Or I can compete in the Olympic games."

"House!"

"You know, you could call me Hovel, just for a change."

"You're grumbling."

"I'm not grumbling."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"This is pointless."

"No, it's not."

"Now you're just negating everything I say."

"No, I'm–– Wow. I can't really deny this, can I? Smart move."

So, where are the scissors?

"You said you were going to do whatever I ask you to do, House. Do you at least vaguely recall that part?"

"You're sure it was me and not by any chance my imaginative twin brother?"

"…"

"Okay, it was me."

"You know, you could try to be…"

"Polite?"

"Wouldn't even suspect you know this word."

"Being polite is not an action."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it is not. Being polite is an entirely ethical issue."

There is an expression of profound thinking in Wilson's face, which in a minute changes from thorough deliberation to unwilling mental turmoil.

"I got you. See? No way you're making me be ethical."

"Here I was thinking there floated at least a tiny straw of hope."

"House!"

"Are you talking to me or are you addressing the adjacent building over there?"

"First question, stop creeping me out by being in my bedroom in the dead of night. Second question, get the hell out of here."

"You do know what question is, right?"

Wilson makes an attempt to think.

"Fine. Go on, ask me to square two hundred and thirty four, and mock further."

"That's an option." House nods, gravely and pensively.

"What do you want, anyway?"

House stands in the dark, his figure blurry and indistinct, his eyes following the moonlight streak which pours through the window and hovers right above the smooth surface of the patchwork quilt of dark indigo color. It crosses the entire bed, divinding it in halves diagonally. The bright streak of light wants House to touch itself with his own fingers, as to make sure it is only light and that it wouldn't feel warm on his palm.

"I'm lonely."

"No, you're bored. That's the extent of what you can be."

House flinches internally at the tone of Wilson's voice that sounds matter-of-factly, which puts in his words an even more bitter candy than they already possess. All the same, they cling like true, and House shakes his head, wishing to drag them out of his mind.

"Can I stay?" asks he finally.

Wilson blinks at him, puzzled and unsure. He brings his left hand to his ear and rubs it in a sort of suspicious gesture, and as if checking the hearing mechanisms which, by the sound of what House might have just said, may as well have gone a trifle haywire. Wilson remains silent for the moment as House's question hangs up in the air, getting stuck on the hook of awkwardness.

"House, have you told me all about the bet or is it the part I'm not fully aware of?"

Wilson almost feels House get tense and irritated. House wets his lips with the tip of his tongue, his right hand makes a searching movement and grabs the empty air. Only now Wilson notices there is no cane attached to House's hand, which renders the whole picture somewhat unfilled as if something important is missing out there.

"Forget the stupid bet for now, will you?

Wilson arches his eyebrow: "Are you taking it back then?" Seeing as House rolls his eyes towards the ceiling, Wilson gets the point and sighs: "Alright, alright. For now. For how exactly 'long' now?"

House throws at his friend an intense and piercing look. "For the next amount of time you are in need to say 'Yes, House. Make yourself at home'."

"And by 'make yourself at home" you, of course, mean 'make yourself at bed'," adds Wilson in an unusually sarcastic voice which doesn't really suit him.

House frowns. "Now this was just mean."

"Hello, kettle. This is House. You are black."

"Okay, we're flying slightly off a tangent here," says House in a tired voice, his face still indistinguishable in the outer darkness. Wilson squints and stares at his friend inquiringly. House leans against the wall as he gives Wilson a reciprocal look of inquiry. The wall feels solid and cold behind his back.

"Can I stay?" he repeats, this time more quiet and sheepish.

When House walks into the hospital reception hall and sees Wilson standing near the desk with a sheet of paper in his hand, he thinks this is the most convenient opportunity; because the best way to lure Wilson into doing what he's supposed to do is to catch him unawares, not giving him time to think the better of it. After taking a rapid glimpse of Thirteen and Foreman standing somewhere by the elevator and Cuddy sitting at her office table through the window, House decisively makes for his friend, all things considered.

Wilson is looking down at his folder with his head lowered, so he doesn't notice it when House steps right in front of him laying his cane on the desk behind Wilson's back, one hand gripping his friend by his waist, his other capturing his neck and pulling the man closer. House feels Wilson freeze in his arms, apparently in deep stupor.

House's lips are rash and insisting on Wilson's as he pushes his tongue into his mouth, in hastiness, like they are in the middle of in-flight refuelling and in any second House's airplane would have to fly further up the sky, and the only time they have is this short now. Carpe diem. Wilson's body is motionless, the sheet of paper is no longer in his hand but drifting down to the floor, and by the accurate check of it, Wilson's pilot is deadly unconscious. The oncologist's aircraft gets wedged between atmospheric absolute pressure and House.

Seeing as what House really needs at the moment is to get any kind of reaction from Wilson – preferably, a positive one – he stops his fervent actions and lets go of Wilson's lips, busying himself now with licking a track down his friend's chin to his neck. In passing, he points out to himself that this feels not at all bad. Not at all. It could've felt even nicer if Wilson hadn't been so immovable and pitifully stationary. House's fingers stroke the back of Wilson's neck while he himself lifts his mouth up to Wilson's right ear and whispers:

"Now, Wilson, could you lend your hands in here? Literally. And get your tongue in my mouth, for God's sake."

Getting no response whatsoever, House makes up his mind or, to be perfectly precise, his lips to follow their path back to Wilson's mouth, this time gentle and soft, all the rashness and hurriedness put aside, only slight brushing of his lips against his friend's, as if in a gesture of silent invitation.

Wilson surrenders. He thinks that the faster he will begin to do something about the whole situation, the quicker it will end. Then, like in a slow motion, he lifts his hands and carefully places his left one around House's back, his other cupping House's chin. Wilson leans forward, closing that little distance that was left between them. He feels a smile on House's lips, but, no heed paying, he proceeds to kiss.

With the corner of his eye House catches a throng of people gathering around: some of them curious and smiling, the others indignant and reproving. One moment later he forgets about all of them and concentrates on the kiss, closing his eyes and stroking Wilson's neck again. He remembers that it's unnecessary but he just feels like doing it and he does it.

They don't let go of each other until there is an angry cough behind their backs. House pulls back, removing his hands but not tearing his eyes off Wilson's. He can't help commenting.

"Better than I thought."

Wilson fights down a smile. They both turn to face Cuddy who is warped with fury and red with resentment. Speechless, only her mad expression at hand, she tries to shake off everybody's attention and dissipate the crowd. Then she casts a fiercing glare at House and Wilson, more than ever eager to incinerate them right on the spot, right until there's a smell of burnt flesh and a smoke of two employees' bones melting.

"In my office. Now," she says in a scaringly quiet voice and storms off away from the hospital hall.

TBC

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