Title: Highly Sprung
Author: hwshipper
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Media Studios.
Beta: triedunture splendid as ever
Highly sprung
"So why do you need to buy a mattress?" House asked, ambling down the aisle next to Wilson. Beds fanned out across the shop floor in all directions, for what looked like miles. "You can't tell me you've worn out Cutthroat Bitch's one already. The sex can't be that good."
"Wanna bet?" Wilson raised a bushy eyebrow, and House realized it might have been a mistake to pursue that angle of questioning.
"Her mattress was already worn out," Wilson went on. "She's had the same bed practically since med school. Springs all went a long time ago, she's just never gotten around to replacing it."
"And why isn't she here instead of me?" House probed. "Surely buying mattresses together is a couple-y thing to do. Like downloading porn together. Or buying v--"
"Or having dinner together, or going to the movies together," Wilson interrupted, as they walked past a shop assistant. "Anyway, we did. Look at mattresses together, I mean. And we got the one I thought she wanted, but apparently that wasn't the right thing to do after all... look, you didn't have to come with me."
"Of course I did. Can't possibly miss the opportunity to send you home to her with something wildly inappropriate." House's eye skated along the shop floor. "A waterbed, perhaps."
"Yeah, because I'm gonna buy exactly what you suggest," Wilson said, deadpan. "She's still mad at you about last week, by the way."
"That was on my time, fair and square!" House said indignantly, with an inward smirk. They'd gone on a bar crawl and he had managed to get Wilson absolutely shitfaced. Not that it was ever hard to get Wilson drunk, but this had been fairly spectacular.
"Yeah. I just don't think she expected me back in quite the... condition I came home in," Wilson gazed around the shop.
"Hey, that's the sort of bed you should be buying." House pointed.
Wilson followed House's finger and laughed. "A bunk bed." He dropped his voice. "But who'd go on top?"
"Doesn't make any difference with two feet of air between you," House was nonchalant. "Or if you're as drunk as you were last week."
Wilson colored slightly, and House let his inward smirk out onto his face. The thought of CB denied life-affirming sex by a Wilson too inebriated to perform would provide several days worth of amusement.
Deciding he'd had enough of walking, House sat down on the nearest random bed. Wilson stopped and sat down next to him, and bounced up and down a couple of times. "Hey, this one's quite comfortable."
"This one is BOR-ING," House pronounced, and got up and started walking again. The shop was familiar; a vague memory floated back to him. "Didn't we come here before sometime?"
Wilson caught up with him. "Actually, yeah, we did. Long time ago. You'd just moved to Princeton, remember, your apartment wasn't furnished, you had to buy a bed?"
"Christ." That had been a long time ago. Fifteen years or more, House thought. He remembered the mattress after it had been delivered, covered in cellophane wrapping and dumped on the middle of the living room floor. It had been House's idea to fuck on it before taking the cellophane off. He'd pointed out to the ever-practical Wilson that bodily fluids wouldn't have to be washed off, as they could just peel it all off with the plastic. (Actually House just hadn't wanted to wait until they'd made the bed, Wilson at twenty-something, wearing tight jeans, had just been too tempting to wait for.)
The feeling of cellophane rubbing on skin suddenly returned to him. Knees squeaking loudly on plastic, then Wilson wresting him over onto his back and clambering on top of him, saying, "You lie on this stuff for a bit--"
He glanced at Wilson and saw Wilson's eyes were far away, clearly remembering the same thing.
"You don't still have that mattress, do you?" Wilson asked, his voice light.
"Naw." House had invested in a new bed after the infarction, when he'd been striving for comfort in every way possible. Damn expensive it had been too, and worth every penny. He tried to remember if he'd gone shopping with Stacy for it. He didn't think he had.
Wilson sat down on another bed and bounced a little. "Is this one boring too?"
"They're all boring. All middle-class suburban shades of boring-ness." House sat on the bed opposite, then flopped down on his back. He waited for Wilson to tell him not to put his shoes up on the mattress.
"Watch your feet," Wilson warned.
House mentally awarded himself ten bucks. "This one's halfway comfortable," he deigned to remark.
Wilson got up, crossed the aisle and sat down next to House. His ass rested a few inches from House's head. "What's the coil count?"
"The coil count?" House said, pretending to be appalled.
"It's the thickness of the springs." Wilson leaned across the mattress to read an information notice.
"God, that's a relief," House snorted, then was immediately distracted. "Ooh, look, hammock!"
He stood up and made his way across the floor, to where a large rope net was suspended between two poles. He propped his cane up against a wall and levered himself in. Soon he was swinging comfortably and musing about how difficult hammock sex might be. Not at lot of room, and too much exertion might tip you out onto the floor. He watched Wilson wandering around the acres of beds out of the corner of one eye.
Eventually Wilson wandered back, looking a trifle frustrated. "There's too much choice. She said to pick the one I wanted, but I don't know what I want any more!"
"C'mon, what are you, a man or a mouse?" House shifted his weight to swing towards Wilson.
Wilson reached to catch the edge of the hammock to stop it before it hit him, and his fingers closed gently over House's arm. Hanging in mid-air, House looked at Wilson through half-shut eyes. Wilson kept his hand resting casually on House's arm, his palm warm through the sleeve of House's heavy cotton shirt.
Eventually House said casually, "Waterbeds are very comfortable, you know."
It was a comment laced with meaning: they'd slept on a waterbed once in a hotel. It had indeed been very comfortable, although it had probably been the fucking hot sex beforehand that had really sent them both off to sleep the sleep of the dead. House knew Wilson would remember the occasion. It had been the night before Wilson had married Bonnie. Or was it Julie? Actually, House wasn't sure which. At any rate, it had been at the end of a damn good bachelor party.
But then, House had always made sure in these situations that Wilson should have a send-off to remember. And keep on remembering, through the honeymoon and back.
"So I believe," Wilson said, not giving anything away. He glanced over at the corner of the store where the waterbeds were, then let go of House's arm and strolled away. House fell awkwardly out of the hammock, grabbed his cane, and followed.
Wilson perched on a waterbed rather tentatively. "Might take some getting used to, every night. Fine as a novelty, in a hotel or whatever..." He looked up as House approached.
"Great ergonomic support. Shapes exactly to your body. Can't get better for your back," House said brightly. He sat down next to Wilson.
Wilson bounced a few times, then reached down to take off his shoes. He then sprawled backwards and lay on his back.
"It is comfortable," Wilson remarked. "'Course, it's difficult to tell what it would be like with someone else sleeping on it too..."
House promptly sprawled backwards himself, not bothering to kick his sneakers off (what were these plastic coverings for, anyway?). The mattress molded itself gracefully around his spine, and he sighed with genuine pleasure. He then turned his head to look at Wilson, a foot away.
Neither of them moved; each decorously kept to his own space. But Wilson's brown eyes were large and as liquid as the water moving silently below them.
"CB expecting you back?" House asked, offhand.
"Yeah, but not until later." Wilson hesitated. "Got anything in mind?"
"I want to go test the coil count on my mattress at home," House declared, and arched an eyebrow. "It'll take two people, to give it a really thorough test."
"I can give you a hand," Wilson said nonchalantly. He sat up. The mattress shifted underneath them. "Just let me buy my mattress first." He got up headed across the shop floor towards a member of staff.
House lay and watched Wilson speak to the assistant. He saw Wilson turn and point towards House on the water bed.
House smiled happily to himself, and wondered how best to let CB know that he claimed credit for the waterbed.
END