Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D.

"I told you that you would move to the hookers soon."

"She's not a hooker. And I'm not even interested in her!"

House tutted disbelievingly, swirling his cane around his fingers just to have something to do with his hands. He scowled at Wilson darkly.

"She asked you out."

"For coffee," Wilson recollected, "do you call going out with your mother for coffee a date?"

"If my mother would accentuate her c-cups with a low cut shirt like that, then yes I would." House pointed accusingly down the hall.

"She's a nice person," Wilson said, glaring at House threateningly, "you're the one who pointed out that I hadn't chatted with nurses by the elevator in ages."

"Was I complaining?" House barked, furrowing his eyebrows together.

"House!" the oncologist said firmly, "I'm going to have coffee with her after work whether you approve or not. I don't have a curfew, you're not my mother, and I don't need to listen to this. You don't like me going out with anyone."

"That's because you only date the clingy women who don't let me come near you." House growled, his knuckles white against his cane.

"Could you just for once be happy for me?"

"She only wants to get into your pants!" House said sourly, disapprovingly glowering at Wilson.

"You're crazy." Wilson said, sounding thoroughly deflated from their argument. He turned away with a sigh.

"Only for you!" House told him with a smirk before he watched Wilson disappear down the hallway towards the oncology ward. He limped over to his office, smiling briefly at his team.

"What's going on with Wilson?" Foreman asked enigmatically, raising an eyebrow.

"You know it's not nice to pry," House said, waggling his finger at the man, "you're grounded from the whiteboard for a month."

"I heard you through the glass." Foreman retorted sharply.

"Wilson's going out with someone else," Thirteen announced with a suppressed grin, "House wants Wilson to himself."

"Uh – he's jealous?" Kutner asked uneasily.

"Obviously."

"Of, um, Wilson or the girl he's going out with?" he pressed awkwardly.

"Kutner, stop fantasizing about me and Wilson!" House scolded, staring avidly at the symptoms written on the board. "Dying guy needs to be cured, and unfortunately we can't do that if he's dead. So let's diagnose him now!"

"Maybe Parkinson's–"

"Dr. House," Thirteen interrupted loudly, "can I speak to you privately please?"

House arched his eyebrows at her before smirking, hunkering over slightly before loudly whispering for the whole table to hear, "If this is about that time in the janitor's closet yesterday, can we discuss this later?"

"Who came out of the closet?" Kutner asked, perking his head up in shock.

"Thirteen."

"House." Both the diagnostician and Thirteen simultaneously answered Kutner's question, smiling innocently.

"What's going on?" Taub piped up perplexedly.

House straightened seriously, giving the whiteboard one more glance before booming out, "We should check his lair for booty, if you know what I mean."

"But – we already checked his house."

"This time check it for contaminated water. Kutner, take Homey with you. Taub, watch the patient now that we've put him on different meds." House instructed. "Thirteen, shall we gossip and share dirty secrets behind the whiteboard?"

Thirteen rolled her eyes as she pushed her way out of her chair and shuffled after House to his office.

"What is it you need?" the older doctor asked tiredly, expecting nothing but more encouraging lectures about his feelings and the subtle signs that Wilson was sending him.

"I saw the way you were looking at Wilson," she said softly, a smile flickering gently onto her lips, "you're in love with him."

"Dear god, woman!" House groaned, falling into his desk chair, "aren't you happy enough with me admitting that I have feelings for him? I'm not in love with him!"

The unspoken yet hung eerily in the air. House shiftily stared at the wall.

"House," Thirteen said gingerly, "just because this is hard doesn't mean it's not true. Denying your feelings will just make things worse."

"Wilson is dating nurses," House said simply, throwing his hands up into the air, "It's too late! If anything, that should prove that he's not in love with me like I am with him."

Like a loud gong going off, the room silenced abruptly. House couldn't even hear the annoying humming from his radiator. Everything had stopped. He looked clandestinely into Thirteen's considerably widened eyes.

"Shut up." He snapped at her, pursing his lips together sulkily.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were going to." House blamed stiffly.

"You love him."

"What part of shut up did you not understand?"

Thirteen's smile looked like it was about to break apart her cheeks. She laughed triumphantly, shaking her head in disbelief. "You admitted it! You're in love!"

"That's not a good thing," House shot down instantly, "go away, Thirteen."

"You should tell him."

"No."

"Why not?" she pressed persistently.

"No!!" he yelled determinedly, "get out."

Thirteen sighed despite the fact that her mouth was still sporting an immovable beam. She grabbed her hospital coat as she left House's office, heading towards the patient's ward.

House rested his chin in his fingers as he laid his elbow on the desktop. There were a million thoughts going through his head, some of them consisting of how Thirteen had inflicted all of her idiosyncrasies on him and that it was affecting his thinking and some of them purely Wilson.

Wilson.

House rubbed at his forehead soothingly, painfully remembering the nurse he had been chatting with earlier as House had spied on him through his blinds.

Dammit, this hurt.

House grabbed for his vicodin, pouring out more than his usual dose onto his palm before swallowing them swiftly and letting his head hit his desk hopelessly.

When out of the blue there was a flicker of a thought crossing his mind.

It was bad. It was so bad.

But then again, so was House.

Everyone liked watching humiliation. Nobody enjoyed humiliation. Somebody always has to create humiliation, and as usual, it would be House.

For House, he would stoke the fire of embarrassment by throwing in toothpicks at irregular intervals, subtle and logically innocuous to the background-deprived bypasser.

He was a horrible friend.

But he was a smart person who knew how to lie, make plans and be discreet about pulling them through. And he knew that he could also be a good boyfriend.

Occasionally.

And to be a good boyfriend, House needed to be a bad friend.

His plans were all insane. They were all incredibly elaborate yet breathtakingly brilliant. House prided himself on his skills in devising evil schemes.

If he would be in one of those cheesy kiddy movies, he'd be the baddie. But he'd be a brilliant baddie and that was all that counted.

The doctor snatched up his phone, dialing the number for the intercom. He grinned manically.

"Would nurse Williams please come to the second floor hallway next to the coffee machines, thank you." it was not a request.

House grabbed his cane, limping over to the said location, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Excuse me?" a female voice chirped, "what is this about?"

"Are you nurse Williams?" House inquired, smirking smugly when she nodded, "On Dr. Wilson's request, I'm sorry to inform you that he won't be able to see you for coffee after work."

"Oh." She mumbled, "Is he busy working?"

"No," House said immediately, "he decided that's he's not really bisexual, but he's just gay." He said bluntly, reveling in the nurse's gaping expression. Her mouth formed a meticulously round 'o'.

"He's… he's gay?"

"And he leaves up the toilet seat!" House boomed jovially, "Find yourself a different doctor."

She deplorably slumped away from the hallway, House smiling in satisfaction the whole time.

When Greg House was in love with somebody, he didn't let anybody else touch them.

--

"Uh… I thought Cuddy told you to do clinic duty today…?" Kutner questioned hesitantly, fiddling with pen.

"What, are you going to tattle tale on Daddy?"

"Of course not."

House scowled at him warningly. "I'm not going to go to clinic duty," he said, "I have other things on my mind. And don't you even dare ask what!" he ordered at Kutner sharply.

"We have yet another new symptom," Foreman mumbled, sorting through the patient's file, "while we were in the lab researching the uncontaminated stuff from his home, Taub told us that he was spiking a fever."

"Could be," House murmured, but his mind was wandering considerably far away, "Wilson's disease." His mind didn't even wrap around the word disease.

"Wilson's disease?" Foreman repeated incredulously, "House, that's ludicrous! He would need to have heart problems, probably KF rings around his irises and not to mention hypoparathyroidism!"

House was silent. The only thing going through his mind was Wilson. Wilson's skin against his, chest against chest, lips moving against lips with a smooth rhythm, naked in emotion, naked in thoughts, naked in body –

"House? Uh, House…?"

"What the hell is he thinking about?" Wilson could vaguely make out Taub's blurry voice in the hazy background, interrupting this vortex of bliss that was swirling around his brain.

"House!" Thirteen shouted. Finally, he whirled around from the whiteboard.

"What was wrong with Wilson's disease?" he asked, squinting his eyes.

This was not good. Wilson was turning his brain into jelly.

"Enough things," Foreman said with a rough sigh, closing the file in his fingers and standing up from his chair, "all of you, run a CT scan on his brain."

House sank into the chair that Thirteen had vacated, rubbing at his temples tenderly. He let out a gentle sigh, tilting his head off the chair rest.

Greg House didn't fall in love. He didn't ever get emotionally attached to anyone. It was one of his rules, and it was one of the only rules he had that he didn't break. He liked disobeying the regulations, especially when he didn't get caught, but this one was firm in his morals. He didn't fall in love.

But apparently, he did end up breaking every rule, no matter if he wanted to or not.

CHAPTER 9 TEASER: Cuddy laughed, "You're going to tell him," she said firmly, "because if you won't, I will."

AN: I already have chapter nine and half of chapter ten done. So expect an update soon. Maybe even tomorrow already, depends on the reviews :P

This time I'd like to dedicate my thanks to one of my favorite reviewers, SaveTheWatchmaker, simply because she is such a great pal and always has something nice to say :D