Disclaimer, etc. in the first chapter.

Some language in this one that may offend. I think this is the end (except for the epilogue). Thanks very much for reviewing! I really appreciate it!

Chapter 6: PB&J

House woke up a few hours later feeling better than he had all day. Relaxed. Comfortable. As relaxed and comfortable as he got.

Wilson slept next to him, his body heat radiating warmly across the eight or nine inches between them. House was getting used to waking up next to someone again. He hadn't forgotten how good it felt and how secure and happy (happy? really?) it made him. As much as they fought and as angry as he got at Wilson sometimes, the moment when he first woke up next to a warm, sleeping body made him forgive any transgressions. The corner of his mouth curled upward. But only for a moment. Wilson still owed him a pair of shoes. He wasn't convinced about the nurse either, but Wilson's push for a pre-nap snuggle may have saved him. It was nice to wake up after a snatch of sex and Wilson's face when he came was more than worth the protests of tired muscles. Wilson and pain meds…who knew? He sniffed his fingers and smiled. He was starting to like that too.

House rolled onto his right side, pushing himself up with his right arm and moving his leg with his left hand at the same time in a move he had perfected years ago. His cane was where he'd put it before he went to sleep (no elves named Wilson had been moving his stuff around tonight) and he left Wilson snoozing as he went to the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later he carried five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and half a quart of milk into the bedroom, his right side relaxed enough to allow the rare hands-full caneless carry from kitchen to bedroom. Light from the street streaming through the half-closed blinds showed him a bare spot on Wilson's nightstand for the milk. He turned on the lamp, not at all concerned about blinding Wilson, and put the sandwiches down on a stack of oncology journals.

Taking a sandwich and the milk, he settled into a chair that had moved in with Wilson and was temporarily parked against the dresser to watch Wilson wake up. It was time for Wilson to take more pain meds and despite the annoyances of the afternoon, House hadn't given up on the prospect of a relaxing evening. He'd done his part toward that: he'd cooked. They both knew that when he'd gone to purchase ingredients for dinner, which he would "cook," what he really meant was that he'd spend the money and Wilson would do the cooking. No matter how angry he got, his stomach never forgot that Wilson was good to have around because he could make almost anything delicious. But he didn't just keep Wilson around because he could cook: there was also sex. If he had other reasons, he did his best not to think about them.

First sandwich gone, House limped back to the table and shook the milk loudly in front of Wilson's face. Wilson started and blinked confusedly at House. House smirked, took another sandwich, and went back to the chair.

Wilson wiped sleep off his face and sat up. He grimaced at the tent the covers made over his foot and the two pillows it was resting on, which it slid off of as he moved, and raised the covers to peek under.

He groaned dramatically. "I thought I dreamed that," he said, more to himself than House.

House chewed and watched him, amused by his reaction. Wilson was prone to blackouts when he drank too much: this wasn't much of a surprise. But it was still funny.

Wilson moved his pillow against the headboard so he could lean against it, still tired and fuzzy from the medication in his system. He watched House chewing like a cow with a bottle of milk in his lap and pieced together the afternoon, wondering how much was real and how much he'd dreamed. And why House had woken him up.

"What's up?" he asked when House didn't volunteer any information about why he'd shaken the milk so rudely in his face.

"I made dinner," House answered, nodding toward the plate of sandwiches on Wilson's night table. "My specialty."

Wilson picked up a sandwich and sniffed it cautiously. "No anchovies?"

House's head moved to one side and back in answer.

"How considerate," Wilson said, equal parts appreciation and sarcasm in his voice.

"Time for your meds, too," House said.

"Doesn't hurt," Wilson said through a mouthful of sandwich.

House sniffed. "Because I made you take them when we left," he said.

"Doesn't hurt," Wilson repeated. "Don't need 'em yet."

House rolled his eyes. "Does this conversation seem at all familiar to you?" He gave Wilson a pointed look.

Wilson realized what he was talking about: they had had this very conversation, ad nauseam, after the infarction.

"It's not—" Wilson began before he realized what he was about to say. "Okay, it is the same thing."

He rolled his eyes at House for being right and began to look around for the orange pill bottle. House nodded at the table and Wilson found it there, ready and waiting. He'd become so used to seeing light refract through orange plastic in this room that he checked the label to make sure it wasn't House's. Placing a pill on his tongue, he eyed the milk and gestured toward it. House glared at him but got up and gave him the carton. After so many years of marriage, Wilson had finally learned not to drink from the carton; a month with House had undone all of that training and he chugged without a second thought.

He held his arms out and opened his mouth, moving his tongue from side to side: happy?

The corner of House's mouth curled in the briefest of smiles before he took the milk back and grabbed a third sandwich. "Don't get crumbs in the sheets," he said as he retreated to the chair.

Wilson returned House's sarcastic quarter-smile while House was still in transit. Sparring with House had become more fun with the recent addition of sex, but right now he was more interested in distinguishing real events from dreamed events. He dream-remembered House forcing meds on him all day: given the gaps in his memory, that was probably real. He was sure that everything he remembered up to going to radiology was real. The dream-memory of screwing House in the ER and getting caught by Cuddy and Julie, who had been screwing each other in the next room and had come to complain about the noise, was probably a dream. He hoped. But the separate dream-memory of propositioning House in the ER…and the one about making House jerk him off in bed…had they really happened?

Wilson nibbled at his half-eaten sandwich, contemplating the likelihood of those events occurring. Finally, after he'd nibbled his way down to a third of a sandwich and House, after asking if Wilson wanted it, had taken the last one on the plate, he spoke up.

"We didn't have sex in the ER, did we?"

House's expression told Wilson that he'd been waiting all night for that question. "You wanted to," he answered.

"But we didn't."

House made a noncommittal face and shrugged a shoulder.

Wilson gave him a stern look. "House. This is important."

"Why?"

Wilson's expression became sterner. "You doped me up," he said. "I remember that much." He narrowed his eyes. "I think the police would consider it date rape."

House half-shrugged again. "You were the one who wanted to do it."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "We did not have sex in the ER."

House sat with a smug look on his face for a moment, then drank seductively from the milk carton.

Wilson shook his head. "We didn't," he said decisively. "Okay." He eyed House again, not too sure of the veracity of this statement either: "But I wanted to."

"You were randy as a billy goat in spring," House replied with flourish.

Wilson let his head fall back against the headboard. "Tell me I didn't do anything stupid in front of anyone but you."

House raised his eyebrows. "You did several stupid things."

"Hou-se," Wilson complained.

House rolled his eyes: all right, all right. "Your honor is intact," he answered lightly. Quickly, his expression darkened. "But you did flirt with a nurse."

Wilson paused to search is memory.

"I don't remember flirting with a nurse," he said. "But I dreamt about fucking you, so don't get jealous."

House scoffed. "I've watched you flirt with nurses for years," he said. "You were flirting."

"I was drugged!" Wilson exclaimed. "If I asked you to sleep with me at work…" he paused, exasperated, trying to come up with the right words. All he could do was repeat himself. "I was drugged!"

House's eyes flitted from Wilson's face to the remains of his sandwich. "Finish your sandwich."

Wilson gave the sandwich an evil look, then turned beseeching eyes back to House. "You're not mad…?"

House's stare was just ambiguous enough that Wilson couldn't tell what the answer was. "I'll take it if you don't want it."

"Come on," Wilson said plaintively, "don't do this." He paused, waiting for House to respond. House said nothing. "I don't remember flirting with anyone," Wilson continued, "but if I did, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

House nodded to the sandwich. "Can I have that?"

If they'd had this conversation a month ago, Wilson would have shouted 'It's just a damn sandwich!' and the fight would have continued. Now he understood that this was House's attempt at reconciliation.

"If I give you this, will you stop pouting?" he asked, brandishing the sandwich.

House inclined his head slightly—yes—and Wilson held the sandwich out. House got up and took it, cramming the whole thing in his mouth. Wilson sniffed, shook his head, and commandeered the milk.

"Waffa waff ffeevee?" House asked.

Wilson smiled to himself: he'd been living with House too long: he understood that. Wanna watch TV?

He leaned over and brushed the crumbs off of his chest and the bed, then tossed the covers away.

"Sure."

THE END