Oh, my God. I think I'm coming down with something. This started as a fairly average sort of friendship/humour thing and ended up turning slashy. I tried to stop it, but it didn't work any other way – I managed to get it down to just the suggestion of slash, but it doesn't work any other way.
I'm going to go take some Vitamin C and hope this isn't chronic.
Anyway, I wrote this in a rush on New Year's Eve and was going to put it up then, but I forgot, so here it is now. New Year's Resolution: shorter author notes at the beginning of stuff. Heh. Anyway.
Happy New Year's, everyone. Get as drunk as it's possible to get without dying. (Ahem. Alcohol is bad for you and causes serious health risks. Get insanely drunk responsibly.)
There was a companionable silence in the living room, broken only by the buzz of the television and the occasional dark comment about the film. House and Wilson were slouched on the couch, beer and Chinese food within easy reach. It was their way of admitting that, yes, it was entirely possible that outside the living room, people were celebrating the fact that the earth had made one more rotation – takeout food and a rented movie, which neither of them were actually watching.
"So," Wilson said, in his special Broaching A Subject voice. House quietly groaned, busying himself with extracting all the chicken from the fried rice he had in hand and hoping Wilson would just give up.
"So what?" he asked around a mouthful of food.
"It's New Year's Eve."
"Not for the Chinese it isn't," House remarked, waving the chopsticks.
"New Year's Resolutions, is what I'm getting at here."
"I am always amazed by your capacity for ignoring my sardonic bastard comments."
"I've had a lot of practice."
"I make a special effort and everything to make them particularly sardonic, or..."
"Bastardly."
"Yeah. And they just bounce off. You're terrible for my ego."
"Oh, yeah. Your ego's really frail and fragile at the moment. Behind all the 'I'm better than you' attitude is a frightened man with a heart of – House, that nearly got me in the eye. Didn't you ever learn not to play with sticks?"
"I'm a doctor, I could've fixed you if it'd stabbed your eye out. 'Course, I would have left you to stagger about in agony for a while –"
"I'm sure you would have."
"Anyway, I don't do New Year's Resolutions."
"Why not?"
"If you don't hope for anything from the year, then you don't feel crushed at the end of it when you've not fulfilled any of the resolutions from the year before."
"Kind of depressing."
"I'm drunk."
"You've had half a beer."
"Give it a minute – there, I've had three quarters of a beer."
"Pansy."
"Come over here an' shay that, wishe guy."
"I hereby resolve that I will – stop drinking with House, because he's a morose and aggressive drunk and also very difficult to drag into his bedroom when he passes out on the floor."
"I resolve to stop listening to Wilson because it only leads to trouble and breaking hands. Oh, pull yourself together, it wasn't exactly hard to guess you were behind it."
"What!"
"You kept giving me that guilt-ridden puppy look. Not exactly difficult. And you're cleaning that up, by the way, butterfingers."
"I also resolve to get as far away from House as possible, because he seems to be able to figure things out by my facial expression and if a curmudgeon –"
"- that's a new one –"
"- like him knows me that well, something is drastically wrong with the world as we know -"
"Oh, relax. Cuddy told me."
"Bastard."
"Yup. Okay, my shot. I resolve – to drink more."
"Usually, the resolver resolves to drink less."
"Best stick to what I'm good at."
"I resolve, in your name, to take less Vicodin."
"Okay, that's not fair. I resolve, in your name, to get married less than twice a month."
"I resolve in your name to admit my hidden love for Cameron and romance her under the light of a silvery – Ow!"
"I resolve in your name to – to – to do something I can actually make fun of."
"Give up, House, I'm perfect."
"Apart from being a skirt-chaser."
"I'm not a – just because woman are naturally attracted to me – "
" – yeah, and you wearing a sticker on your forehead saying 'bonk me, I'm single' doesn't contribute to that at all."
Wilson threw a chopstick at him. He caught it. Wilson glowered.
"I resolve in your name to take less Vicodin. Like, twelve tonnes less a day, to start with.."
"Hah. That was this year's, and last year's, and the year's before..."
"Seventeenth time lucky? If it's any consolation, I've got about eight recurring resolutions."
"What are yours?"
"What are yours?"
"Stop being a bastard to everyone. Stop making Chase cry. Stop laughing at Chase crying. Get Cameron to stop stalking me.The usual."
"Fft."
"Yours?"
"Work on marriage. Stop cheating."
"Bor-ing. You're so... nauseatingly... good. Make a fun one for God's sake."
"Try hang-gliding?"
"That's a good one. Write it down."
"I was joking. Scared of heights."
"That's what they all say."
"Oh, because there are other ulterior motives involved in getting out of going hang-gliding."
"Sure there are. First year psych gear. Insecurity, unwillingness to learn, low self esteem – "
"Hey!" Wilson protested. "How about 'unwillingness to attempt to do something humans were not actually built to do about three hundred feet off the ground with a few feet of canvas stopping you from plummeting to the ground'?"
"You sound insecure to me."
"Weren't we talking about resolutions?" Wilson asked irritably.
"You were. Well, it's – ten to twelve. Any things you'd planned to do or say this year, you've got about ten minutes to do so."
"Oh. Well, with a bit of luck I won't be cheating on anyone in the next ten minutes."
House waggled his eyebrows. Wilson threw a chopstick at him.
"Enough with the cutlery warfare!"
"And," he went on, "it's a bit too late to work on my marriage at all. Something tells me Julie's list of New Year's Resolutions involves the word 'divorce'."
"Ah, she won't. Any other resolutions?"
Wilson glanced quickly at House, who was watching the television.
"No. Yes. Sort of."
"Well, you have – four minutes."
"Fft."
"This movie sucks," House said after a pause in which Wilson stared thoughtfully at the wall. "Why are we watching it?"
"It looked good."
"One minute more of this damned year, then we've got a new damned year."
"Whoo."
"Fifty five seconds."
"Yay."
"Fifty."
"Are you going to keep doing that?"
"Yep. Forty-five."
"House?"
"What?"
Later, Wilson would wonder whether the sharp look House threw him was a signal to shut up because he wanted to watch the movie, or something entirely more significant that that. He'd also wonder whether or not there was something close to fear behind that inscrutable blue gaze. They remained like that, for a little longer than was comfortable, before Wilson cleared his throat.
"I – "
"You've got thirteen seconds."
Another silence, when House watched him and Wilson tried to read his expression, knowing full well that reading House's expression was impossible if House didn't want his expression read.
"I have to go," he said finally, breaking the tension like a twig. "Julie'll be expecting me." But Julie was out with her own friends, and he knew that he'd mentioned that earlier and he knew that House hadn't forgotten and he hoped to hell House wouldn't bring it up. But the other just nodded. Wilson gathered his coat in silence, glad for the darkness in the room.
"Wilson?"
"Hmm?" He half-turned around, one hand on the door. House grinned at him, blue eyes flashing unexpectedly against the shadowy background.
"There's always Chinese New Year's, if you grow a backbone by then."
Wilson stood by the door for a good five minutes, before he just shook his head and pulled the door open.
"Happy New Year, House."
"You too."