Chapter Three
He wasn't quite sure how he got to Wilson's office. There was no reason for him to be there; his patient had shown no signs of cancer, and Wilson couldn't have summoned him there because he wasn't even in the office. He sat down at Wilson's desk to wait for him and picked up his thinking ball to play with while he waited. It did not occur to him to wonder why the ball was on Wilson's desk instead of his, nor did it occur to him to wonder what the table from the diagnostic room was doing there. It did not seem the slightest bit strange that Wilson's office had expanded in size in order to accommodate it.
Wilson entered the office on House's motorcycle, which he parked next to the sofa.
"Sorry I'm late," he apologised, taking off the helmet and putting it down.
House scoffed. "I've been waiting for like four hours."
"I said I'm sorry," Wilson repeated, looking annoyed. "What more do you want from me?"
House smirked involuntarily, and suddenly Wilson smiled. It was a seductive smile.
"You could have said something," Wilson said coyly, taking off House's motorcycle jacket to reveal a bare chest. He unclipped House's cane from the side of the motorcycle and held it out to him.
House grabbed the end of the cane and Wilson tugged on it, pulling the older man closer. He backed himself up so he was leaning against the glass table, and his brown eyes sparkled at House. House stepped up to Wilson, meeting him at the table. The cane had vanished but House didn't notice. Wilson had wrapped his arms around him, pressing their pelvises together, and then leaned up to kiss him.
He tasted nice. His hair was silky beneath House's fingers and the skin of his back was smooth and soft. They kissed, pressing together, and Wilson sat himself on the table before leaning back so House could rest over him. House could feel them both getting hard but for some reason neither's hand had moved below their waistlines. He didn't really mind; they had all the time in the world, after all.
It felt like they kissed for a long time before Wilson started getting antsy. He leaned his body up to be closer to House, moved a hand to his ass, and eventually rolled them over so House was lying on his back with Wilson above him.
"Greg?" he said.
"Yeah?" House responded, smiling up at him.
"Greg," Wilson repeated.
House didn't reply this time; he waited for Wilson to get to the point.
"Greg, you should wake up now."
"What?" House asked, suddenly confused.
Then Wilson vanished into thin air and he heard Cuddy's voice: "I said it's time to wake up."
House sat up straight in bed, confused.
Lisa was smiling at him. She held out a breath mint. "I love you, but if you want a quickie before Rachel wakes up, either brush your teeth or take this, okay?"
House looked away from her and didn't say anything. Yes, his dream had caused what was probably the worst case of morning wood he'd had in a long time, but...if he used it for Lisa's benefit, would it negate the fact that a dream about Wilson had caused it?
He felt guilty. He knew he couldn't control what he dreamt about, but he had thought of Wilson in a non-platonic context several times throughout the day yesterday, and he knew he shouldn't have. If he was going to be with Lisa, he needed to stop having romantic thoughts about Wilson. It wasn't fair to her.
"Greg, is something wrong?" she interrupted his muses, a frown line appearing in her forehead.
He'd taken too long to answer. Exactly how suspicious would she be if he said he didn't want to? Would she be able to guess the reason why? If he agreed, would he be able to concentrate on her or would he just continue to imagine Wilson beneath him? The image from his dream, Wilson bare-chested, flushed and panting on the conference room table flashed through his mind, reminding him exactly how much he needed some sexual release right now.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, a loud cry sounded from the next room before he could make a decision, and with an eye-roll and a sigh, Lisa got up from the bed to attend to it.
"I'm gonna take a quick shower, okay Lise?" he called, getting out of bed himself.
"Okay," she called back over the sound of Rachel whimpering.
He hurried into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and turned on the shower before stripping and stepping inside.
He was extremely tempted to just masturbate, but refused because he knew even if he tried to just think of Lisa, images of dream Wilson would just crop up anyway. Cold water would bother his leg, so he settled for cool, let it wash over him, thought about elderly unattractive clinic patients and scrubbed his body down.
Feeling less guilty but extremely unsatisfied, he stepped out of the shower and went into the bedroom to get dressed.
"Thanks for not taking too long," Lisa said gratefully as she stepped past him for her turn. "Rachel's in her playpen and I started the coffee; if you wouldn't mind feeding her I'll do the dishes before we leave."
"Okay," House agreed, pulling on clothes. He hoped the morning would be hectic enough that he would have to focus his attention on Rachel and Lisa and whatever, anything but his dream about Wilson.
.
House spent most of the day in his office. When his patient crashed and almost died, he did a differential with his team to come up with a better diagnoses, and so far the treatment seemed to be working. He ate lunch alone. It wasn't so much that he wanted to avoid Wilson, he just didn't think being around him was the best idea right now. No, it certainly wasn't the first erotic dream he'd had about his friend, and it was actually quite tame compared to some of the others, but it was the first one he'd had since he'd started seeing Cuddy. And it had happened after House had spent more of his day with Wilson than he had since the oncologist had started dating his ex-wife. Spending time with Wilson resulted in Wilson on the brain, which was not helping his relationship with Cuddy. So House decided that out-of-sight, out-of-mind was a good theory to work with and did not seek Wilson out. He found other ways to entertain himself. He even took another case from Cuddy despite the fact that his current patient had not yet been cured. More thinking about medicine equalled less thinking about Wilson. And also, his leg hurt less when he was focused on his job. And Lisa appreciated it. Triple win.
As a result of his second case he ended up having to work late, but he didn't really mind. He had something tasty and unhealthy for dinner from the cafeteria and when he got home Lisa was waiting for him in bed. The night was free of Wilson dreams.
.
Having two cases at once was hard work, and the next afternoon House decided he'd earned a break. With half his team testing Patient A and the other half testing Patient B, he was able to sneak into one of the lounges with the big screen HD TV to watch his soap. Fortunately, the lounge was empty and there was no one to tell him off. He'd actually finished his clinic hours for the week, so there wasn't even any reason for Cuddy to yell at him about it.
So House was quite at peace as he sat on the comfortable sofa and watched bad actors pretend to be doctors-slash-sex addicts. He was eating a bag of chips that Chase had unknowingly paid for and rubbing his leg without thinking about it, though it didn't hurt any more than normal.
He heard the door open and decided to ignore whoever the entrant would be. Unless it was Lisa; then he would try and convince her to have sex on the couch. She would never consent, obviously, but her reaction to the suggestion might be entertaining.
It was Wilson.
The oncologist joined House on the sofa without saying anything. He got himself comfortable and stared up at the TV screen.
House watched his movements out of the corner of his eye. Wilson was leaning back into the couch, his hands resting on his thighs.
Wilson beneath him on the table, kissing him.
No. House turned his head resolutely toward the screen and tried to work out the dialogue he'd missed when Wilson had entered the room. He got himself caught up in the story again and decided to pretend the younger man wasn't there. Wilson didn't seem to notice anything. After moment he reached an arm over to grab a couple chips from House's bag. His arm brushed House's, and the diagnostician froze, turning his head slightly toward Wilson.
Wilson wasn't looking at him. His eyes were on the screen, watching the soap. He opened his mouth and bit into a chip. House could see the crumbs that broke apart where his teeth crunched it. His lips moved back and forth as he chewed. He swallowed, and then slipped his tongue out to lick the salt from his lips. Then he stuck the rest of the chip in his mouth and repeated the process.
House was not aware he was staring, but his friend must have felt his gaze because he turned to him.
"What?" Wilson asked, looking confused.
House shook his head. "Nothing." He turned back to the TV, but it had gone to commercial without him realising it. He still kept his eyes on the screen, but he could hear Wilson eat the other chip and in his peripheral vision noticed the younger man rub his hands on his thighs to rid them of the excess salt.
What was wrong with him? Why was he suddenly so aware of Wilson's presence? They'd watched TV together before—hundreds, thousands of times, and he'd never had this problem. Sometimes he noticed how close they would sit, and sometimes the sides of their legs or arms brushed, but it was never this...tense.
But Wilson didn't seem to notice a thing. The tension was one-sided. Because House was in love with and attracted to Wilson, and Wilson...wasn't.
When was the show going to come back on? Boring commercials for useless products did nothing to hold House's attention. Determined as he was to look at the television rather than his friend, he still noticed when Wilson rubbed his nose, when he coughed, when he shifted slightly in his seat to get more comfortable.
House wanted to touch him. He became aware of that fact and from the moment it entered his mind he couldn't get it out. A brushing of knees, a hand on his arm, any sort of contact. He wanted contact. House cleared his throat. He and Wilson didn't touch unless necessary. It was one of the unspoken rules of their relationship. Wilson pays for food, a pebble thrown at a balcony door constitutes an emergency, and if you want to touch, you'd better have a damn good reason.
Yes, House had been the one to come up with these rules, not Wilson, but the younger man would still be confused if the elder broke them. So the best thing for House to do would be to get the idea out of his head.
But he couldn't. It didn't have to be anything remotely close to sexual; he just wanted to touch his friend. House looked at the bag of chips in his hand. He fished a couple out and then held his hand out to Wilson, grunting to get his attention.
Wilson glanced at House for a second; the proper way to offer a friend chips was to hold out the bag, but he didn't say anything. He took them, his fingers brushing House's palm.
"You okay?" Wilson asked before eating the chips.
"Fine," House replied without looking at him. Did his voice sound weird? He hoped not.
"Your hands are sweaty," Wilson explained.
House looked at the hand he'd held out to Wilson and rubbed it on his jeans. "There."
The oncologist raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything else. He popped one of the chips into his mouth.
House reminded himself that there was nothing sexy about eating potato chips, not even the way Wilson's tongue crept out of his mouth to lick the salt from his lips. No. Not sexy at all. He realised his hands were sweaty again and planted them on his thighs.
He was beyond relieved when the show ended and he could escape Wilson's presence. He had absolutely no idea what had happened during the second half of the episode and didn't care, but he did know that Wilson blinked every seven seconds, he couldn't make up his mind whether he was more comfortable with his feet flat on the ground or with his foot on his knee, and the fingernail on his left thumb was longer than the others.
House tried to spend the rest of the day not thinking about Wilson, about the way his shirt rested on his body or how his tie pointed right down to his crotch. It was challenging, like trying not to think about elephants after someone has instructed you not to think about elephants. He thought about going to see Lisa, but she didn't believe in PDA at work and he didn't want to have to look at her just to get his mind off of Wilson. Besides, as often as he used to make comments about her body to flirt with her, and as hot as he thought she was, he loved her for more than just her body and didn't want to use her like that.
So he worked his cases instead, even going to see the patients and interrogating them and their families. The first one's husband cracked, confessing he'd been slipping her oestrogen because he'd wanted to make her more feminine, and House's case was solved for him.
He retreated back to the diagnostic room, picked up a medical journal Foreman had been reading earlier, and immersed himself in it. When Wilson paged him to exam room three for a consult, he sent Chase in his place. He didn't think he could handle seeing any more of the oncologist today. Not without becoming aroused, anyway, and that was something he did not want to deal with.
Wilson, however, had other plans. About twenty minutes after the page, he showed up in the diagnostic room.
"Hey," he greeted, looking over at House.
House stared at the glass door separating the diagnostic room from his office.
"I paged you for the consult; why'd you send Chase?" He didn't sound annoyed, simply confused and curious.
"I was busy," House muttered, looking down at the journal on the table again. "Chase is a big boy, I figured he could probably handle it. It was a consult, right? If it was meant as a booty call you should have paged me to the janitor's closet."
Wilson rolled his eyes and went to join House at the table. "It was a consult, just...non-emergent."
"Ahh," House said, picking the journal up again so he'd have an excuse not to look at Wilson, though his lack of self-control forced him to take a peek over the top of the pages. He felt a desire to reenact his dream and hurriedly flipped through the pages, hoping to find some unsightly rash or fungus to stare at. "Well as you can see," the diagnostician continued, "I'm pretty swamped. All non-emergent consults get deferred to my minions. And don't you have like...dying people to be thanked by?"
He didn't need to look up to see the slightly hurt expression on Wilson's face as he left the room; he could just tell. Which didn't really make sense, as he'd kicked the younger man out of the room many times throughout their friendship for no reason. And it was Wilson's fault anyway. He had no right to strut around being all attractive and alluring; not while House was in a relationship with Lisa, anyway.
.
House couldn't sleep. Not that this was unusual. Once he got home, he was able to focus on Lisa and Rachel, and inappropriate thoughts of his best friend only crossed his mind a few times throughout the evening. He'd had sex with Lisa twice in a row, and fortunately she was sufficient to take his mind off Wilson. Now that she had drifted off to sleep, though, he was left to lie awake with his thoughts.
Yes, he loved Wilson more than he loved Lisa, loved Wilson in ways he never could love Lisa, but Wilson had had plenty of opportunities to declare an interest, he never had, and now Lisa was the one he was with. So he needed to get over Wilson. Yes. If he wanted to be happy with Lisa, he'd have to get over Wilson.
And he had a theory about how to do that.
The day he and Wilson had had lunch together, he'd thought about him all afternoon and dreamed about him all night. The day they didn't see each other, he thought of him less. Today they watched TV together, and all House could think about was how much he wanted to jump him. Maybe if he stopped spending time with Wilson, it would be easier to focus on Lisa.
House's last thought before he finally drifted off was that he would spend the next few days testing his theory.