A/N: [-] is GSII code for "we are now in someone else's perspective but no time has passed"

7.2—"Wildfire Doesn't Compare"

Dr. Robert Chase entered the diagnostic room where he saw his co-workers deep in conversation. He didn't need to guess to know what the conversation was about. He sat at the conference table and looked at Thirteen. "Is it true?"

"There were a lot of eyewitnesses," she responded. "Why—are you surprised?"

"More than anything, I'm surprised it's taken them this long," he said, shrugging.

"You don't seriously think they're actually together?" Foreman scoffed, looking at Chase.

"I believe it was you who said that House and Wilson would sleep together before Allison and I would and we ended up married. Like I said, surprised it's taken this long."

"This is exactly the type of thing House would do just to screw with us," Taub pointed out.

"But how would he get Wilson to play along?" Thirteen asked.

"He's a manipulator," Foreman said. "I'm sure he can get his best friend to pretend to kiss him."

"I'm pretty sure it's real," Thirteen said. "Wilson and Sam broke up again the other day. I can't see him being in the mood for House's games after that."

"So House is his rebound?" Taub asked.

The Australian cut in, "No, they've just been waiting for each other for a very long time and they've finally decided to open their eyes."

"Chase, when did you become such a romantic?" Thirteen asked, smiling at him.

"I'm not, it's just...House is in love with Wilson. House has always been in love with Wilson. You'd have to be blind not to see it."

"I've spent more time working with House than any of you have and I don't believe it," Foreman said, crossing his arms. "Aren't you guys forgetting the fact that he—that both of them are straight?"

"Bisexuality is more common than you'd think," Thirteen pointed out. "Sometimes you're not attracted equally to both sexes. I think that both of them like women more than men, but they have the capacity to be attracted to men a little bit. These attractions may not have manifested themselves if House and Wilson didn't love each other as much as they do, but they're there. And a lot of people wait until they're middle-aged to explore their sexuality."

"Can you stop right there, please?" Foreman interrupted. "The last thing I need right now is a mental image of House and Wilson exploring their sexuality."

Thirteen laughed at his comment but stopped when she noticed her boss and his maybe-lover emerging from the elevator. She nodded toward the hallway and her coworkers turned their heads around to look.

[-]

"Great, they're waiting to see if we're gonna kiss," House scowled as he walked with Wilson toward his office.

"Hey, you're the one who decided to proclaim his intentions in front of the entire hospital."

"Let's go in your office and not come out for fifteen minutes so they'll think we're having sex. Or better yet, let's go in your office and actually–"

"–House, I have a patient meeting in a few minutes. You can either let me go into my office and do my job or if you're craving affection you can kiss me goodbye before I go."

"How domestic do you think I am?"

"See you at lunch, House," Wilson dismissed, turning away from him and heading into his office.

House looked into the diagnostic room as he walked past it, and like guilty little children his fellows simultaneously pretended they weren't just staring at their boss. Chase and Taub turned to each other and started talking, Thirteen looked down at her coffee and picked it up, and Foreman started reading a medical journal that had been lying on the table. House rolled his eyes and hobbled past them to his own office.

[]

"House, why is everyone in my hospital saying that you and Wilson kissed yesterday?" Cuddy demanded, storming into his office with her hands on her hips.

"Clearly they heard what an awesome doctor being on Vicodin makes you and now they're all using it. Too bad no one warned them about the side effects of hallucination. Oh, wait..."

"House, I'm serious. Yesterday Wilson approaches me begging me to help him hide from you, and today I find out that you were kissing in my hospital. What's going on?"

House shrugged. "You got me. I was looking at you the other day and I thought, 'She doesn't have enough stress in her life. What can I do to make things more difficult for her?' And then it came to me: convince the hospital that Wilson and I are dating. It shouldn't be that hard; half the hospital already thinks we're together, all they need is confirmation. All I had to do was convince Wilson to play along and here we have it."

She crossed her arms in front of her partially-exposed chest and looked at him. "If you were doing this just to mess with me, then you wouldn't admit to doing it just to mess with me."

"Unless I knew admitting I'm messing with you would make you think I'm not messing with you, thereby messing with you even more."

She shook her head at him. "Just...go do your clinic hours until I find you a case, House."

"You're the boss," he said, surprising her as he got up and hobbled away. She caught a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he passed her. She followed him out of the office to make sure he was really going to the clinic, but changed her mind halfway to the elevators and knocked on Wilson's door instead.

"Come in," he greeted, expecting a patient but it was Cuddy. She looked at him and sighed before sitting down in the chair in front of his desk.

"Could you please tell me what's going on with you and House?"

He squirmed a bit in his chair and evaded her question. "Why, what'd he tell you?"

"That he's just trying to mess with me. Not that I expected a real answer." She sighed again.

He leaned forward, concerned. "What's the matter, Lisa?"

"Nothing, just..." she looked at Wilson. "I don't understand why you two would kiss. You're straight—I know House is straight, he's been hitting on me since the day he walked into the hospital, and you're such a flirt–"

"–It's real, Lisa," Wilson interjected. "He kissed me and I kissed back. It wasn't about you, or the hospital. It's about me and House. It's been building up for a long time and it finally happened. He...he loves me." He smiled a bit sheepishly.

Cuddy looked at him but didn't say anything else before she got up and left.

[]

House smirked as Wilson strode in. "I knew you'd come looking for office sex eventually."

"House, what did you tell her?" Wilson asked, furrowing his brow.

"I..." he shrugged, "may or may not have led her to believe that I orchestrated the entire thing as a prank on her."

Wilson rolled his eyes, his hands on his hips.

"Why, what'd you tell her?" House asked, reaching for his cane and getting up.

"The truth, obviously."

"I see. And which one of us do you think she believed?"

"Probably you."

House gave Wilson a look that showed he clearly didn't believe him.

"I'm serious, House," Wilson continued, sitting down. "After I told her it was real she didn't say anything, she just left. She's used to you lying her, but it was like she was trying to understand why I would lie to her."

"Because I'm such a great catch you'd want to pretend I'm yours even if I wasn't."

House caught Wilson's eye when he said that, and Wilson couldn't help smiling. House was giving him a look, not just a look, that look, with a glint in his eye that conveyed a hint of desire and even love, though he'd deny it if asked. He forced himself to return his focus to the conversation they were having, though it took him a moment to remember what it was about.

"House, I think it was more like she didn't want to believe me. I think she'd rather believe it's some joke, something to do with her. I mean, you do stuff like this all the time to get her attention. As much as it irritates her, on some level I think it pleases her to know that you care so much about her to plan out your schemes to mess with her."

"So Cuddy thinks that I kissed you just to flirt with her? And here I am thinking I'm the messed up one."

Wilson chuckled. "Well it's probably easier for her to accept that than the fact that for once, you've moved on. She's used to being the one you pursue, and kissing me threatens the status quo relationship you have with her."

House grinned. "Excellent, she's jealous. Well if that's the way she reacts from just hearing that we kissed, imagine the look on her face if she catches us doing it in her office–"

"–And your imagination is the only place that's going to be," Wilson replied, looking at House sternly.

"You're no fun, Wilson."

At that point there was a knock on the door: the inner door separating House's office from the diagnostic room. House and Wilson looked through the glass wall to see Thirteen standing at the door with a file in her hand. Chase, Taub, and Foreman were behind her, but looking over her shoulder.

"And now the ducklings want to check and make sure they're not interrupting anything before they come barging in. Could this day get any better?"

"Mmm, I could think of a few ways," Wilson said, grinning as he got up.

"Why Wilson," House smirked, watching the oncologist. "All right, I'll stall them while you go down to your office and–"

"–You're not getting office sex, House," Wilson said as he opened House's door.

A few heads turned, including those of House's team, and Wilson realized exactly how loudly the words had come out. He blushed and went to his office, not looking at anyone, while House grinned after him.

"Nope," House muttered to himself, answering his own question. "That cinched it."

[]

They always looked at him during differentials; he was the boss and the one they had to convince that their diagnoses made sense. This time was more than looking, they were staring at him. It was like the time a male patient had started lactating and he'd put the milk in his coffee just for their reaction. They'd stared shamelessly then and they stared shamelessly now. Just like everyone who'd been present to witness his and Wilson's kiss yesterday. House liked attention when he was in the mood for it, when he tried to be the center of attention, but this thing with Wilson wasn't him trying to get attention. It was him trying to be happy for once in his life. The grin he'd worn earlier had been replaced by a scowl, not helped by the fact that the fellows didn't have any good theories about what was wrong with the patient. Of course they couldn't think right; they were too caught up in wondering about their boss's sex life. He'd noticed the way they'd been watching him, him and Wilson, all day and his scowl became more pronounced. It was as though his life were a television show or something.

He kept waiting for them to ask him if he and Wilson were really together, except that everyone in the room knew that whoever asked that question would only get a death glare and a deflection, not a real answer. Even so, it might have broken some of the tension. However, the elephant in the room remained ignored by all and eventually the team scattered to go perform tests.

[]

"I'm convinced," Taub said as he and Foreman looked at images of the patient's brain.

"It can't be neurological, there's nothing here."

Taub looked at him, but he was still watching the computer monitors. "I meant House and Wilson."

Foreman didn't respond, so Taub continued. "We were all looking at him, wanting to ask and we didn't. If it was just a prank to screw with us and Cuddy, he would have enjoyed watching us struggle to contain our curiosity. He didn't. He just looked pissed off."

"This is House we're talking about. He always looks pissed off."

"Except when he's found a way to entertain himself. Then he looks...slightly less pissed off. And didn't you see him in the room with Wilson? He didn't look pissed off then. He looked...almost happy." Taub chuckled to himself. "It's hard to imagine House in love, but if he ever was...I think that's what it would look like."

"The scans are clean," Foreman said. "Come on, let's get her out of there."

[]

"It's not gonna work."

"What part of it isn't going to work?" Thirteen asked, looking at Chase. "Just knock on the door and ask if House is in there, and then just casually ask if it's true."

"Why don't you do it?"

"I don't trust myself not to laugh," she answered, grinning.

"It's not that funny."

"It kind of is."

Chase looked over toward Wilson's office and then looked back at Thirteen. "He'll just see right through me."

"So what if he does? Either way you'll have your answer."

"What if he gets offended?"

"Wilson? Come on, he's not gonna be offended. He knows what House is like, he understands that the only way we'll ever know for sure is if we ask him. Just do it, Chase, before House shows up and we don't have an excuse anymore."

"All right, fine," Chase sighed, bracing himself before knocking on Wilson's door. Thirteen moved out of sight from the doorway so Wilson wouldn't see her and get suspicious. She was still grinning and trying to hold back laughter.

"Come in," Wilson's voice said, and Chase stepped slowly into the office.

"Hi," he said awkwardly.

Wilson looked up at him. "Hi?" he waited for rest of Chase's statement.

"I was just...looking for House and I thought he might be in here."

Wilson's eyes did a sweep of his office before landing back on Chase. "Well, clearly he isn't." If House had said the words they might have been snarky, but coming from Wilson the tone was mostly confused and a bit suspicious.

"Right, well...do you...know where he is, then?"

Wilson shrugged. "Uh, Cuddy's office? The cafeteria? The clinic? You probably know better than me. I never need to go looking for him; he's usually the one that finds me."

"Okay, I'll check there, then," Chase replied, unsure of what else to say. Wilson turned back to his paperwork and Chase knew he'd been dismissed. He turned back toward the door but before he opened it he glanced at Wilson again. "Look, I know it's none of my business, but–"

"–Yes, Chase, we're dating," Wilson said without looking up.

Chase grinned involuntarily, more at the fact that he'd accomplished his mission than anything else, and closed the door behind him.

[]

House waited with Wilson in front of the elevators. When the doors opened and his team got off, he saw their knowing smiles and rolled his eyes before turning to Wilson. "You just couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you?" he asked. He watched the fellows head back to the diagnostic room. They kept glancing back at him, still smiling except for Foreman, who was just smirking.

"It wasn't my fault. Chase interrogated me."

"Oh, please. What, did he and Foreman play good cop bad cop?"

"No, he was by himself, pretending to look for you."

"Okay, Wilson."

Wilson looked down and House's gaze followed his. House had taken his hand. Wilson looked at him questioningly. "What was this about not being a girl?"

"Oh, please." House rolled his eyes. "I'm not doing it for your benefit. We're about to pass Cuddy's office. I want to see the look on her face."

Wilson scoffed. "So she was right the whole time."

"No, you gave me the idea. Besides, I want to see firsthand if she's actually jealous."

Wilson rolled his eyes back but didn't let go of House's hand. As they walked by, he watched House trying to gauge Cuddy's reaction without being obvious about it.

[-]

Though she intuitively always knew when House was right outside her office, she didn't usually look up. She'd made a habit out of pretending to ignore him for as long as possible. She wasn't even sure why she looked up this time. She saw them holding hands but didn't let herself react. She could see House's sidelong glance at her and didn't want to give him the satisfaction. As they passed his head turned back to Wilson, and she could watch them leave. She sighed and got out her phone.

"Call Lucas," she instructed. She ignored the fact that her voice was a bit shaky. The phone rang three times before she changed her mind and hung up. She shook her head, put the phone back on her desk, and returned to her paperwork.