It had been a great party. That is, if you could forget that the guy going into retirement was in his early forties and would never see his fiftieth birthday. But otherwise everything had been perfect: Cuddy had delivered a moving speech, the cancer children had organized a choir, and House had managed to dance once with his husband. The warm spring evening's sky was dotted with stars, and the future seemed unreasonably promising.
The next morning Wilson was brooding over breakfast that he would never regularly work again, and he found it hard to accept this further step towards death. He put the dirty dishes in the sink, smiling when he noticed there weren't any pancakes left, and went back to sit near House on the couch.
"What are we up to today? Have you planned anything special?"
"I thought you would never ask! Of course I have. Cuddy's present to you is that I'm home the whole week. And here's my own present."
Wilson slowly opened the parcel, which obviously contained books. He turned very pink once he realized his present was a copy each of "The Joy of Gay Sex" and "Anal Pleasure and Health".
"What's this supposed to mean, House?"
"Do you love me, Wilson?"
The unexpected question silenced him. He tried to figure out what he should say, while House's eyes stared directly in his own.
"You said you found me romantically and sexually attractive. Is this still true? And can one summarize by saying you love me?"
So phrased the question became easier.
"Yes, I love you and have done so for several years now - not all of them consciously."
"I knew, just wanted to tease you" said House, smiling. "Now lie down comfortably in my arms and your uncle Greg will tell you a story."
"There was once a young and horny med student, with no time to seduce a woman and no money to pay one. His roommate told him that in a gay bar he could not only have free sex whenever he wanted, but even gain some money.
"The young student decided to give it a try. He discovered a fascinating world of free blow-jobs, and although he never accepted payment, he even received some very expensive presents from financially solid bedfellows. He realized he was more or less perfectly bisexual; however, once he became an MD, he decided to date only women, since it was more socially acceptable and equally pleasant.
"He still occasionally sneaked out to a gay bar, and celebrated turning 40 with a memorable three-way - involving two twenty year old boys he had just met. Then he became a cripple and his sex life more or less collapsed, reduced mostly to prostitutes.
"And finally he got married to a gorgeous male young doctor, but he didn't dare tell his husband that he wanted their relationship to be more than platonic..."
"House! You never told me you had homosexual experiences!"
"I guess the topic never came up - it hardly ever does in two straight gentlemen's conversation. So what do you say? Does my tale have a happy ending?"
"Let's find out", said Wilson, looking tense rather than happy.
It was a busy week in the end.
A/N: I might make a separate story to go in here. Something rated M.
In October Wilson had his first recurrence, but chemotherapy worked, and by Christmas he was again officially in remission. Still, it had been an unwelcome reminder for the two of them that their time was not unlimited.
"I've been thinking, House"
"Be careful! You might hurt your brain, or even worse, disrupt your hairdo!"
Wilson smiled at House's teasing and went on "I think I want a religious wedding ceremony with you. You know, a big event with the Huppah and the breaking of the glasses and the marriage contract handwritten in Hebrew on parchment."
"Why would you want that?"
"It would be a dream come true. Also, it's nice to think of a marriage without a divorce at the end. Something to rub in to everybody's face that we didn't marry just to solve a legal problem. It's the kind of wedding my eldest brother got, and he's an asshole."
House kindly refrained from pointing out the many non sequiturs, and preferred to concentrate on the technical side, such as the question whether a rabbi would be willing to celebrate a gay union including a non-jew. House wasn't even sure which half of the problem was worse.
However, he loved Wilson very much and gave him carte blanche to arrange things to his heart's content. So when on a crisp, icy Sunday in February he found himself standing near Wilson under a canopy, a Kippah on each of their heads, he didn't feel too awkward. He managed to chant his part respectably and go through the ceremony without crying once. Unfortunately the same did not apply to Wilson himself; the gentle tears running on his face were however hardly noticeable as compared to the bowling of his own mother and, surprisingly, of Cuddy, who was now dating Lucas again but cried so hard that some suspicious glances were exchanged by colleagues in the know.
They had a week of honeymoon in Hawai. Swimming was a sport House enjoyed, since it didn't put any weight on his sick leg, and a welcome side effect of Wilson's love was his indefference to the effect seeing his scar could have on others (which made it easier to dress in swim-appropriate ways). Wilson was healthy, happy and very romantical, and they still managed to collaborate together to produce a twenty-page paper.
They went back to a consulting and lecturing contract for Wilson, and a special prize of New Jersey for House implying no clinic duty for one year; both blatant instances of the fact that not only Cuddy had forgiven them, but she was going out of her way to give them support.