House leaned back into the corner of his couch, glass of scotch in hand and his crossed feet propped up on the coffee table. He idly flipped through channels on the TV late into the night, nothing holding his interest for more than a few seconds as his brain continued chewing on what he'd said to Wilson earlier in the day. Christ, I practically propositioned my best friend - where the fuck did that come from?! It certainly wasn't the first time he'd thrown some sort of suggestive comment or another Wilson's way over the years, but for the first time it felt like more than just words. Not that it bothered him. House could give a rat's ass what anyone thought about anything he said or did. He was open-minded enough to believe that if everything in the universe lined up just right anything could (and probably would) happen between any two people, and while he had never actually had sex with another man before there had been a couple drunken nights of revelry in college where it had been a very real possibility. And then there was the night Wilson and I shared a hooker. She had been very...creative...with their body parts.
If I have to plow that furrow myself, so be it.'The words echoed in House's mind. But would I really? It's not that he didn't find Wilson handsome. Wilson had always had those boyish good looks, and middle age hadn't done much to change that. The thick shock of dark brown hair showed very few signs of grey and House knew that he himself was the likely cause of a lot of those stress lines around Wilson's deep brown eyes. But it was Wilson's infectious grin that could ease even the lowest moments of House's life, if only for just a little while. Wilson made him laugh, something not a whole lot of people were able to do anymore. They were closer than friends, closer than brothers. There were times when they were so in sync with each other that people joked they were like an old married couple.
There were also times when House had pushed Wilson, pushed their friendship so hard and so far that Wilson wanted nothing more to do with him, would only speak to him in the most brusque and noncommittal tones and only if absolutely necessary. Those were the toughest times, the times when House was at his lowest, certain that he had fucked up the most enduring friendship he'd ever had so badly as to be unsalvageable. And still Wilson came back. He always came back. Even after Amber died and Wilson quit the hospital, leaving Princeton to start over somewhere else, he still came back. Granted, House thought with a wan smile, he only agreed to come back because my mom called him when Dad died. But still. He came back. And he stayed.
The scotch glass emptied, House set it on the coffee table. He took up his cane and limped into the bedroom, resigned to yet another long night of troubled sleep.