On the Way (R)
Posted to house_wilson and housefic
Happy Birthday Again, Daisylily! Finally finished your present!
Title: On the Way
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Words: 3550
Summary: The honeymoon sequel to That Time Cameron Had Mono.
Notes: Written for daisylily to celebrate her birthday. Other fics in this 'verse are listed here. In this 'verse, New Jersey doesn't allow same-sex marriage or civil unions, because the original fic was written before the court case that produced civil unions in NJ. Thanks to Early Readers, especially phinnia, for support.
A down-to-the-molecule search of the apartment had turned up nothing. Well, it had turned up several things House had thought he’d lost permanently - among them two game cartridges, a morphine prescription, Vixen Extreme Vol. 3 No. 4, and the outline for a glomerulonephritis journal article - but nothing related to the mystery honeymoon.
House hated mysteries.
OK, OK, that wasn’t entirely true. What House hated was not knowing things, especially things he ought to know.
Such as where his son-of-a-bitch... partner-type-whoozit was taking him on his honeymoon.
House hadn’t worked out his position on nomenclature yet. Wilson had been bandying about “fiancé” and “husband,” but then what else could you expect from a man with enough marrying experience to throw a Bridal Expo? Given that a commitment ceremony bought them zippo in the way of legal rights, House didn’t see why they couldn’t just use the classics of “roommate” and “dear friend” the way all the old closeted queers had done. Wilson, in spite of his slavish adoration for film of the 1920s and ‘30s, had not been inclined to agree.
They’d argued for thirty minutes, and then had really hot sex. In the bedroom closet, interestingly enough. Then Wilson had gone back to “my fiancé,” and House had taken three Vicodin and gone back to “my dude” and searching the apartment for honeymoon clues.
Bupkis.
Electronic searching had been similarly fruitless. The airlines and Amtrak were as tight-lipped as Cuddy on “Shirt-Free Fridays,” and really, House wasn’t sure Wilson was ready for the kind of intimate commitment this ceremony signified if he wasn’t able to trust his devoted partner with something so simple as the recently revised passwords for his online banking and credit card accounts.
“Fat chance,” Wilson had replied and kept on folding the laundry. Ass.
House had gotten into Wilson’s library check-out history, and he’d gleefully noted the guidebook for Fiji among the “classic literature” and sci-fi TV show novelizations Wilson normally devoured. The glee had been tempered seconds later when a second guidebook for the Adirondacks showed up and had been doused permanently at the sight of the next ten. Wilson was either worse-than-usually indecisive, hiding the real destination among the garbage (Walt Disney World? Seriously?), or fucking with him.
Wilson’s grin when he noticed what House was going through gave the answer away. Ass.
So, in the absence of concrete evidence, House was now forced to use his keen psychological insight into the workings of Wilson’s mind to divine their destination. Alternatively, he’d annoy Wilson into telling him. Either one would work.
“You,” House said as Wilson steered the Volvo onto US-1, “have a deep-seated fetish for the conventional.”
“Uh-huh,” Wilson replied. “Explains why I took to you so quickly.”
“I am the exception proving more rules than even you can articulate. Today's commitment thingy wasn't enough for you, even with the suits and the rabbi and the family blessing and I really could've done without your grandmother kissing me; has she always smelled that strongly of roses and herring? - so now you’re taking us to Massachusetts to make it legal.”
“There’s a residency requirement to get married in Massachusetts.”
“Canada. No residency requirement.”
“True, but the marriage wouldn’t be legal in Jersey.” Wilson glanced over, eyebrows raised to their most annoyingly challenging level. Stupid eyebrows, always thought they had one up on House.
He looked out the window for a while as the “scenery” rolled by. No matter where they went, what paper they got signed, they still wouldn’t have a legal union in New Jersey. Leaving the rant about that aside for another day, House moved on. “OK, Canada, but for sentimental reasons, not legal ones. We’re going to Montreal, because you want to show me around McGill.”
Wilson’s face lit up, the sap. “I do want to show you McGill. Would you go with me some day? Next reunion, maybe?”
House let out the loudest retching sounds he could make without actually throwing up. He wouldn’t mind touring the campus with Wilson, truth be told, but there was no way in hell he was going to any reunion. Boring, boring, boring, disastrous. The quicker Wilson got that through his thick skull, the better.
“Fine, fine,” Wilson replied, and then they were getting on the Turnpike.
“North, huh? So that’s no to Philly, DC, and the beaches of the Carolinas.”
“Unless I’m looping around to throw you off the track.”
House scoffed. “Yeah, sure, Mr. Tires-Always-Inflated-to-Recommended-Pressure is going to waste gas like that.”
Wilson looked affronted. “You never know!”
“Yes,” House replied, “I do.”
“Second time today you’ve said that,” Wilson said with a slyly sentimental smile, and House had to close his eyes before they rolled entirely out of his head.
An unknown amount of time later, House floated up out of sleep. It had come to him while he rested. “I know where you’re taking us.”
“Enlighten me,” Wilson said in an entirely-too-amused voice.
“I don’t know the exact location, but I know why you picked it. You’re a sentimental fool who’s insanely attached to the ‘firsts’ in your life. Almost all our firsts happened in New Jersey -”
“Except the first time we met.”
House sat up straighter and glared Wilson down. “Would you interrupt Poirot during his elaboration of the crime?”
“Considering he’s a fictional character, I don’t think I’ll get the chance.”
“Shut up.” House watched a moment to make sure the lips weren’t going to flap again and then continued. “Almost all our firsts happened in New Jersey, so you’re going back to an earlier memory. You’re taking us to where you first discovered the joys of sword-dueling.”
“Joys of what?”
“Homo sex.”
Wilson’s face was blank for a second until it twisted in disgust. “No. I don’t want to spend my honeymoon in Hoboken.”
House wasn’t quite sure he’d heard that correctly. “Hoboken?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Oh, I’m going to ask, and you’re going to answer. But not now, because I will not be distracted from this quest.”
“I didn’t figure that you would.”
House reached over and tugged at the bowtie that was around Wilson’s neck, albeit loosened. “Why are you still wearing this?”
Wilson leaned into the tug while keeping his eyes on the road. “It’s dashing.”
It actually did look dashing: dark jacket, crisp snowy-white shirt with one button undone, tie dangling rakishly, that stupid sexy pleased look Wilson hadn’t been able to wipe off his face the entire day... House wasn’t going to let Wilson know that, though. They didn’t need Wilson’s head swelling.
At least, not in a moving car.
“You let us leave without changing out of the monkey suits, so that means we’re not driving far.”
“Means nothing. I can wear a suit comfortably for hours on end. You’re the one who gets hives from formality.”
“You’re the one wearing pants with the waist over an inch too small because you didn’t want your mother to know how much you’d porked out since the last wedding.”
Ha! Insult hat-trick scored by one G. (for Greatness) House! Served Wilson right for having a “wedding tuxedo” in the first place, and in the second place, for letting his Mom press it into acid-free archival tissue paper for storage after each triumph of hope over experience.
House was burning the damn suit the second he got it off of Wilson’s body today. Or tomorrow. Or whenever the damn car stopped.
Which was going to be any minute, if House was reading the signs correctly, and he most certainly was. They were in English, after all. “Newark Airport, hm. Night-time flights go to international destinations.”
“Also Richmond, Virginia, and Bangor, Maine. And it’s irrelevant because we’re not flying out tonight.”
House couldn’t help snickering. “Bangor’d be a great place for a honeymoon.”
Wilson sighed as he grandpa-ed his way through the airport traffic. “Yes, if I’d married a woman and cared more about puns than the destination itself. Although... Maine is beautiful this time of year, and the hiking is amazing.”
“Hiking.” House slumped in his seat. “My favorite activity.”
“You’re the one who -”
“You’re going to get hit by that cab.”
“No, I’m not,” Wilson protested, but he swerved anyway, and five honks and seven swears later House was feeling much better. They pulled up under the Marriott’s awning with Wilson’s cheeks still flushed and his chest still heaving, and House hoped they had express check-in because tearing off that suit was looking more and more imminent with each passing moment. Mmm.
The bellman took the bags, the valet took the car, and Wilson took his stompy little self up to the front desk. House was distracted by a blonde wearing a slutty-Puritan business suit exactly like one Cuddy owned and lingered in observation until he heard raised voices.
“- mean, not ready?”
The check-in clerk had her head bent toward the desk and the computer that was no doubt hidden within. “There’s a note on the reservation record. Oh, this is your wedding night.” She straightened abruptly, her eyes wide and her face soft. Was the whole world made up of saps? Apparently so. “I am so sorry. Let me have you speak to my manager, and we can let your wife relax in our lounge with a beverage of her choice. Is she here yet?”
House sailed up behind Wilson, stopping close enough for his own comfort and with any luck, the clerk’s discomfort. “You mean his ex-wife? She’d better not be here.” He leaned down to plant a long, juicy kiss on Wilson’s neck. “I’m not much for sharing.”
Grinning like an idiot, Wilson nudged him away, “Go get a drink, Mrs. Wilson. I’ll come get you when this is settled.”
House went and had two drinks of insanely expensive single-malt, finishing the last drops when Wilson finally made his way into the bar. “Time to go,” House insisted, grabbing Wilson at the waist and pointing him back in the other direction. Wilson was inclined to agree, if his speed across the lobby was anything to go by.
“They don’t have the room I originally reserved,” Wilson informed House’s collar during the elevator ride up. House hummed and shifted his hand to cover more of Wilson’s ass. “But some executive of theirs couldn’t make it, so they’re upgrading us to his suite.”
“His suite?” The door chime pinged, and House reluctantly allowed Wilson to disentangle them. “He has his own?”
“Apparently so,” Wilson replied, leading House down the hall and into the brass-plate proclaimed Presidential Suite.
It had a living room larger than the one in their apartment, and a baby grand piano almost as nice as House’s own. “All this for little ol’ us?”
On the other side of the room, leaning in the doorway to what had to be the bedroom, Wilson shrugged. “Had to give us something.”
“I’m going to give you something.” House started unbuttoning his shirt as he stalked toward Wilson.
“Promises, promises.” Wilson smiled, slow and easy, hot and sexy; House forewent his previous plan of tearing off Wilson’s tuxedo in favor of peeling it slowly, bit by bit.
He enjoyed his game immensely, drawing things out, teasing each new patch of skin as it was revealed, taking Wilson’s hums and moans as proof of his complicity.
When the last piece of clothing had been banished to the floor, when they were stretched out against each other on the bed, warm and willing and waiting, House looked deeply into Wilson’s eyes and said, “Amsterdam.”
Exasperated face number four. “You have a safeword now?”
“You’re taking me to Amsterdam on this honeymoon.”
“House,” Wilson said. “Shut up and fuck me.”
So House did.
***
House’s eyes opened to darkness. He glanced over at the clock, which informed him with a discreet green glow that it was 4:27 a.m.
Perfect.
He nudged dead-to-the-world Wilson, who let out a horrendous snort and turned away. Three more nudges and a poke to the ass, and Wilson finally groaned, “What?”
“First domestic flights start boarding in an hour.”
Wilson grunted and tugged House’s arm around him. “Do you think I’m fucking insane? Go back to sleep.”
In only a few minutes, Wilson’s breathing was beginning to slow again. House waited for the ideal moment, and then said loudly, “Yes.”
Wilson’s startle was epic, amazing, wonderful, and House chuckled gleefully as he wrapped himself tightly around an infuriated Wilson. “Yes,” House repeated. “I think you’re fucking insane.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Wilson replied, but given that he was relaxing into House’s embrace, House considered the threat empty at best. Just this, he thought as he drifted back into sleep. Screw traveling; this is all I need.
***
Morning sex, room service breakfast, and a Destination-Twenty-Questions game sneakily evaded by Wilson later, House was playing the piano - surprisingly well-tuned - and Wilson was lounging around half-dressed on the nearest couch. House’s favorite kind of half-dressed, too: boxers and one of House’s button-down shirts, decidedly not buttoned down. It’d been a good look on Stacy and even without the cross-dressing titillation, it was a hot look on Wilson.
Rising from the couch, Wilson said, “I’ve got an idea,” and House’s libido ripped through an array of possibilities for that idea.
“Let’s go swimming.”
Not part of the array. House frowned and glared at his fingers on the piano keys.
“C’mon,” Wilson said, draping himself over House’s back and nuzzling at his ear. “I want to float around and make out with you. Since I can’t afford to pay the Russians to take us into space, the pool seems the next best bet.”
House let himself be coaxed into board shorts and down to the hotel’s pool. “I take it we aren’t on a mid-day flight,” he said as Wilson followed him unnecessarily closely down the pool’s shallow steps.
“Nope.” Wilson sank under the water and came up with hair dripping, glistening, sprouting up in every direction.
“Afternoon?”
Wilson gently tugged House down into an embrace, their shoulders just above the surface, the water warm and buoyant. “Nope.”
“Then we’re back to night-time and international destinations.”
“Or Bangor or Richmond.” Wilson leaned in closer and nudged House’s jaw up with his nose. “Or some place that doesn’t have daily flights.”
House stretched his neck, not because Wilson was insisting, no, but just to feel the pleasant burn of lengthening muscle. Although the subsequent caress of wandering lips wasn’t entirely unwelcome. “What place on the globe doesn’t have daily flights any more?”
“Antarctica,” Wilson murmured. “Which is not where the honeymoon is, but if I’m going to take you halfway around the world, don’t you think I’d insist on a direct flight?”
“I think -”
Wilson stopped him with a warm and languorous kiss. Thinking was overrated, anyway.
Several long minutes of not-thinking followed, until they were interrupted by a loud scoffing noise from the pool deck. House glanced at the older, scowling, swim-dress wearing woman long enough to verify she wasn’t choking to death, and then turned his attention to Wilson’s jaw.
“Do you mind?” the woman demanded.
“Yes,” House replied before Wilson could open up his mouth and spout some ridiculous social nicety. “We mind your presence quite a lot.” Wilson kept his face impassive, but House could feel a silent chuckle.
Not swayed by House’s sentiment, the biddy continued in a more strident voice, “This is a family pool!”
Wilson curled his left arm further around House and waved his bedecked ring finger in the biddy’s direction. “It’s a good thing we’re married, then.”
“Children use this pool,” she insisted, and Whoa. House was going to have to call a halt to these proceedings immediately.
“Wilson!” he snapped as he pulled back to arm’s length. “You never told me that. We’re getting out immediately.”
From the rolled eyes, it was clear Wilson knew exactly what House was talking about. Good. Conniving bastard, luring House into a cess- “They clean the pool, House.”
House’s turn toward the stairs was thwarted by Wilson’s stronger-than-expected grasp around his waist. “Just because some minimum wage grunt swishes a mop around,” House said, “doesn’t mean -”
“They sanitize it. Smell the chlorine.”
Nuh-uh. House began dragging Wilson with him. “Out.”
“Come on; just relax.”
“Saliva, mucus, fecal matter,” House pointed out, and Wilson’s resistance abated with a sigh.
“Dangers of marrying an infectious disease specialist,” Wilson noted to the now-disgusted-looking woman as they passed her to grab towels and head to the elevator.
Making out in the large bathroom shower proved to be just as much fun as in the pool, and when the kisses turned from warm to hot, the bed was only a dozen or so steps away. “Convenient,” House noted.
“Mrgbr,” Wilson mumbled.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” House admonished, just before his eyes rolled back in his head.
***
Mid-day napping was awesome. House was going to have to figure out a way to talk Wilson into doing it with him every day. There was always at least one patient room open; House would even forego the pre-nap sex, if necessary.
Wilson stirred and blinked his eyes open. “Hungry?”
House leaned down to kiss the ever-enticing beauty mark by Wilson’s lips. “Thailand.”
“Hm,” Wilson said. “I’d meant that to be a yes or no question.”
“Thailand is our honeymoon destination.”
Wilson chuckled. “We do like their food.”
“Bangkok. What’s more appropriate for a gay honeymoon?”
“You’ve made the ‘bang’ joke twice in twenty-four hours.”
Finding a way to tuck himself even closer to Wilson’s side wasn’t easy, but House enjoyed a challenge. “If crude jokes are suddenly going to be a problem for you, we have to get this thing annulled right now. And it’s not my fault so many societies give their cities sexual names. Cockburn.”
That much smiling couldn’t be healthy for a person. Just couldn’t be. “Unusual insult.”
“Town in Australia.” Wilson’s hip bone fit perfectly in House’s palm, he noted not for the first time. “Fucking, Austria would also be appropriate.”
“For you,” Wilson said, his hand warm on House’s neck, “I’ll go all the way to Hookersville.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s in West Virginia.”
“Of course it is.” Between one second and the next, the dog in the night-time didn’t bark, and the nonexistent pieces fell into place. “We’re not going anywhere tonight. Or tomorrow. This is where we’re spending the week.”
Wilson’s smile broadened. “I’ve got some daytrips planned, and they’re bringing up a Playstation later.” He stretched up for a kiss; House pulled back.
“Great.” Peachy keen. He rolled onto his back and gave the ceiling his attention. “Julie got New Zealand; I get Newark.”
The cheap, lazy bastard propped his cheap, lazy self up on an elbow and gazed down at House, smile fading. “Do you want to go to New Zealand? A lot of sheep, a lot of hiking.”
“No, I don’t want to go to New Zealand; I’m sick of getting stuck with the short end of the fucking stick.” Rolling again, House presented his back to the cheap, lazy bastard. “You don’t want to waste Fiji on me.”
“You want to go to Fiji? Really?”
“It’s an example.” House had no idea when he’d turned into a pouting bitch, but god damn it. Just because these fucking trips were old hat to Wilson by now didn’t mean House deserved a sloppy, second-best effort.
“House.”
Fuck him. And not in the good way.
“House.” When did Wilson get so freakishly strong? House thought as he was forced onto his back again, forced - coerced - into looking into those ridiculously warm eyes.
“I want to take you to Fiji. Or New Zealand, or Borobudur, or anywhere you want. I just don’t want to fly halfway around the world and then at the next page from Foreman have to come right back.”
It couldn’t be that simple. Could it? “Foreman’s not the boss of me.”
“Medicine is the boss of you.”
Oh, for Pete’s -
“No, seriously,” Wilson said earnestly. “You love the puzzle, and I love that you love it, so why not honeymoon close so we can go back if we have to?”
House searched Wilson’s face for any tells, and found nothing but sincerity. And a couple of clogged pores, and that that mole apparently never stopped being enticing.
“Entirely too practical,” House murmured across Wilson’s skin.
“Mm,” Wilson replied. “You won’t say that when you see the bill for a week in the Presidential Suite.”
House rolled them back to the most comfortable position - the one where House could drape himself across whatever body part of Wilson’s he liked. “You say that like there’s a chance in hell I’ll look at the bill.”
“It is on your credit card.”
House pulled away for a moment to stare down at Wilson. “No, it’s not.”
A shoulder went up and down. “Call them if you don’t believe me.” When House turned to do just that, he was pulled back into a bear hug and assaulted with some well-placed kisses. “But later.”
“Later,” House agreed. After he decided how to pay his sneaky-ass, son-of-a-bitch husband back for making him run around in circles trying to hunt up clues and deduce where the honeymoon was going to be.
He figured orgasms were probably an acceptable form of payment.
Happy Birthday Again, Daisylily! Finally finished your present!
Title: On the Way
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Words: 3550
Summary: The honeymoon sequel to That Time Cameron Had Mono.
Notes: Written for daisylily to celebrate her birthday. Other fics in this 'verse are listed here. In this 'verse, New Jersey doesn't allow same-sex marriage or civil unions, because the original fic was written before the court case that produced civil unions in NJ. Thanks to Early Readers, especially phinnia, for support.
A down-to-the-molecule search of the apartment had turned up nothing. Well, it had turned up several things House had thought he’d lost permanently - among them two game cartridges, a morphine prescription, Vixen Extreme Vol. 3 No. 4, and the outline for a glomerulonephritis journal article - but nothing related to the mystery honeymoon.
House hated mysteries.
OK, OK, that wasn’t entirely true. What House hated was not knowing things, especially things he ought to know.
Such as where his son-of-a-bitch... partner-type-whoozit was taking him on his honeymoon.
House hadn’t worked out his position on nomenclature yet. Wilson had been bandying about “fiancé” and “husband,” but then what else could you expect from a man with enough marrying experience to throw a Bridal Expo? Given that a commitment ceremony bought them zippo in the way of legal rights, House didn’t see why they couldn’t just use the classics of “roommate” and “dear friend” the way all the old closeted queers had done. Wilson, in spite of his slavish adoration for film of the 1920s and ‘30s, had not been inclined to agree.
They’d argued for thirty minutes, and then had really hot sex. In the bedroom closet, interestingly enough. Then Wilson had gone back to “my fiancé,” and House had taken three Vicodin and gone back to “my dude” and searching the apartment for honeymoon clues.
Bupkis.
Electronic searching had been similarly fruitless. The airlines and Amtrak were as tight-lipped as Cuddy on “Shirt-Free Fridays,” and really, House wasn’t sure Wilson was ready for the kind of intimate commitment this ceremony signified if he wasn’t able to trust his devoted partner with something so simple as the recently revised passwords for his online banking and credit card accounts.
“Fat chance,” Wilson had replied and kept on folding the laundry. Ass.
House had gotten into Wilson’s library check-out history, and he’d gleefully noted the guidebook for Fiji among the “classic literature” and sci-fi TV show novelizations Wilson normally devoured. The glee had been tempered seconds later when a second guidebook for the Adirondacks showed up and had been doused permanently at the sight of the next ten. Wilson was either worse-than-usually indecisive, hiding the real destination among the garbage (Walt Disney World? Seriously?), or fucking with him.
Wilson’s grin when he noticed what House was going through gave the answer away. Ass.
So, in the absence of concrete evidence, House was now forced to use his keen psychological insight into the workings of Wilson’s mind to divine their destination. Alternatively, he’d annoy Wilson into telling him. Either one would work.
“You,” House said as Wilson steered the Volvo onto US-1, “have a deep-seated fetish for the conventional.”
“Uh-huh,” Wilson replied. “Explains why I took to you so quickly.”
“I am the exception proving more rules than even you can articulate. Today's commitment thingy wasn't enough for you, even with the suits and the rabbi and the family blessing and I really could've done without your grandmother kissing me; has she always smelled that strongly of roses and herring? - so now you’re taking us to Massachusetts to make it legal.”
“There’s a residency requirement to get married in Massachusetts.”
“Canada. No residency requirement.”
“True, but the marriage wouldn’t be legal in Jersey.” Wilson glanced over, eyebrows raised to their most annoyingly challenging level. Stupid eyebrows, always thought they had one up on House.
He looked out the window for a while as the “scenery” rolled by. No matter where they went, what paper they got signed, they still wouldn’t have a legal union in New Jersey. Leaving the rant about that aside for another day, House moved on. “OK, Canada, but for sentimental reasons, not legal ones. We’re going to Montreal, because you want to show me around McGill.”
Wilson’s face lit up, the sap. “I do want to show you McGill. Would you go with me some day? Next reunion, maybe?”
House let out the loudest retching sounds he could make without actually throwing up. He wouldn’t mind touring the campus with Wilson, truth be told, but there was no way in hell he was going to any reunion. Boring, boring, boring, disastrous. The quicker Wilson got that through his thick skull, the better.
“Fine, fine,” Wilson replied, and then they were getting on the Turnpike.
“North, huh? So that’s no to Philly, DC, and the beaches of the Carolinas.”
“Unless I’m looping around to throw you off the track.”
House scoffed. “Yeah, sure, Mr. Tires-Always-Inflated-to-Recommended-Pressure is going to waste gas like that.”
Wilson looked affronted. “You never know!”
“Yes,” House replied, “I do.”
“Second time today you’ve said that,” Wilson said with a slyly sentimental smile, and House had to close his eyes before they rolled entirely out of his head.
An unknown amount of time later, House floated up out of sleep. It had come to him while he rested. “I know where you’re taking us.”
“Enlighten me,” Wilson said in an entirely-too-amused voice.
“I don’t know the exact location, but I know why you picked it. You’re a sentimental fool who’s insanely attached to the ‘firsts’ in your life. Almost all our firsts happened in New Jersey -”
“Except the first time we met.”
House sat up straighter and glared Wilson down. “Would you interrupt Poirot during his elaboration of the crime?”
“Considering he’s a fictional character, I don’t think I’ll get the chance.”
“Shut up.” House watched a moment to make sure the lips weren’t going to flap again and then continued. “Almost all our firsts happened in New Jersey, so you’re going back to an earlier memory. You’re taking us to where you first discovered the joys of sword-dueling.”
“Joys of what?”
“Homo sex.”
Wilson’s face was blank for a second until it twisted in disgust. “No. I don’t want to spend my honeymoon in Hoboken.”
House wasn’t quite sure he’d heard that correctly. “Hoboken?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Oh, I’m going to ask, and you’re going to answer. But not now, because I will not be distracted from this quest.”
“I didn’t figure that you would.”
House reached over and tugged at the bowtie that was around Wilson’s neck, albeit loosened. “Why are you still wearing this?”
Wilson leaned into the tug while keeping his eyes on the road. “It’s dashing.”
It actually did look dashing: dark jacket, crisp snowy-white shirt with one button undone, tie dangling rakishly, that stupid sexy pleased look Wilson hadn’t been able to wipe off his face the entire day... House wasn’t going to let Wilson know that, though. They didn’t need Wilson’s head swelling.
At least, not in a moving car.
“You let us leave without changing out of the monkey suits, so that means we’re not driving far.”
“Means nothing. I can wear a suit comfortably for hours on end. You’re the one who gets hives from formality.”
“You’re the one wearing pants with the waist over an inch too small because you didn’t want your mother to know how much you’d porked out since the last wedding.”
Ha! Insult hat-trick scored by one G. (for Greatness) House! Served Wilson right for having a “wedding tuxedo” in the first place, and in the second place, for letting his Mom press it into acid-free archival tissue paper for storage after each triumph of hope over experience.
House was burning the damn suit the second he got it off of Wilson’s body today. Or tomorrow. Or whenever the damn car stopped.
Which was going to be any minute, if House was reading the signs correctly, and he most certainly was. They were in English, after all. “Newark Airport, hm. Night-time flights go to international destinations.”
“Also Richmond, Virginia, and Bangor, Maine. And it’s irrelevant because we’re not flying out tonight.”
House couldn’t help snickering. “Bangor’d be a great place for a honeymoon.”
Wilson sighed as he grandpa-ed his way through the airport traffic. “Yes, if I’d married a woman and cared more about puns than the destination itself. Although... Maine is beautiful this time of year, and the hiking is amazing.”
“Hiking.” House slumped in his seat. “My favorite activity.”
“You’re the one who -”
“You’re going to get hit by that cab.”
“No, I’m not,” Wilson protested, but he swerved anyway, and five honks and seven swears later House was feeling much better. They pulled up under the Marriott’s awning with Wilson’s cheeks still flushed and his chest still heaving, and House hoped they had express check-in because tearing off that suit was looking more and more imminent with each passing moment. Mmm.
The bellman took the bags, the valet took the car, and Wilson took his stompy little self up to the front desk. House was distracted by a blonde wearing a slutty-Puritan business suit exactly like one Cuddy owned and lingered in observation until he heard raised voices.
“- mean, not ready?”
The check-in clerk had her head bent toward the desk and the computer that was no doubt hidden within. “There’s a note on the reservation record. Oh, this is your wedding night.” She straightened abruptly, her eyes wide and her face soft. Was the whole world made up of saps? Apparently so. “I am so sorry. Let me have you speak to my manager, and we can let your wife relax in our lounge with a beverage of her choice. Is she here yet?”
House sailed up behind Wilson, stopping close enough for his own comfort and with any luck, the clerk’s discomfort. “You mean his ex-wife? She’d better not be here.” He leaned down to plant a long, juicy kiss on Wilson’s neck. “I’m not much for sharing.”
Grinning like an idiot, Wilson nudged him away, “Go get a drink, Mrs. Wilson. I’ll come get you when this is settled.”
House went and had two drinks of insanely expensive single-malt, finishing the last drops when Wilson finally made his way into the bar. “Time to go,” House insisted, grabbing Wilson at the waist and pointing him back in the other direction. Wilson was inclined to agree, if his speed across the lobby was anything to go by.
“They don’t have the room I originally reserved,” Wilson informed House’s collar during the elevator ride up. House hummed and shifted his hand to cover more of Wilson’s ass. “But some executive of theirs couldn’t make it, so they’re upgrading us to his suite.”
“His suite?” The door chime pinged, and House reluctantly allowed Wilson to disentangle them. “He has his own?”
“Apparently so,” Wilson replied, leading House down the hall and into the brass-plate proclaimed Presidential Suite.
It had a living room larger than the one in their apartment, and a baby grand piano almost as nice as House’s own. “All this for little ol’ us?”
On the other side of the room, leaning in the doorway to what had to be the bedroom, Wilson shrugged. “Had to give us something.”
“I’m going to give you something.” House started unbuttoning his shirt as he stalked toward Wilson.
“Promises, promises.” Wilson smiled, slow and easy, hot and sexy; House forewent his previous plan of tearing off Wilson’s tuxedo in favor of peeling it slowly, bit by bit.
He enjoyed his game immensely, drawing things out, teasing each new patch of skin as it was revealed, taking Wilson’s hums and moans as proof of his complicity.
When the last piece of clothing had been banished to the floor, when they were stretched out against each other on the bed, warm and willing and waiting, House looked deeply into Wilson’s eyes and said, “Amsterdam.”
Exasperated face number four. “You have a safeword now?”
“You’re taking me to Amsterdam on this honeymoon.”
“House,” Wilson said. “Shut up and fuck me.”
So House did.
***
House’s eyes opened to darkness. He glanced over at the clock, which informed him with a discreet green glow that it was 4:27 a.m.
Perfect.
He nudged dead-to-the-world Wilson, who let out a horrendous snort and turned away. Three more nudges and a poke to the ass, and Wilson finally groaned, “What?”
“First domestic flights start boarding in an hour.”
Wilson grunted and tugged House’s arm around him. “Do you think I’m fucking insane? Go back to sleep.”
In only a few minutes, Wilson’s breathing was beginning to slow again. House waited for the ideal moment, and then said loudly, “Yes.”
Wilson’s startle was epic, amazing, wonderful, and House chuckled gleefully as he wrapped himself tightly around an infuriated Wilson. “Yes,” House repeated. “I think you’re fucking insane.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Wilson replied, but given that he was relaxing into House’s embrace, House considered the threat empty at best. Just this, he thought as he drifted back into sleep. Screw traveling; this is all I need.
***
Morning sex, room service breakfast, and a Destination-Twenty-Questions game sneakily evaded by Wilson later, House was playing the piano - surprisingly well-tuned - and Wilson was lounging around half-dressed on the nearest couch. House’s favorite kind of half-dressed, too: boxers and one of House’s button-down shirts, decidedly not buttoned down. It’d been a good look on Stacy and even without the cross-dressing titillation, it was a hot look on Wilson.
Rising from the couch, Wilson said, “I’ve got an idea,” and House’s libido ripped through an array of possibilities for that idea.
“Let’s go swimming.”
Not part of the array. House frowned and glared at his fingers on the piano keys.
“C’mon,” Wilson said, draping himself over House’s back and nuzzling at his ear. “I want to float around and make out with you. Since I can’t afford to pay the Russians to take us into space, the pool seems the next best bet.”
House let himself be coaxed into board shorts and down to the hotel’s pool. “I take it we aren’t on a mid-day flight,” he said as Wilson followed him unnecessarily closely down the pool’s shallow steps.
“Nope.” Wilson sank under the water and came up with hair dripping, glistening, sprouting up in every direction.
“Afternoon?”
Wilson gently tugged House down into an embrace, their shoulders just above the surface, the water warm and buoyant. “Nope.”
“Then we’re back to night-time and international destinations.”
“Or Bangor or Richmond.” Wilson leaned in closer and nudged House’s jaw up with his nose. “Or some place that doesn’t have daily flights.”
House stretched his neck, not because Wilson was insisting, no, but just to feel the pleasant burn of lengthening muscle. Although the subsequent caress of wandering lips wasn’t entirely unwelcome. “What place on the globe doesn’t have daily flights any more?”
“Antarctica,” Wilson murmured. “Which is not where the honeymoon is, but if I’m going to take you halfway around the world, don’t you think I’d insist on a direct flight?”
“I think -”
Wilson stopped him with a warm and languorous kiss. Thinking was overrated, anyway.
Several long minutes of not-thinking followed, until they were interrupted by a loud scoffing noise from the pool deck. House glanced at the older, scowling, swim-dress wearing woman long enough to verify she wasn’t choking to death, and then turned his attention to Wilson’s jaw.
“Do you mind?” the woman demanded.
“Yes,” House replied before Wilson could open up his mouth and spout some ridiculous social nicety. “We mind your presence quite a lot.” Wilson kept his face impassive, but House could feel a silent chuckle.
Not swayed by House’s sentiment, the biddy continued in a more strident voice, “This is a family pool!”
Wilson curled his left arm further around House and waved his bedecked ring finger in the biddy’s direction. “It’s a good thing we’re married, then.”
“Children use this pool,” she insisted, and Whoa. House was going to have to call a halt to these proceedings immediately.
“Wilson!” he snapped as he pulled back to arm’s length. “You never told me that. We’re getting out immediately.”
From the rolled eyes, it was clear Wilson knew exactly what House was talking about. Good. Conniving bastard, luring House into a cess- “They clean the pool, House.”
House’s turn toward the stairs was thwarted by Wilson’s stronger-than-expected grasp around his waist. “Just because some minimum wage grunt swishes a mop around,” House said, “doesn’t mean -”
“They sanitize it. Smell the chlorine.”
Nuh-uh. House began dragging Wilson with him. “Out.”
“Come on; just relax.”
“Saliva, mucus, fecal matter,” House pointed out, and Wilson’s resistance abated with a sigh.
“Dangers of marrying an infectious disease specialist,” Wilson noted to the now-disgusted-looking woman as they passed her to grab towels and head to the elevator.
Making out in the large bathroom shower proved to be just as much fun as in the pool, and when the kisses turned from warm to hot, the bed was only a dozen or so steps away. “Convenient,” House noted.
“Mrgbr,” Wilson mumbled.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” House admonished, just before his eyes rolled back in his head.
***
Mid-day napping was awesome. House was going to have to figure out a way to talk Wilson into doing it with him every day. There was always at least one patient room open; House would even forego the pre-nap sex, if necessary.
Wilson stirred and blinked his eyes open. “Hungry?”
House leaned down to kiss the ever-enticing beauty mark by Wilson’s lips. “Thailand.”
“Hm,” Wilson said. “I’d meant that to be a yes or no question.”
“Thailand is our honeymoon destination.”
Wilson chuckled. “We do like their food.”
“Bangkok. What’s more appropriate for a gay honeymoon?”
“You’ve made the ‘bang’ joke twice in twenty-four hours.”
Finding a way to tuck himself even closer to Wilson’s side wasn’t easy, but House enjoyed a challenge. “If crude jokes are suddenly going to be a problem for you, we have to get this thing annulled right now. And it’s not my fault so many societies give their cities sexual names. Cockburn.”
That much smiling couldn’t be healthy for a person. Just couldn’t be. “Unusual insult.”
“Town in Australia.” Wilson’s hip bone fit perfectly in House’s palm, he noted not for the first time. “Fucking, Austria would also be appropriate.”
“For you,” Wilson said, his hand warm on House’s neck, “I’ll go all the way to Hookersville.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s in West Virginia.”
“Of course it is.” Between one second and the next, the dog in the night-time didn’t bark, and the nonexistent pieces fell into place. “We’re not going anywhere tonight. Or tomorrow. This is where we’re spending the week.”
Wilson’s smile broadened. “I’ve got some daytrips planned, and they’re bringing up a Playstation later.” He stretched up for a kiss; House pulled back.
“Great.” Peachy keen. He rolled onto his back and gave the ceiling his attention. “Julie got New Zealand; I get Newark.”
The cheap, lazy bastard propped his cheap, lazy self up on an elbow and gazed down at House, smile fading. “Do you want to go to New Zealand? A lot of sheep, a lot of hiking.”
“No, I don’t want to go to New Zealand; I’m sick of getting stuck with the short end of the fucking stick.” Rolling again, House presented his back to the cheap, lazy bastard. “You don’t want to waste Fiji on me.”
“You want to go to Fiji? Really?”
“It’s an example.” House had no idea when he’d turned into a pouting bitch, but god damn it. Just because these fucking trips were old hat to Wilson by now didn’t mean House deserved a sloppy, second-best effort.
“House.”
Fuck him. And not in the good way.
“House.” When did Wilson get so freakishly strong? House thought as he was forced onto his back again, forced - coerced - into looking into those ridiculously warm eyes.
“I want to take you to Fiji. Or New Zealand, or Borobudur, or anywhere you want. I just don’t want to fly halfway around the world and then at the next page from Foreman have to come right back.”
It couldn’t be that simple. Could it? “Foreman’s not the boss of me.”
“Medicine is the boss of you.”
Oh, for Pete’s -
“No, seriously,” Wilson said earnestly. “You love the puzzle, and I love that you love it, so why not honeymoon close so we can go back if we have to?”
House searched Wilson’s face for any tells, and found nothing but sincerity. And a couple of clogged pores, and that that mole apparently never stopped being enticing.
“Entirely too practical,” House murmured across Wilson’s skin.
“Mm,” Wilson replied. “You won’t say that when you see the bill for a week in the Presidential Suite.”
House rolled them back to the most comfortable position - the one where House could drape himself across whatever body part of Wilson’s he liked. “You say that like there’s a chance in hell I’ll look at the bill.”
“It is on your credit card.”
House pulled away for a moment to stare down at Wilson. “No, it’s not.”
A shoulder went up and down. “Call them if you don’t believe me.” When House turned to do just that, he was pulled back into a bear hug and assaulted with some well-placed kisses. “But later.”
“Later,” House agreed. After he decided how to pay his sneaky-ass, son-of-a-bitch husband back for making him run around in circles trying to hunt up clues and deduce where the honeymoon was going to be.
He figured orgasms were probably an acceptable form of payment.