"What is this, Sesame Street?"
"I was thinking more like Mary Poppins, actually," Wilson said happily as he brushed crumbs off House's coffee table and into his cupped hand. "Just wait until I fly up the chimney."
For the third day that week, House and Wilson were locked in a game of 'keep the cripple busy,' which soon turned into 'keep the doctor busy' once House noted that he was still referring to himself as "the cripple." But a rose by any other name would still smell as clean, what with Wilson scrubbing every surface, sweeping every floor, and doing everything in his power to make House think of him not as "the friend" but as "the maid."
"Well you're not paying attention," House said impatiently, pointing to the television while Wilson headed for the kitchen. "You can't just listen to Passions; Passions can't just be background noise. You have to watch it."
Wilson gave him a skeptical look and disappeared behind the door to the fridge. "You might be the only person I know who Tivo's soap operas."
"They play really good commercials," House said. "I heard you need new cleaning supplies, or do you have more soap in your carpetbag?"
"Do you want this beer or not?" Out of the corner of House's eye, he saw Wilson holding up two cans of beer. He stood in the doorway and made no move to come any closer.
"I can walk now, jackass. You can't use that argument anymore."
Wilson looked embarrassed. "Point taken." Gone were the days of Wilson using as leverage the things House wanted but would have needed to walk to get. What had originally started as a subtle way to get House on his feet after surgery ended up as Wilson milking House's cripple card for all it was worth in his own favor.
"But did you really forget?"
"What?"
"That I'm not a cripple anymore," House said. Obviously.
"Yeah, but you forget all the time."
"Eh." House pursed his lips. "You never had a limp to get used to."
"No, I just had to learn to match your gait when we walk."
"Are you serious?" House said incredulously, his face an obvious display of surprise; he had turned away from the TV to face Wilson, which was just another sign that Wilson had just confessed something that House had honestly never noticed before.
"Nah," Wilson said, to avoid the awkward conversation that would have had to happen. Because who the hell intentionally matches strides with another person just for the hell of it? But it didn't matter; there was nothing to talk about. It had only taken Wilson about two weeks of walking next to House for picking up on his steps to become natural and unconscious.
House had already forgotten Wilson's last comment, already looking back at what appeared to be a stiff, over-choreographed rape scene. Wilson watched too, but his mind was elsewhere.
"Have you ever noticed," he said at the next commercial break, "that every soap opera really has only three or four settings? There's the hospital, of course, and some kind of mansion. Then there's the courtyard, and finally, if they've run for 6 years or so, they have a restaurant or local hangout."
"Are you done?" House said, taking a sip of beer. Honestly, Wilson could talk for hours. "Because for a man as closed-minded as you, you sure have a lot to say about the things you hate."
"All I meant was how two-dimensional it is." Wilson protested, growing slightly defensive.
"Two dimensional?" House shouted. "It's television! What do you expect?"
"I don't know…" Wilson trailed off, thinking of an answer that won't sit badly with House. "It just doesn't seem very real."
"Okay. You make fun of my shows, my cleaning habits, and my music; Get out of my apartment." But there was no threat in his words, for he had no intention of kicking Wilson out.
They watched in silence for the next half hour or so, until Fancy was sobbing (Wilson could only remember her name because it was so bizarre) and some guy who wore eyeliner was holding her and trying to be supportive.
'Oh Fancy, I thought you were dead!'
'But I love you… you know that.'
Wilson watched with wide-eyed fascination at how these scripts actually became more than just useless stuff to set on fire. He honestly could not imagine who would look at a script like this and feel the imperative to actually shoot it.
"Want to know something?" House asked out of the blue.
Wilson was never one to deny what might as well be a good conversation. "Sure," he said in a very riddle-me-this tone. After all, it was their third beers that Wilson had just retrieved from the fridge.
"When I a kid," House said, not taking his eyes off the TV, "around the time of middle school, I liked to pretend I was dead."
"What did you do? Walk around with a sheet over your face and yell 'boo'?"
"No, but now I have a new clue as to what makes Jimmy happy." House said, adding as an afterthought, just incase Wilson wasn't paying attention, "The naughty kind of happy, I mean."
"So… you'd pretend to be dead?"
"I would lie down somewhere and when someone came close, I'd breathe really slowly and shallow, so nobody would see my chest moving." He paused to take in the look on Wilson's face; the corners of his mouth were twitching into the humble beginnings of a smile, but his eyes were shining with disapproval and something else, most likely skepticism. "Usually, I'd wait for whoever it was – it was usually just my mom – I'd wait for them to start crying or panicking a bit before I'd jump up and yell surprise."
Wilson took a slow, deep breath and let it all out in a sigh. He looked at his knees, nodding his head a bit, as if to tell himself that yes, House had just said what he thought he said. Then he looked back up at House, who was looking at him with wide, expectant eyes, as if to say, 'hey asshole, I just poured my soul out for you to scrutinize. This is a silver platter! Come on.'
As disturbed as he was, Wilson would not disappoint. "So… you'd pretend to be dead?"
"Mmhm." Like it was the most casual thing in the world.
"You are so messed up," Wilson said with a laugh and a shake of his head. "I don't even think you realize it, but that was the single most disturbing thing
"If you had as many friends as I didn't, you'd probably do some weird things too."
"Yeah, like hang out with a creep like you." While House was surgery, recovery and then the coma, this was what Wilson had missed the most; the conversation, the picking and prodding and poking at each other in an effortless and natural way which he had mastered over the years of knowing House.
Wilson was a man of many friends, or many acquaintances, as House loved to remind him, but there was no one else who would say "jackass" and mean it as a compliment. Perhaps being friends with House had worn away at his sanity, because there was no sane reason to like being mocked and offended, but at least then he could bask in the warmth of ignorance.
Now that House was relatively pain free and walking unassisted, his mood had improved with flying colors. While he would always be the same House on the inside, on the outside he had become House v.2, now free of scowls and deep lines of stress and pain on his face.
"Cold, James. Very cold."
"I'm a doctor, not a blanket."
---
When Wilson insisted around midnight that, despite having been drinking, he should drive himself home, House was so surprised the oncologist wasn't insisting on staying and watching over him, that he shooed him out with the parting equivalent of open arms. Once alone, House made his way over to the piano just in time to notice Wilson's car driving down the wrong street. The car did not drive off in the direction of Wilson's house, but in the opposite way.
House wasn't sure why, but he planned on checking Wilson for hickys later that week. Ghosting his hands over the keys, he did not realize until 14 minutes later that he still hadn't played anything. But he was alert, sitting upright; but he could not remember a single thought that had gone through his mind during those 14 minutes. First he was thinking about Wilson, and then he was puzzling over how 14 minutes could just disappear like that.
He sat up a little straighter, and played Mozart as fast as he could, to keep himself puzzling.
TBC