Redrawing the Borders, Part Three

They've had dinner at the actual table tonight because they've both brought work home, reading journals and making notes over bowls of hot chili, which Wilson has had two of even though he never liked chili much. Another small victory for House, and House will take any he can get; his year in jail has badly depleted his stockpile of triumphs.

He has kept ordering groceries, and kept cooking, and Wilson has kept coming over and, for the most part, staying. Sarah the Cat is staying with Sandy the Nurse and her husband, Numbskull the Dentist, whose name House could remember if he bothered trying.

"Sarah likes him," Wilson says. "She meows for him to pick her up, which she never did for me."

"I can't believe you're so pathetic you're jealous over a cat."

"Oh, like you weren't jealous over the cat."

"Whole different thing. I wanted her out of the way so I could meow at you and get picked up. How long until the Persian vermin re-infests your condo?" This is how he asks, How long until I'm cleared to land at Chez Wilson, because they both know he's the reason the cat's in foster care.

House isn't actually in a hurry. It can take another three months, for all he cares, because if he goes to Wilson's place, which was their place until Wilson said it wasn't, he's going to demand an answer about that and he might not like the one he gets.

"Schroeder called yesterday and said he's working on it. Looks like another couple weeks. Hey, you've seen this MS trial? One little stent in one little vein and ..." He turns his laptop around to face House. "... one of my patients has both. MS and breast cancer. If this works for her -"

"- it won't have any illicit, torrid affairs with her chemo drugs. Unlike whatever she's on for MS."

"Bingo. Meaning I now need to work on getting yet another permission slip from another bunch of authoritarian jackasses. God, I've been hanging out with you too long."

Mentally, House adds another small win to his scorecard. "That's why you need a beer," he says.

"Good point." Wilson gets up, stretches, and ambles toward the fridge, and House tallies one more point in his favor. Wilson never brings back just one beer.

House has been fidgety and agitated, even by House standards, ever since they finished their beers and he found the fatal flaw in someone else's diagnosis. Ordinarily that would make him happy for a while. Tonight it just seemed to be the end of his ability to distract himself from whatever the hell else is rattling around in his head. Wilson might try to guess at what that is, if it weren't ten-thirty and he hadn't been up since dawn.

It's a relief when House stops his pacing, his guitar and piano plinking (it is possible, Wilson knows now, to plink angrily), and his random verbal pokes at Wilson, and gimps off toward the bathroom.

Wilson's not aware that he's dozed off sitting on the sofa until the thwack of a cane on the cushion jolts him awake.

"I don't need you here anymore," House says. He's standing there in his worn old pajama pants and a t-shirt so threadbare that its printed design is near illegible now; barefoot, his hair damp from the shower. "I'm not sick and I'm not having nightmares. I'm used to my own bed again. I'm not in any more pain than average; I'm sleeping as well as I ever do. There's no reason."

"You ... okay. I'll head home, then."

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

"You did mean you want me to go?"

"Since when have I failed to tell you to get the hell out when that's what I want?" House turns and disappears into the darkened hall. "All I said was you don't need to stay."

"House ..."

"Take the sofa, take half my bed, go home, you choose. Whatever, but there's no need to baby-sit me."

"You're a moron."

"I mean it."

"So do I. You always assume that everything on earth, now and ever after, is about you." Wilson's too tired for this. He's still got his overnight-at-House's kit in the bathroom, so he simply kicks off his shoes and heads for the shower, letting the bathroom vent fan drown out whatever further stupid crap House might say.

The plan had been: Send Wilson home, stop thinking about why he sent Wilson home, then go directly to sleep, do not pass GO, do not collect $200 or any more of Wilson's opinions.

This is not how it's playing out.

He lies there listening to the bathroom vent, which is the sound of Wilson staying, and awaiting Wilson's next decision regarding where he will sleep. Which shouldn't be Wilson's decision at all, should it, he's thinking; and that's when Wilson reappears, fully dorked out in his boxer shorts and that Gold's Gym tee he stole from House, what? Fifteen years ago?

"Move over," Wilson says. "Or don't, and I'll take the sofa. Whatever, but stop assuming I'm just here because you need me."

"You need neediness," House counters. He's scooting over, though. This is still weird and a bad idea, but if Wilson isn't backing down, how can House? That would mean losing. "And a different nightshirt. I mopped up a puddle of vomit with that one a week before you stole it from me."

"My vomit, as I recall, and you told me to keep the shirt. I washed it the next morning while you were still passed out. Hot cycle, extra bleach. You know this isn't just about you," Wilson says. "I ... I need the kind of person who's willing to illegally sedate me rather than let me stand at a lectern and shoot my career down in flames. I need someone who isn't afraid to - to push me when I need pushing. And that is not a hint, and if you shove me onto the floor in the night -"

"You need to sleep in the same bed with that person?"

"Maybe not. Okay, I just, I ... it's nice here."

"It's dangerous here." He tries not to think too hard about what kind of danger he means, because it's not like the mattress is radioactive; it doesn't even have bedbugs.

"It's dangerous everywhere."

"Good night, Wilson."

"You claim it's nice to sleep here, but you're not sleeping." It is two-something in the morning and House has lain awake for every damned minute. "Why not?"

"Brain won't shut off. I don't know."

"God, you're a lousy liar. You're breathing like someone who's on a plane that just reported engine trouble. If that's all you're gonna do all night, spare us both and go home."

Wilson gets up, and this is somehow not what was wanted. The hallway light flickers on. "Coward," House calls after him.

There's no reply, just a few soft noises, none of which sounds like a pants zipper or a keychain. "I said, you're a coward."

"I heard you." There's no trace of anger in Wilson's tone, but House knows him well enough to know that doesn't always mean a damn thing. Wilson reappears, still in his dorky nightwear, holding a bottle in one hand and two partly-filled tumblers in the other. "And I said, you're an idiot." He sets the bottle on the nightstand, sips from one of the glasses and offers the other to House.

The dim light from the hall makes a spark on the rim of the glass, and a halo around the edges of Wilson's mussed hair. "My very own Angel of Mercy," House says, and he shoves pillows against the headboard for an improvised chair, so he can sit up and drink and maybe not think so much about, about anything. At all.

Wilson sits down beside him, snatching the remaining pillows for himself, sipping quietly. House could punch him, he's so annoying. The whiskey was a good idea, and that's annoying too, because House should have thought of it first, and he didn't, because he was thinking about how annoying Wilson was. Is.

Wilson tilts his head in that inquisitive (annoying) way, watching for a long (annoying) moment. "So," he says, "what is it you want?"

"I want you to choose," House says. He hasn't thought this through, not even a little. "Go home, go sleep on the couch, or kiss me and get it over with."

"Huh."

"That's it? 'Huh?'"

"It's ... somewhat unexpected. Gimme a minute." Wilson keeps sipping that drink, not looking at him. The light glistens on his lip, outlines his brow, his nose and his throat, a silvered curve that rises and falls when he swallows.

"Get out of my bed," House says. He knows the instant the words come out that they lack all conviction, that they don't mean what he wished they did, and that Wilson knows this because Wilson knows him.

"I don't think I want to." Wilson sets down his drink, takes the mostly empty glass from House's hand, drains the last of it, and sets that aside too. "If you want to ... get it over with, maybe you should."

House has no idea if he has just won or lost.

He hadn't expected himself to say that, but he's tired, sleep deprived, and sick of the weird little circle they've been walking in for weeks now. And anyway maybe this is what's been agitating House this whole ... this whole ...

House has reached up to rest his fingers in the hair above Wilson's ear. So light, so careful.

"Maybe I should," House says.

"If that's a threat, it's not working." He tilts his head toward the touch and waits. House is so still, the only movement is his thumb, stroking across the hairline at Wilson's temple.

Wilson gets up on his knees, swings himself over until he's kneeling between House's legs, which is what House gets for splaying them out to take up as much space as he can. Instinct tells him to start where House left off, so he reaches out softly, strokes House's hair, watches House close his eyes and lean into it.

"Put up or shut up, Wilson," House growls, and that's when Wilson kisses him.

House has him caught. It's been one thing, being aware all these years of how athletic House was, and how strong, his injury notwithstanding. It's quite another to have those heavy limbs wrapped around him, holding fast while House's hands slide beneath his nightshirt, travel up his back, pull him in.

"Yes," Wilson says. It's the only word he can think of. House nips at his throat. Pushes him down, fully on top of him, so Wilson can feel everything, yes that everything, and he'd tell House to get his clothes off, dammit, except House is busy with his mouth on Wilson's ear and his hand on Wilson's crotch, and the only thing left in Wilson's mind is a ball of white-hot static.

He can't find a single other word except "House."

And then even that is gone, because House kisses him again and does not stop.

It's a completely normal morning at Mickey's, and it's a good thing they like the place, because it's one of their few choices within House's permitted area of travel. Sunshine through the windows, normal waffles and syrup, ordinary bacon, free refills of the solidly average coffee.

Completely abnormal silence from Wilson, who has eaten about half what he usually does. His breathing is all shallow and uneven again, and he keeps trying to hide the faint flush on his cheeks by pretending to read the paper. The obits, no less.

"All your symptoms indicate that your condition is acute and probably chronic," House says. "Cure is unlikely. Treatable at best."

Wilson looks up at him, and the instant rise of color on his ears makes House smile.

"So," Wilson says, "the 'get it over with' part ..."

"Not the whole 'it.' Just the part where you weren't admitting you wanted to bone me." House makes a mental note that technically, boning isn't even what happened. Technically, they never even got their clothes off until after they got everything else off in a tangle of friction and fabric and ... they are so going to do this again.

"Ah. Yes. The, uh ... that. Because, as the great philosopher Turner said, what's love got to do with it."

House takes the moment of unguarded insecurity as an opportunity to swipe Wilson's glass of orange juice. "One thing at a time, Romeo. We're young yet."

"I already married a Juliet, remember? Didn't end well." He takes a deep breath. "Look, there's something I should tell you."

"If it's about your hysterectomy, I found out years ago. It's okay; I never wanted kids."

"You've been cleared to be at my place for a couple weeks now. I told Schroeder I'd let you know."

"And then you didn't. Because ...?"

"Because you didn't want to be there. And I didn't want to ask."

"I'm still not moving back in." How weird is he, he wonders, that he's already planning to spend the rest of this Saturday slowly seducing the hell out of Wilson, yet even a simple visit to their former shared living space is off the table.

"I'm still okay with that. We're young yet. Well, one of us is." Wilson's shoulders have lost some of their stiffness as he turns to catch sight of their server. "Are we, uh. Going back to your place?"

"If it's up to me, we are. But remember, you're driving." Under the table, he nudges Wilson's leg with his toe. "You are almost always driving." House gets out his own wallet, and puts his own cash on the table with their check.

"Yeah," Wilson says, and his ears go deeply pink again. "Yeah. I guess I am."