Getting it Together
Title:Getting It Together
Author:simple__man
Fandom and Pairing:House; House/Wilson
Rating:PG. mentions of sex, nothing explicit-y. Guys kissing (the horror)
Prompt:Romance, cane
Warnings:Kinda fluffy. Not too, I don't think. I don't own 'em.
Notes:Today's prompt at daily_prompt was "can't find my shoes", so I went with it.
Summary:House's thoughts are all over the place, and so are Wilson's clothes.
"...can't find my shoes." Wilson's voice fades in and out as he scurries about the room, grabbing up whatever articles of clothing he can lay his hands on, regardless of whether or not said items actually belong to him.
House is either ignoring him or dozing, but he likes to think it's a comfortable mixture between the two. Wilson is always like this after sex (or so he's heard, but House is not one to reveal his sources), twitchy and frazzled and compulsive. House, on the other hand, is boneless and mellow, and would be hard pressed to move half an inch in either direction. He just can't muster enough energy to actually give a damn where his pants are located at present.
Besides, Wilson will ferret them out eventually. It's practically what the guy was made for, that and outrageously satisfying sex. It's good for House that he's too far gone to actually form words, or he'd feel compelled to ask Wilson embarrassing and potentially friendship-destroying questions.
For once, it's Wilson who is obsessed, compelled to clean and straighten and tidy and put away and fix things, while House gets to look on bemusedly, pitying the poor bastard as he falls prey to the traps in his own mind. House deals with Wilson's bemused looks on a near-hourly basis, and it's nice to have the option of being sane for a moment or two, without losing face.
Obsessive bastard, he thinks fondly, as Wilson falls to his knees beside the bed, presumably still on the hunt for the elusive shoes. He's sure that Wilson thinks the same sorts of things at him day in and day out, so while he knows that Wilson's shoes are in the kitchen, he's keeping the knowledge to himself for a bit longer. Talking would require movement, and movement will stimulate blood flow, and once his brain starts to recover, he'll be back to thinking again.
He likes the laziness of it all, lying in bed watching Wilson work, not having to think about much at all, except the fact that his bed smells of men (not just man, but men, and he's slightly terrified by the subtle difference), and how Wilson's hair is duck-tailing at the back (and how he keeps trying to smooth down his hair, and tuck in his wrinkled shirt, and button every button he can find and all the while it's his own animal nature he's trying to tame), and how pissed off everyone will be when they find out.
It's when, not if, they find out. It could be any of them, from Julie to Cuddy to Foreman to the cafeteria lady to the clinic patient in Exam 2. All it will take is one slip of the tongue (so to speak), one flash of more-than-friendly concern, one word of banter too little or not enough, and the game will be up.
It's as simple as this (as he had explained to Wilson the night before); I'm not in the business of raising doctors, I'm raising detectives. The children aside, we still have to take into account female intuition, the hospital rumor mill, and the sad fact that we're the most interesting bit of business in the hospital even when we aren't actively fucking.
Wilson seems to have taken the lecture to heart. This will be their downfall. The absence of Wilson in their routine will speak just as loudly as too-much-Wilson, but the fact of the matter is this, James Wilson is almost completely lacking in the necessary components of a good liar. Hence the staggering number of divorces under his belt. He will act guilty (he's already acting guilty), he will blush and stammer and forget his lines, and when questioned directly, his ears will turn red and he will sing like a goddamned canary.
Infuriating. And endearing. Infuriatingly endearing. He still hasn't found the shoes, only because he seems unable to leave the room. A mother hen with one chick, he'll start clucking in a minute or two. House counts backwards from sixty, lazily trailing his fingers over his stomach and chest.
At six, Wilson begins, "Are you..." but House is ignoring him, because he would much rather listen to that sexy voice telling him to suck this and bite here and hold on to that, than to be forced to listen to why don't you eat some breakfast, don't take too many pills, and are you getting dressed at some point today.
If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine...but never mind, it's no good, Jimmy will poke and prod and hound and frustrate and annoy until House has no choice but to sit up and rub the sleep out of his eyes and grab his cane and walk to the bathroom (it's cruelty, is what it is, and he'd lodge a complaint, but Wilson has learned House's lessons far too well. Except the lying. He just can't lie, it's his only real fault, and it almost sounds like he's making breakfast in the kitchen, and surely that's too good to be true.)
Which brings him back to the point of the matter. They will get caught out, it's only a matter of time. He's not a teenager, he can keep his hands to himself, but where would be the fun in that? And if they aren't caught red-handed, there's still a thousand other ways for them to get caught. Wilson's wrinkled shirts, for one. The teeth marks on his wrist, for another.
After a too-short shower under too-cold water, House brushes his teeth while attempting to completely avoid looking at his face in the mirror. If he doesn't look at the marks on his neck and shoulders, then he won't have to acknowledge their existence, and if he doesn't acknowlege their existence, obviously they don't exist. Of course. It all makes sense. Splashing water on his face, he shakes his head, trying to get back that feeling of calm and comfort and lucidity that had quieted his mind and his soul just minutes before.
It's gone, and the swirling mass of doubt and fear is back with a vengeance, melding rather nicely with the usual hurried tornadic movement of his thoughts, creating a vortex of suck directly behind his right eyeball. It's all going to hell, the friendship, our careers, his marriage, everything, and all because we can't keep our fucking hands to ourselves. Excellent. Wonderful job you've done with all of this. The pain behind his eye is sharp and stabbing and probably stress-related, or maybe sex-related, but his brain can't help but chase hares in the form of differential diagnoses.
He is interrupted in his reverie by Wrinkly Wilson, still adorably rumpled and shoeless, poking his cow-licked head in the door. "Coming?" he asks, and House literally bites his tongue to keep himself from taking the bait, to give Wilson the pleasure of a dirty exchange of banter, because there have been dirtier exchanges between them than this in the past twenty four hours, and their lives and careers and marriage are ruined, and somehow this must be Wilson's fault.
Otherwise, it's his fault, and he's just ruined his best friend's life. Guilt does not become him. He would very much like to request a cessation of familiarities, and go back to their comfortable denial (somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that he is panicking, just as Jimmy had done earlier, and while it's all very good to watch someone else break his chain, it's not all that amusing when it happens to you). He liked that denial. It had been a good friend of his for many years. He should have named it, taken better care of it. Hell, this sort of denial should have gotten a leash and a bowl and a room of its own.
Wilson is clucking again, except now, the clucking is accompanied by petting, and the petting is too damned much for House to deal with, not this early in the morning, without benefit of coffee and drugs and food. (He is being managed, and he knows it, but he can deal with breakfast much better than he can being petted on). He shrugs out of the touch, as Wilson knew he would, and he makes a break for it out to the kitchen.
There are eggs and bacon and oatmeal, none of which House can ever remember having in his refrigerator. He's sure he must have bought them, or else Wilson brought them (it's worrying him, not being able to figure it out, and he'd ask Jimmy about it, but that would involve talking and his throat feels like it may be closing up, and he knows a panic attack when he feels one).
"Calm down," Wilson says gently, but he keeps his hands to himself this time. House is profoundly grateful. He hates being touched, and Wilson hates being mussed, and together they have managed to violate every single carved-in-stone rule of their friendship, while still staying friends, in less than a day. If they were, actually, still staying friends.
House nods, he's calm, he's beyond calm, he is cool and collected and ice water flows through his veins. Of course, he's lying to himself, but that's no different than any other day, and this new denial is not as fitted or tailored but it's a pretty decent fit for off-the-rack, and he's babbling in his own mind, and if he opens his mouth it's all over with because every single thought in his head will pour out into Wilson's lap (his head had been cradled there the night before, and it was either the nicest scary thing that had ever happened to him or the scariest nice thing that had ever happened, he couldn't say which).
A coffee cup is pressed into his hand as he is pushed into a chair, and a plate is settled down in front of him with a soft chink. He smiles, and says thank you, and he knows very well that he'll be the one to give the game away, even if Jimmy does somehow manage to stop making eyes at him. He still can't talk, but at least he has an excuse, fork in mouth, sip of coffee, chew and swallow and repeat, and he doesn't have to say a word. Jimmy is eating cereal, because that's what he does, and it's awfully wifely of him to make two breakfasts, and it's rather adorable and sweet and pathetic.
"I'm disgustingly in love with you, you know," House says conversationally, and Wilson chokes on his corn flakes. Serves him right. This is all his fault anyway. Mostly. House would like very much to have that last statement stricken from the record, but it's too late for that, you can't un-say something once it's said (and he should know that better than any man alive). He does wish that maybe he had prefaced it with something else, a segue might have been nice, but he is a blunt man by nature, and sometimes it's easier just to say something than to agonize over saying it.
Jimmy is staring, gape-mouthed (like he does), and for some reason, it's that ridiculous expression that brings it all home for House. He loves this stupid-looking bastard. He loves his stupid ties and his stupid wrinkly shirts and his stupid buttons that are all buttoned (even his top collar button, but that probably has something to do with the hickies that House placed there almost-not-on-purpose), and his stupid bowl of corn flakes. Even his stupid shoes (they were wing-tips in a past life, House is sure, Wilson looks like he'd wear wing-tips if given half a chance), and his stupid stupid stupid mouth that is, at present, gawping like a fish.
He wants to say something along the lines of 'I wonder how I ever kissed that fish face of yours', but as ludicrous as it seems at the moment, House knows quite well what that mouth is capable of when it's at home, and so he keeps his trap shut. Besides the fact that he is, once again, completely without anything to say. He is waiting, waiting for Jimmy to say something, anything, and to please, please stop looking at him like that.
There is stammering. That's good. Stammering means Wilson is having trouble keeping his mask on, and is threatening to have an emotion that is not compassion. That's promising. When he finally speaks, House's pulse is pounding in his ears and he doesn't actually hear a word Jimmy says, but he knows that tone, that tone is good, that tone is his tone, not Julie's, not anyone else's but his. His and his alone.
And he's pretty sure there's some word that sounds a bit like that one he'd said just a moment earlier, that one he hasn't said in years and years and can't even believe actually made it across his lips, but not only did he say that word, it's being returned to him, and it's just as humiliating and terrifying and awesome as he thought it would be (if he ever dared think of it at all), and there's no denying this.
He lies, he cheats, he steals, he prevaricates, he blusters, he rages, he rails, but he can't deny this. He's denied his own heart for years (somewhere between Stacy's departure and Julie's arrival), but he can't deny Wilson anything. Well, he can deny him some things.
Knowledge for one; not just where his shoes are hiding, but also where his wife is sleeping (at her sister's, although her sister is suspiciously absent and her sister's husband is not), and where those divorce papers are hidden (she sent them a week ago and he'd had a devil of a time intercepting them), and a thousand other small, insignificant things that he is sure that Jimmy doesn't need to know (just yet, in a little while, but not just yet), but that will most definitely cause a hell of a fight when they come to light.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the hell that awaits the floppy-haired fool, but Wilson doesn't really seem worried about it, and House can't find it in him to warn him. Surely, after all this time, he knows what he's getting into, and if he doesn't, well, he's as stupid as he looks (the fish face is gone, replaced by the goopy face, and they'd better go talk to Cuddy straightaway, because House is scared to death that his face is looking if not as goopy, at least as goopy as his face is capable of looking.)
"This is ridiculous," he pants, when Jimmy lets him up for air, "We're ridiculous, you're making me ridiculous," and there's kissing again, and tongues, and panting, and moans, and they stand as one, and they move as one, and if they're terribly lucky they'll make it to the bedroom before becoming one.
That is, until House trips over Jimmy's shoes. He figures it serves him right. It is indeed possible to look sheepish, embarrassed, horny, stupid, and insanely in love all at the same time. House just wouldn't recommend trying it.
What he does recommend trying...
Well...that's another story.
Author:simple__man
Fandom and Pairing:House; House/Wilson
Rating:PG. mentions of sex, nothing explicit-y. Guys kissing (the horror)
Prompt:Romance, cane
Warnings:Kinda fluffy. Not too, I don't think. I don't own 'em.
Notes:Today's prompt at daily_prompt was "can't find my shoes", so I went with it.
Summary:House's thoughts are all over the place, and so are Wilson's clothes.
"...can't find my shoes." Wilson's voice fades in and out as he scurries about the room, grabbing up whatever articles of clothing he can lay his hands on, regardless of whether or not said items actually belong to him.
House is either ignoring him or dozing, but he likes to think it's a comfortable mixture between the two. Wilson is always like this after sex (or so he's heard, but House is not one to reveal his sources), twitchy and frazzled and compulsive. House, on the other hand, is boneless and mellow, and would be hard pressed to move half an inch in either direction. He just can't muster enough energy to actually give a damn where his pants are located at present.
Besides, Wilson will ferret them out eventually. It's practically what the guy was made for, that and outrageously satisfying sex. It's good for House that he's too far gone to actually form words, or he'd feel compelled to ask Wilson embarrassing and potentially friendship-destroying questions.
For once, it's Wilson who is obsessed, compelled to clean and straighten and tidy and put away and fix things, while House gets to look on bemusedly, pitying the poor bastard as he falls prey to the traps in his own mind. House deals with Wilson's bemused looks on a near-hourly basis, and it's nice to have the option of being sane for a moment or two, without losing face.
Obsessive bastard, he thinks fondly, as Wilson falls to his knees beside the bed, presumably still on the hunt for the elusive shoes. He's sure that Wilson thinks the same sorts of things at him day in and day out, so while he knows that Wilson's shoes are in the kitchen, he's keeping the knowledge to himself for a bit longer. Talking would require movement, and movement will stimulate blood flow, and once his brain starts to recover, he'll be back to thinking again.
He likes the laziness of it all, lying in bed watching Wilson work, not having to think about much at all, except the fact that his bed smells of men (not just man, but men, and he's slightly terrified by the subtle difference), and how Wilson's hair is duck-tailing at the back (and how he keeps trying to smooth down his hair, and tuck in his wrinkled shirt, and button every button he can find and all the while it's his own animal nature he's trying to tame), and how pissed off everyone will be when they find out.
It's when, not if, they find out. It could be any of them, from Julie to Cuddy to Foreman to the cafeteria lady to the clinic patient in Exam 2. All it will take is one slip of the tongue (so to speak), one flash of more-than-friendly concern, one word of banter too little or not enough, and the game will be up.
It's as simple as this (as he had explained to Wilson the night before); I'm not in the business of raising doctors, I'm raising detectives. The children aside, we still have to take into account female intuition, the hospital rumor mill, and the sad fact that we're the most interesting bit of business in the hospital even when we aren't actively fucking.
Wilson seems to have taken the lecture to heart. This will be their downfall. The absence of Wilson in their routine will speak just as loudly as too-much-Wilson, but the fact of the matter is this, James Wilson is almost completely lacking in the necessary components of a good liar. Hence the staggering number of divorces under his belt. He will act guilty (he's already acting guilty), he will blush and stammer and forget his lines, and when questioned directly, his ears will turn red and he will sing like a goddamned canary.
Infuriating. And endearing. Infuriatingly endearing. He still hasn't found the shoes, only because he seems unable to leave the room. A mother hen with one chick, he'll start clucking in a minute or two. House counts backwards from sixty, lazily trailing his fingers over his stomach and chest.
At six, Wilson begins, "Are you..." but House is ignoring him, because he would much rather listen to that sexy voice telling him to suck this and bite here and hold on to that, than to be forced to listen to why don't you eat some breakfast, don't take too many pills, and are you getting dressed at some point today.
If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine...but never mind, it's no good, Jimmy will poke and prod and hound and frustrate and annoy until House has no choice but to sit up and rub the sleep out of his eyes and grab his cane and walk to the bathroom (it's cruelty, is what it is, and he'd lodge a complaint, but Wilson has learned House's lessons far too well. Except the lying. He just can't lie, it's his only real fault, and it almost sounds like he's making breakfast in the kitchen, and surely that's too good to be true.)
Which brings him back to the point of the matter. They will get caught out, it's only a matter of time. He's not a teenager, he can keep his hands to himself, but where would be the fun in that? And if they aren't caught red-handed, there's still a thousand other ways for them to get caught. Wilson's wrinkled shirts, for one. The teeth marks on his wrist, for another.
After a too-short shower under too-cold water, House brushes his teeth while attempting to completely avoid looking at his face in the mirror. If he doesn't look at the marks on his neck and shoulders, then he won't have to acknowledge their existence, and if he doesn't acknowlege their existence, obviously they don't exist. Of course. It all makes sense. Splashing water on his face, he shakes his head, trying to get back that feeling of calm and comfort and lucidity that had quieted his mind and his soul just minutes before.
It's gone, and the swirling mass of doubt and fear is back with a vengeance, melding rather nicely with the usual hurried tornadic movement of his thoughts, creating a vortex of suck directly behind his right eyeball. It's all going to hell, the friendship, our careers, his marriage, everything, and all because we can't keep our fucking hands to ourselves. Excellent. Wonderful job you've done with all of this. The pain behind his eye is sharp and stabbing and probably stress-related, or maybe sex-related, but his brain can't help but chase hares in the form of differential diagnoses.
He is interrupted in his reverie by Wrinkly Wilson, still adorably rumpled and shoeless, poking his cow-licked head in the door. "Coming?" he asks, and House literally bites his tongue to keep himself from taking the bait, to give Wilson the pleasure of a dirty exchange of banter, because there have been dirtier exchanges between them than this in the past twenty four hours, and their lives and careers and marriage are ruined, and somehow this must be Wilson's fault.
Otherwise, it's his fault, and he's just ruined his best friend's life. Guilt does not become him. He would very much like to request a cessation of familiarities, and go back to their comfortable denial (somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that he is panicking, just as Jimmy had done earlier, and while it's all very good to watch someone else break his chain, it's not all that amusing when it happens to you). He liked that denial. It had been a good friend of his for many years. He should have named it, taken better care of it. Hell, this sort of denial should have gotten a leash and a bowl and a room of its own.
Wilson is clucking again, except now, the clucking is accompanied by petting, and the petting is too damned much for House to deal with, not this early in the morning, without benefit of coffee and drugs and food. (He is being managed, and he knows it, but he can deal with breakfast much better than he can being petted on). He shrugs out of the touch, as Wilson knew he would, and he makes a break for it out to the kitchen.
There are eggs and bacon and oatmeal, none of which House can ever remember having in his refrigerator. He's sure he must have bought them, or else Wilson brought them (it's worrying him, not being able to figure it out, and he'd ask Jimmy about it, but that would involve talking and his throat feels like it may be closing up, and he knows a panic attack when he feels one).
"Calm down," Wilson says gently, but he keeps his hands to himself this time. House is profoundly grateful. He hates being touched, and Wilson hates being mussed, and together they have managed to violate every single carved-in-stone rule of their friendship, while still staying friends, in less than a day. If they were, actually, still staying friends.
House nods, he's calm, he's beyond calm, he is cool and collected and ice water flows through his veins. Of course, he's lying to himself, but that's no different than any other day, and this new denial is not as fitted or tailored but it's a pretty decent fit for off-the-rack, and he's babbling in his own mind, and if he opens his mouth it's all over with because every single thought in his head will pour out into Wilson's lap (his head had been cradled there the night before, and it was either the nicest scary thing that had ever happened to him or the scariest nice thing that had ever happened, he couldn't say which).
A coffee cup is pressed into his hand as he is pushed into a chair, and a plate is settled down in front of him with a soft chink. He smiles, and says thank you, and he knows very well that he'll be the one to give the game away, even if Jimmy does somehow manage to stop making eyes at him. He still can't talk, but at least he has an excuse, fork in mouth, sip of coffee, chew and swallow and repeat, and he doesn't have to say a word. Jimmy is eating cereal, because that's what he does, and it's awfully wifely of him to make two breakfasts, and it's rather adorable and sweet and pathetic.
"I'm disgustingly in love with you, you know," House says conversationally, and Wilson chokes on his corn flakes. Serves him right. This is all his fault anyway. Mostly. House would like very much to have that last statement stricken from the record, but it's too late for that, you can't un-say something once it's said (and he should know that better than any man alive). He does wish that maybe he had prefaced it with something else, a segue might have been nice, but he is a blunt man by nature, and sometimes it's easier just to say something than to agonize over saying it.
Jimmy is staring, gape-mouthed (like he does), and for some reason, it's that ridiculous expression that brings it all home for House. He loves this stupid-looking bastard. He loves his stupid ties and his stupid wrinkly shirts and his stupid buttons that are all buttoned (even his top collar button, but that probably has something to do with the hickies that House placed there almost-not-on-purpose), and his stupid bowl of corn flakes. Even his stupid shoes (they were wing-tips in a past life, House is sure, Wilson looks like he'd wear wing-tips if given half a chance), and his stupid stupid stupid mouth that is, at present, gawping like a fish.
He wants to say something along the lines of 'I wonder how I ever kissed that fish face of yours', but as ludicrous as it seems at the moment, House knows quite well what that mouth is capable of when it's at home, and so he keeps his trap shut. Besides the fact that he is, once again, completely without anything to say. He is waiting, waiting for Jimmy to say something, anything, and to please, please stop looking at him like that.
There is stammering. That's good. Stammering means Wilson is having trouble keeping his mask on, and is threatening to have an emotion that is not compassion. That's promising. When he finally speaks, House's pulse is pounding in his ears and he doesn't actually hear a word Jimmy says, but he knows that tone, that tone is good, that tone is his tone, not Julie's, not anyone else's but his. His and his alone.
And he's pretty sure there's some word that sounds a bit like that one he'd said just a moment earlier, that one he hasn't said in years and years and can't even believe actually made it across his lips, but not only did he say that word, it's being returned to him, and it's just as humiliating and terrifying and awesome as he thought it would be (if he ever dared think of it at all), and there's no denying this.
He lies, he cheats, he steals, he prevaricates, he blusters, he rages, he rails, but he can't deny this. He's denied his own heart for years (somewhere between Stacy's departure and Julie's arrival), but he can't deny Wilson anything. Well, he can deny him some things.
Knowledge for one; not just where his shoes are hiding, but also where his wife is sleeping (at her sister's, although her sister is suspiciously absent and her sister's husband is not), and where those divorce papers are hidden (she sent them a week ago and he'd had a devil of a time intercepting them), and a thousand other small, insignificant things that he is sure that Jimmy doesn't need to know (just yet, in a little while, but not just yet), but that will most definitely cause a hell of a fight when they come to light.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the hell that awaits the floppy-haired fool, but Wilson doesn't really seem worried about it, and House can't find it in him to warn him. Surely, after all this time, he knows what he's getting into, and if he doesn't, well, he's as stupid as he looks (the fish face is gone, replaced by the goopy face, and they'd better go talk to Cuddy straightaway, because House is scared to death that his face is looking if not as goopy, at least as goopy as his face is capable of looking.)
"This is ridiculous," he pants, when Jimmy lets him up for air, "We're ridiculous, you're making me ridiculous," and there's kissing again, and tongues, and panting, and moans, and they stand as one, and they move as one, and if they're terribly lucky they'll make it to the bedroom before becoming one.
That is, until House trips over Jimmy's shoes. He figures it serves him right. It is indeed possible to look sheepish, embarrassed, horny, stupid, and insanely in love all at the same time. House just wouldn't recommend trying it.
What he does recommend trying...
Well...that's another story.