Chapter Text
'Mr Leibowitz, please, take a seat.’
Wilson extends a hand as Mr Leibowitz does exactly that, in the chair opposite Wilson’s desk. This is the second consultation of the day, and this one, thankfully, will be far more positive. The old man eases himself down in the chair, one hand bracing the arm and a wincing smile on his face. Wilson props his elbows on his desk and clasps his hands together.
‘How are you feeling today, Mr Leibowitz?’
‘Oh, you know, Doc. I’m sleeping better now, at least,’ he adds with a little laugh, as if he’s trying to make Wilson feel better about the fact that he has cancer. He holds his hat in his lap, a look in his eye that shows that he’s expecting bad news.
The good days outweigh the bad ones, as an oncologist. It’s days like this that make the air fill his lungs again, after feeling deflated by the futility of it all. ‘That’s great to hear.’ He looks down at the folder in front of him, opens it to reveal the scans. ‘Well, we have your results back, and—’
The door opens. House hangs in the threshold, rather than poking his head in as he often does. He stands there and stares with an unhappy frown, lingering like he’s waiting for Wilson to get off the PlayStation and let him have a go.
‘Doctor House,’ he says, because he feels the need to let Mr Leibowitz know that this is an actual, medical professional who has just burst in mid-consultation. ‘As you can see, I’m busy.’
House blinks a pair of angry-blue eyes at Wilson, and then casts them towards Mr Leibowitz.
‘I have cancer,’ Mr Leibowitz announces with childish informativity.
‘Good for you.’ House looks back at Wilson. ‘I need to talk to you.’
Wilson lowers his head and peers up at House warningly. ‘Not now.’
‘Cuddy is sending me to a conference in upstate New York.’
‘Sounds charming. We’ll discuss this later.’
House looks at Wilson, then Mr Leibowitz, then at Wilson again, and sighs, rolling his eyes. Then, quite reasonably, although put-upon, ‘I will give you sixty seconds to make your prognosis.’
The door closes.
There’s a beat of silence. The old man looks at him with the innocence of a person who has never had to deal with Gregory House before and does not know what he just witnessed. ‘Is everything alright?’
‘Yes. He’s…’ Wilson shakes his head uselessly. There are no words to describe his best friend. ‘I apologise for how confusing this might be, but just as a head’s up, I’m going to go block my door with the sofa.’
Wilson waits for Mr Leibowitz to nod uncertainly before going to the sofa and dragging it towards the door. It creaks and groans horribly, and his shoes scuff against the carpet. Mr Leibowitz turns in his chair and watches with bewilderment as he huffs and puffs, pulling a sofa across the room – he gives it a shove for good measure, making sure it’s providing a decent enough barrier that House can’t even open it up a crack. With a sigh, he rolls his sleeves up and views his work.
Mr Leibowitz offers a nod of baffled appreciation.
‘That should do it—'
The door rattles and thuds against the back of the sofa. There’s a pause.
Wilson places his hands on his hips. “I am not giving my patients a sixty-second prognosis because you’re too much of a child to wait.”
“What did I do to deserve this?” House wails on the other side of the door, imitating a character from one of his medical dramas. “Don’t you love me anymore, Jimmy?”
“Go away.”
Then, blissful silence. Wilson smiles to himself, proud of his backbone for finally making an appearance after over a decade of friendship. He retreats, hands held in front of him as if prepared for the door to explode open, and then he sits behind his desk again and cross his legs.
Mr Leibowitz looks at him. ‘If you need to go talk to him…’
‘No,’ Wilson interrupts, a little too harshly. ‘That’s not going to happen. I’m sorry for the interruption. Um… where… ah, as I was saying—we got your results back, Mr Leibowitz, and I’m delighted to be able to tell you that your pancreatic cancer has gone into remission.’
His patient visibly relaxes into the chair. ‘Oh, my. Norma really will be happy. She’s been feeding me chicken soup for weeks, and the both of us have gotten so tired of it.’
He gives a small laugh, a quiet sound at the back of his throat. ‘We’d like to keep seeing you, Mr Leibowitz, just for an occasional check-up. Remission is excellent news, but it doesn’t always mean that—’
There’s a slow banging on the door. The sound of a fist, and then the obvious thwack of a cane being used like a battle ram. The sofa shifts, carpet crunching, and a small crack appears in the door, with House’s left eye peering through.
‘Heeerrrrrreeee’s Johnny!’
‘OK,’ is Wilson’s first response. And because he’s always been an enabler, finding it easier to give House what he wants rather than dealing with the consequences, he looks at Mr Leibowitz and says, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll be back very shortly.’
He pulls the sofa away. The door opens wider, to reveal House peering menacingly around the doorframe, eyes on Wilson.
‘Oh, my, fancy seeing you here,’ Wilson says dully.
House gestures for Wilson to step out, so he does, and closes the door behind him.
Hands on hips. ‘What?’ he demands.
‘Cuddy is sending me on a conference upstate New York.’
Ah. So that’s what she’s calling it, then. Of course, Wilson had heard all about this ‘conference’ yesterday afternoon, learning who would be attending said ‘conference’. He had wondered how the hell Cuddy was planning to send House on a corporate team-building trip without sedating him and stuffing him into the boot of Wilson’s car.
‘I think my words before were, ‘sounds charming’. It does. My cousin has a place up there.’
‘It’s not a conference,’ House replies, not meeting Wilson’s eye.
‘It’s not?’ Wilson says innocently. He rolls on the balls of his feet. ‘You think she’s… finally snapped? Decided to hide you away in a log cabin in shame, like the mad lady in the attic?’
‘What medical conference conference have you ever heard of being in upstate New York?’
Wilson shrugs. ‘Maybe they didn’t want to put people in a shitty, overcrowded hotel for three days.’
House shakes his head minutely, looks into the distance with comically narrowed eyes, once again adopting the persona of a medical drama character. ‘I don’t like this Wilson… I don’t like it at all.’
‘Alright, Horatio Cane,’ Wilson sighs, backing towards the door. ‘I’m gonna go back to telling my patient that he isn’t imminently dying, and then we can scheme together over lunch.’
House similarly makes his leave. Partway down the corridor he turns and says over his shoulder, ‘Mom said I could bring a friend.’
That had always been the plan. Wilson would drive him and then would hide his car keys so House couldn’t spontaneously leave and abandon them in the middle of a forest. It makes him a little uneasy, something in between excited and dread filled.
‘Thanks. You just—get your mom to tell my mom. I’ll need permission from mine before I can go.’
That seems like a good joke to end the conversation with. He closes the door, that usual fizzy feeling in his chest that he gets when he’s bantering with House. It makes him smile inwardly. He isn’t entirely conscious of any of these feelings until he sees Mr Leibowitz, sitting patiently and watching him. It makes him halt in shock, having almost forgotten his patient was there at all.
‘So,’ the old man says. ‘I’m not dying?’
It’s a miracle that nobody has told House anything. None of the new or old fellows have let slip, each one of them turning up for work that morning as if everything were totally normal, nothing to be suspicious of here, boss. Foreman, Taub and Thirteen are good liars, so that was never the problem. Kutner, though—Wilson really thought he’d give in and tell House the whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth, wrapped up in a bow. However, when Wilson came to grab him from their conference room, everything seemed in order. The board of shame showed notes from the last case, not yet rubbed away. Kutner had drawn a little Star Trek starship in the corner that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. And House had said goodbye to them, zipping up his bag and parting with: don’t worry, kids, I’ll be back before you can say encephalomyelitis.
They make it out of the hospital building without a hitch. Wilson casts a furtive glance through the windowed doors of Cuddy’s office, but she doesn’t look up from her desk. They get through the parking lot, House complaining that this somehow feels like a trap.
Wilson throws House the car keys.
House catches them. Pauses by the nose of Wilson’s car, glaring at him in suspicion with his hand still in the air, post-catch. ‘You’re letting me drive?’
Wilson throws his arms in a shrug. ‘If it shows you that I’m not kidnapping you. Then sure.’
House stares, unmoving. There’s the edge of a smile on his face, as he begins to calculate all of Wilson’s possible motives.
‘Listen, as far as I’m aware, this is a virology conference. If this is a trap, then I’m going to be suffering with you.’
Which isn’t distinctly untrue. This weekend is going to be awful, and he’s still not entirely sure why he signed up to babysit House through the nightmare that’s about to ensue.
Regardless of this, House appears temporarily satisfied—this conversation will be continue in the car, Wilson knows— and so he draws a slow breath and tears his eyes away, taking the driver’s seat. They both slide into the car, doors slamming in sync. And Wilson supposes he could feel guilty for tricking his friend right about now, but they’re both well beyond that. If this were a group-bonding trust exercise, Wilson would have failed.
House turns on the ignition and backs out whilst he’s fiddling with the radio. There are CDs in his glove compartment, but they can spend hours debating over which one to play later. This is almost a four-hour journey. Plenty of time to destroy their friendship over which David Bowie record to put on.
Cuddy had given House the name of a hotel in a town called Saratoga Springs. Wilson wonders how he’s supposed to convince House to stop before then, so they can swap and have Wilson drive them to their real, super-secret destination. And it begins to dawn on him then, as they’re careering down route 206 through Montgomery, that he somehow has to pull this off. Pull the wool over House’s eyes long enough to get him to a corporate team-building trip and keep him there. Where he’ll have to bond. With several human beings. What the hell is he thinking? And what the hell is Cuddy thinking?
No—he knows and understands what Cuddy is thinking. House has put the new fellows through psychological torture by firing and re-hiring them on and off for the past few weeks. Now, they’re officially working for the world-renowned Doctor House, but are triggered into episodes of panic and paranoia every time they breath in their boss’s direction. Meanwhile, Foreman, Chase, and Cameron have watched at the side-lines, offering what advice they can without influencing House’s ultimate decision on who to hire. A colleague-bonding trip is actually a pretty smart way of letting everyone get to know each other, learn from each other, and relax into their new team a little. Learn some trust. Almost like a reward for passing House’s inhumane tests.
The problem with this whole plan, however, is that House is going to be there, too. Wilson doesn’t think House has bonded with anyone or anything since his umbilical cord was cut at birth.
‘How are the new team getting along?’ Wilson asks casually after a surprisingly long conversation about Megan Fox’s acting career, as he watches the rows of trees blur into one stripe of green through his window.
The radio commentator chatters distantly in the background and House turns his head slightly to acknowledge his question. He’s wearing his sunglasses, a frown furrowed above them in the bright light. ‘They’re fine. Kutner is unpredictable. Taub’s insufferable. Foreman’s Foreman. And Thirteen still has Huntington’s. Also she’s bi.’
Wilson blinks, stares through the windscreen. ‘Oh- w- did she…? Tell you that?’
House looks at him again, more sardonic this time. ‘Yes. She stayed over at mine and we shared coming-out stories over Cosmos.’
Shared coming-out stories? ‘What gave it away?’
Another look. ‘Wilson. She wears suspenders and loose jeans.’
‘So she hasn’t actually told you that she’s bisexual. You’re just assuming.’
House doesn’t respond, which leaves an uncomfortable silence where there would usually be bickering. Wilson looks through the window feeling uncertain and a little off-kilter.
Naturally, House has always been observant. It’s one of his Sherlock Holmes traits. Now, however, he wonders if House ever figured out that Wilson’s not exactly one-hundred-percent straight, either – whether the constant gay jokes are pointed, or oblivious. Before his second wife, Julie, he’d had a few… flings with men. Nothing more. He’s always dismissed those events as mere experimentations. Sometimes, though, he feels the pull of a thought, a feeling deep inside his chest (that has nothing to do with House, no, no way) and he’ll stop short, push it away for a very distant future consideration.
And then it occurs to him, smacking him in the face like a bookshelf tumbling down on top of him. House didn’t deflect. He didn’t do his usual thing of saying something totally transparent, so thinly sarcastic that it’s clearly the truth. Instead, House went silent. House doesn’t go silent unless he’s on the verge of actually talking about something.
Wilson stares, and House doesn’t look back.
OK. Perhaps something to break the silence. The radio is mundane and irritating, but the CDs in his glove compartment aren’t. Leaning forward, Wilson pops it open and discovers that some of the CDs he’d burned for journeys to work are still there, even though he thought he’d cleared them all out last month. House peers over at him as he rifles through the piles.
Wilson feels that he understands House well after around fifteen years of knowing each other. They’ve been through plenty; too much. Sometimes he regrets ever being bailed out of that jail in New Orleans, helped by a fresh-faced stranger called Gregory House. But then he looks at the years that have aged his friend’s face- years that they’ve shared- and he doesn’t regret a second. He thinks he knows a lot about House, but he knows for a fact that he doesn’t know everything. Those moments of silence, of House holding his face in his hands to avoid eye-contact, of almost telling him something important and then dropping a joke instead. No. Wilson understands his best friend better than anyone, which means he also sees that there are lots of things about House that he’ll never know for certain.
‘Why aren’t you needling me?’
Wilson shifts in his seat, looks away from the glove compartment. ‘Huh?’
‘Why aren’t you guilt tripping me into telling you my life-story?’
It doesn’t take as long to translate House’s language as it used to, but it does require some concentration. And then it hits him again – another pile of books dropping from nowhere – and now his head is swimming a little. Because House is defensive. Proving Wilson’s germinating theory: Thirteen isn’t straight, House isn’t, either. ‘Do you… want to talk about it?’
A brief hesitation. ‘It creeps me out when I don’t see your manipulative paws all over my personal life.’ Another pause. Then, nodding to the case in Wilson’s hand, ‘What’s that?’
‘A CD, captain. A strange, disc-like contraption that earth people use to play music.’
His eyes flit between the road and the CD in question, sitting quite innocently in its case but receiving some intense looks of criticism, nonetheless. ‘I am banning any kind of musical theatre from this road-trip.’
‘I-?’ He stalls. It is a closely kept secret between the two of them that Wilson has a startlingly deep knowledge of the soundtrack from The Chorus Line. ‘I do listen to other kinds of music.’
‘Oh yeah? Prove it, then, nerd,’ House retorts in his best impression of a first grader.
Wilson pops open the case, recovering enough from this small interaction to slide the CD in. The first song that comes on is Creedence Clearwater Revival, which he knows House will appreciate. Then, because he thinks he’s found his feet again: ‘If you— want to talk about it, I—’
-- actually wouldn’t mind talking through the topic of sexuality myself, he’s about to say. But House gets there first.
‘Don’t wanna talk about it.’
His lips are pursed and his brows are raised, a look that’s both good-natured and stubborn. Wilson sighs.
‘You brought it up. And you asked me why I wasn’t pursuing it… so here I am, pursuing it.’
The sound of guitar solos fills the car. Then, ‘Don’t wanna talk about it.’
And that settles it. The white lines stretch ahead and blur into one. The sky is blue. It’s a nice day, and it’s unseasonably warm outside. It almost makes him want to roll down a window.
He’s probably going to regret broaching this topic, but: ‘So, if you don’t think this is a conference trip, then… what are your theories?’
‘You’re only asking me that because you feel guilty.’ And then he’s smiling, a smug smile, his I’ve worked it out smile. ‘You’re asking me because you feel bad for making me feel bad about not talking about my feelings, and now you’re asking me to divulge my theories so you can see if I’ve figured out where we’re really going. Because you know where we’re going. Don’t you?’
God, he’s a bastard. ‘Define “know”.’
House scoffs, head tilted back in vindication. ‘I knew it. You’re a traitor to your kind. How did Cuddy lure you to the dark side this time?’
‘She didn’t need to blackmail me, I actually agree with many of the things she suggests. I just… don’t always have the backbone to not take your side. So, where do you think we’re going? I’m intrigued to hear your thoughts.’
The song changes and House drums his fingers against the wheel. ‘Sensitivity training.’
‘No.’
‘A work bonding trip.’
‘No, thank god,’ he laughs. Oh, this is going to be awful.
House looks at him, and even through the sunglasses, Wilson knows he’s being measured and weighed.
He sighs. ‘Fine. We’re going on a retreat.’
A beat. Then, ‘Oh, Jimmy. We finally get to have that massage together.’
‘Cuddy figured you wouldn’t go alone, and she also figured that your new fellows need some time to work with each other without their evil overlord around. You know, so they can actually learn to trust each other, without being sent running around in circles.’
House pouts. ‘But it’s fun watching them run around in circles. Aren’t they happy? Should I get them a bigger cage?’
‘They need to settle in.’
Wilson wonders if House will take the bait. As casually as possible, he looks out the window and drums his hands against his thighs to the music. House stares at him.
‘Eyes on the road, House,’ he says.
He does as he’s told. Ever since that guy came in with Mirror Syndrome and mimicked Wilson, he’s been feeling quietly smug about being deemed the person of authority in their relationship. It’s all the more satisfying because House doesn’t even seem to realise little moments like this – opening the door for Wilson, taking his plate for him. Small things that make Wilson wonder what it would be like if –
‘You’re lying,’ House says.
Wilson sighs.
‘You do realise that as soon as we get there and I figure out what we’re actually doing, I’ll steal your keys and abandon you in Saratoga Springs.’
‘Oh, yes, I’m prepared,’ Wilson replies with mild threat.
It makes House smile.
For a while, they talk about nothing, random things that pop into their minds. Their conversation winds as friends’ conversations do, the subject changing until it’s two hours later and they can’t figure out how they got from the topic of log cabins to last year’s winner of American Idol. It’s sunny and Wilson feels himself relax, feels House relax and laugh in the way he’s only ever seen him laugh with him. Did Stacy ever make him laugh?
The landscape changes a little, growing more built up as they bypass New York and then head further upstate, where it gets greener and the forests denser. And there’s something sort of nice about House driving, about this entire road trip, like they’re escaping together. It makes him almost forget that they’re about to reconvene with their Plainsboro colleagues in cabin, instead of going on holiday together – sun in House’s hair and the edge of his sunglasses, the remnants of a smile, lingering after some biting joke Wilson made at his expense. He rolls up the sleeves of his sweater and pulls his tie out from under it, where it had already been loosened. House turns – the instinct to look in the direction of movement, more than anything else, but it’s nice when House looks. He doesn’t like to think about why it’s nice.
‘You need to turn right here,’ Wilson says, as he’s changing the CD.
‘Saratoga Springs is straight ahead.’
He winces. ‘We’re… not going to Saratoga Springs. At least, not to the town itself.’
House slows to a stop and indicates. Since there’s no traffic here, he puts on the hand break and looks at Wilson. ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed.’
‘The map book says there’s a diner down here, just on the left. We’ll go inside, I’ll get you a drink, I’ll drive us the rest of the way.’
House shakes his head at him, gives the weary sigh of a parent. ‘I will make you pay for this.’
All things considered, House seems quite calm about this whole situation. Of course, if he knew they were going to a colleague team-building trip… ‘I know,’ Wilson says. ‘You can make me pay later. I anticipate it will be cruel and you’ll make me wish I’d never been born. For now, just make a right turn.’
He does so, with some reluctance. Wilson is astonished that they’ve got this far without House doing a U-turn. And yet they drive a little further, deeper into the forest until Wilson spots the diner on the left. Unfortunately for House, they are actually a lot closer to their destination than he might realise. This diner is also a bar, a twenty-five minute walk along a footpath to the cabin they’re renting. If he remembers correctly from the images on the website Cuddy showed him, there’ll be a sign further along the road for ‘Broadleaf Park’, where there are several other cabins like theirs, probably occupied with similarly reluctant office workers or lawyers or bankers.
So far, no sign is visible, so House pulls over unawares and in silence, an expression that shows he’s deep in puzzle-solving mode. The gravel crackles underneath the car wheels and he stops, pulling off his sunglasses and swinging out of the car. Wilson takes a deep, steadying breath, and follows.
‘Ah, smell that sweet, fresh air,’ he announces with some theatre.
House no longer looks relaxed, or happy. He’s casting his eyes about the woodland and the country diner behind him, head tilted downward and gaze looking up. That animal look of distrust that he has when he doesn’t understand something. It almost makes Wilson feel bad, but he’s also sort of enjoying having the upper hand.
‘Come on. I’ll get you a beer.’
‘Where are we,’ House mumbles.
‘About three miles out of Saratoga Springs.’
It’s the truth, and House can tell, so they step inside the diner in strained silence. They take a booth; Wilson buys House a beer, and a coke for himself; they share some fries, or at least, he pretended he’d bought them for himself and allowed House to steal some, because that’s the only way they can share food; House falls into a deeper stupor of puzzle-solving and resentment; Wilson hums along badly to the ‘60s boombox in the corner.
After about twenty, tense minutes, Wilson takes the driver’s seat and leads them the rest of the way. And House has begun sighing and rolling his eyes and making cheap snipes at him, getting bitchier and bitchier like a cat who knows they’re getting closer to the vets. And they drive past the Broadleaf Park sign, House shooting him an accusatory look, and Wilson whistling cheerfully to himself, enjoying this a little too much. And then it reaches the point where he has to concentrate, because he needs to figure out which cabin is theirs. But he sees the sign, a tiny number 10 on a wooden plank hidden behind some artfully draped foliage, and he turns his car, trying not to get it too muddy and probably failing. No cars parked here yet. Which means the others haven’t arrived, which can only be a good thing. No need to spook House any more than he already has.
Wilson turns off the engine. He steps out. And then, unlike before, he actually does feel overwhelmed by the fresh air.
And that view.
They’re right by the lake. Huge and blue-grey under a spring sky, glittering a little. The sort of lake that he was terrified of as a kid, because it reminds him of Friday the 13th. The cabin is a decent size, with a balcony and porch, the trees above moving in the breeze like a stop-motion painting of all the greens in the colour-spectrum. And there’s the sound of a bird above.
‘That sounds like an eagle,’ he says, quite affably.
‘Don’t act like you know anything about nature,’ House snorts. The car door slams and he leans on his cane, sighs. ‘This is either a retreat, or a work team-building trip. You had better hope it’s the first.’
Oh, God. He is so dead. ‘Let’s just go inside,’ Wilson says.
They grab their bags from the boot. They head up to the front door, going up the steps – each step feeling just a little closer to certain death, in Wilson’s case – and he tries the door, expecting it to be locked.
It’s not.
The door opens. The lights are on. And there are voices.
‘Oh God,’ he finally says out-loud.
House freezes in the doorway. He glares at Wilson, drops his bag in the hallway. And then he marches into the very nice, beautifully furnished living room to find all his old and new fellows, drinking bottles of Heineken.
‘Lo and behold,’ announces Taub with a wry smile from an armchair.
Foreman leans an arm against the bookcase, brows raised in interest, waiting for the shit to hit the fan. Chase sits on the arm of the sofa that Cameron and Thirteen are sharing, and Kutner is kneeling by the cooler, holding two beers in his hands.
He looks up at House, then Wilson, then House again, and extends a Heineken. ‘Beer?’ he asks innocently.
House turns on Wilson. ‘You asshole.’
Foreman shakes his head and hides his laugh behind his beer bottle. In fact, all of them seem to be in good spirits. Wilson throws his arms in the air in irritation.
‘You guys weren’t meant to arrive yet! We were meant to get a head start!’
‘We saw your car parked at the diner, I think we only just passed you,’ Thirteen explains, with a large dose of humour to her voice.
‘Well. This is going to be…’ Chase starts and doesn’t finish.
‘If it’s any consolation,’ Taub adds, ‘none of us want to be here, either.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Kutner responds.
They all look at Wilson. House continues to glare. Wilson deflates.
‘A team-bonding trip,’ House argues, as if it were all his idea. Which it certainly fucking was not. ‘You asshole.’
‘Blame Cuddy! Not me! I don’t even need to be here, I’m just here for moral support –‘
‘Fuck you.’
House stalks towards him. And for a second, Wilson has a horrible feeling that he’s about punch him – he’s got a furious purpose in his eyes, jaw clenched, and he’s dropped his cane on the floor. But then he realises that he’s trying to get his keys, and Wilson ducks out of the way just in time.
‘No-’
‘You expect me- ’ House wraps his arms around Wilson’s waist, trying to reach his hands, ‘to make s’mores-’ he wriggles free, extending his arm above his head, but House is taller, ‘and sing Kumbaya with these morons-’
Everyone else is laughing. It’s fair enough, it’s a ridiculous sight, two grown men scrabbling over car keys. House grabs his wrist, and Wilson wrestles free by giving his other arm a Chinese burn and sprinting out of the cabin. He hears House growl with infuriation, then the footsteps of him following. He tries to shut the front door in House’s face, but narrowly misses the opportunity as he stops it with his cane.
This really does feel like a horror movie.
He’d meant to have time to hide his car key, somewhere that House would never find. The surprise is ruined, so he hasn’t had the opportunity. Now, he hops down the cabin steps and fiddles with the keyring, trying to wrangle the car key off the chain –
‘Give me the keys.’
‘No!’ he retorts, feeling like a five-year-old.
‘I can’t believe you’ve brought me to a work bonding trip-’
House is prowling towards him, eyes wide and angry and a palm turned upwards for Wilson to give him the keys. Wilson backs away slowly, finding that this is strangely sort of fun. Just another prank. Satisfying and exhilarating, all of House’s attention on him. ‘Again. Not my idea. I came with you to ease the pain.’
That makes him scoff. ‘Oh, yeah, thank you so much – you know what? I actually feel like I can get through the weekend now I know you’re here, suffering with me.’
Well, that had sort of been the plan. Wilson flounders. House stalks closer.
Is he going to punch him?
‘You’re not leaving.’
‘Yeah. I am.’
‘No, you’re not. This’ll be good for you-’
‘I will punch you in the face,’ he says, although the threat seems suddenly quite thin.
House approaches, Wilson swallows, tries not to lean away, stands his ground. ‘You’re staying.’
‘Oh yeah?’ House says, leaning forward until their noses are less than a foot away, his eyes challenging and completely captivating as if they have the power to freeze Wilson to the spot. ‘Make me.’
There’s just a second. Maybe a little longer. There’s a pause where House’s gaze flits down at the car key in his hand, and he knows he only has a second to make his next move before House wins this fight – because he’s managed to completely incapacitate Wilson, somehow, standing so close and staring and – he doesn’t know what to do, so he—
Throws the key into the lake.
They both watch it soar through the sky in a perfect arc, sun glinting off the metal and then making a neat plop as it hits the water.
Time lies suspended, and they look at each other, the wind catching House’s hair. He’s looking at him, totally astonished. Like that time he cut his cane in half. And Wilson knows then, when he looks at his parted lips and furrowed brow, that he’s done for. In so many more ways than he’d anticipated.
Ah, shit. I’m in love with him.
‘You just threw the keys. Into the lake,’ House accuses.
‘Apparently I did,’ Wilson agrees. He gestures to the water. ‘Would you like to go retrieve them?’
‘I’ll get Foreman to hot-wire it.’
‘I’m sure he’d be more than willing to help, he’s always loved enabling you.’
‘There’s gotta be Wi-Fi here. I’ll Google it.’
‘Good luck with that.’
House doesn’t blink. He hasn’t blinked once, or moved. They’re so close, and Wilson suddenly feels like he’s suffocating. Maybe that’s why he’s so light-headed. Maybe it’s the fresh air.
And then, House begins to back away. He points at Wilson and calls over his shoulder, ‘I am going to punish you in ways you can’t even imagine.’
Wilson stands in the muddy carpark, breeze messing with his hair and the sound of the lake lapping against the grassy bank. His hands fall loosely at his sides, and he wonders what’s so wrong with him that he’s actually looking forward to whatever House has in store.
The evening is coming to a pink and orange end, the sky casting a neon light through the windows of the cabin. The living room is warm from the log fire, the coffee table has spilled splodges of guacamole and empty beer bottles. Wilson is sitting on the rug, eying the impressive bookshelves. This place is sort of romantic – the sort of place you see in clothing catalogues advertising cashmere socks and jumpers, lovers drinking cocoa in front of a fireplace. Or, it would be romantic if he weren’t sitting here with all of House’s fellows. Taub and Foreman look like they’re pretending they don’t want to be there, whilst everyone else has given in to the inevitable and slipped happily into drunkenness. Almost everyone else, at least.
‘What was he like?’
Wilson has a guac-loaded chip hovering in front of his mouth when Thirteen asks this. Cameron is leaning forward in her seat, spinning her beer bottle until the bubbles rise. Chase tilts his head back with a small, expectant smile. They are all looking at him.
He eats the chip, says mid-chew, ‘House?’
‘No, Mickey Mouse,’ Foreman replies.
Kutner stares into the distance, suddenly serious. ‘I can’t imagine him as an intern. Or a resident. Or… young. In my head, he was just born a forty-something-year-old grump.’
They all continue to stare, and it seems there’s no way out of it. Wilson shrugs, looking through the window. He can see House, trying to use a radio antenna to unlock Wilson’s car. Idiot. It makes some part of him laugh, though he doesn’t laugh out loud.
‘I didn’t know him when he was an intern,’ Wilson starts, looking back at the bookshelf. He takes a swig of his beer, just to draw out the tension. They’re all completely enraptured, desperate for some information on their enigmatic boss. It makes him feel powerful. ‘We met at a conference in New Orleans. I was fresh out of med school… I was an intern. He was a couple of years ahead, so he was a resident at that point. Told me about Plainsboro…’
Everyone watches. Wilson shrugs again.
‘The rest is history.’
Cameron frowns. ‘That doesn’t tell us anything.’
Chase looks at her. Why do you care so much?
‘He was… dazzlingly talented,’ Wilson admits with a small laugh. ‘He was that asshole kid in his twenties who acted like he knew better than the rest of them, and actually did. I finished my internship at New York Mercy and moved to Plainsboro for a fresh start after the divorce. He got me a residency with him in infectious disease, then I did a round in oncology because I hated following him around and playing catch-up. But… yeah. He did all the shitty groundwork that everyone does when they start out, too. As hard as that is to imagine.’
Taub gasps mockingly. ‘He’s human!’
‘He used to work in a bookshop,’ Wilson suddenly remembers, remarking this out loud. ‘Before I knew him.’
‘What? Really?’ Kutner demands.
‘House in customer service…’ Foreman shakes his head.
‘I’m imagining him throwing copies of War and Peace at customers from behind the till,’ Thirteen says.
‘That’s probably fairly accurate,’ Wilson assents.
They don’t ask him any more questions. Wilson wouldn’t have answered any more. They don’t need to know anything about House, and it’s not his place to tell them anything more than he should. He’s not even sure what he’d tell them. That he was utterly charismatic, everyone loving him despite also hating him? That he’d always been an asshole, just not as much as now? That his sarcasm used to be a lot more endearing, before he started taking Vicodin to deal with a crippling chronic pain? That Wilson was totally swept away by him from day one?
Holy shit, how he’s spent these fifteen years not even realising is unbelievable. It’s so obvious, Wilson considers, as he takes a swig and lets the others’ conversation get drowned out by his thoughts. It’s so obvious that he’s in love with him. And nothing, nothing is ever obvious for Wilson. He tortures himself over minor decisions like what sofa he should get from the furniture store, what he should have for dinner, whether he made the right medical prognosis.
And yet, with House, everything has always felt a lot simpler. Painfully, brazenly truthful. The truth of it bubbles up and he knows, simply knows, now, that he’s been infatuated since that first day.
Wilson stands up. He feels the four beers go to his head the moment he’s upright. ‘Excuse me,’ he announces, and leaves the rest of them to talk about funny medical stories.
The air is cooler. Cold, even, and Wilson wraps the cardigan around him, unrolling his sleeves and rubbing his arms. House is sitting on the gravelled ground by the car, playing with the radio antenna like he’s an orchestra conductor. He looks up at Wilson, then away again, staring out at the lake with a great deal of petulance.
Wilson comes to a stop and folds his arm to keep his hands warm. ‘Any luck?’
‘No.’ He drops the antenna. ‘Your car won’t let me break into it.’
‘You didn’t think to smash the window?’ he asks, having no idea why he’s suggesting such a thing. ‘I didn’t think you’d be above that.’
‘You take me for some petty thief,’ House jokes.
Wilson pauses for comic effect. ‘Yes.’
For a second, House doesn’t respond, one leg stretched out in front of him and the other bent, an arm resting on his knee. ‘It’s going to be a cold night. I didn’t want to drive home with a broken window.’
‘That’s very considerate of you.’
They appear to have reached an impasse. The shadows of birds swoop above the surface of the lake. Perhaps they’re bats. It’s too early for cicadas, and too cold, but the air is fresh and clean with spring. Wilson extends a hand towards House. He takes it, and he drags his friend to his feet. They make their way inside slowly, elbows bumping.
‘So. You’re one of her flying monkeys, now.’
Wilson sighs. ‘I’m sorry I dragged you out here against your will and followed Cuddy’s bidding.’ He looks at House to see his response, but he finds his gaze fixed on the ground in front of them as they walk. ‘I don’t exactly want to be here either.’
‘You don’t have to be.’
He shrugs. ‘If it’s what makes you stay…’
‘Why do you want me to stay?’
They both stop, the pink sky going purple-blue, that lavender dusk colour. House stares at him, examines him, and Wilson realises that he has no idea how to answer that question.
Perhaps he thought that it would be nice for House to have a small break from it all. First it was Vogler, then it was Tritter, then his fellows quit – there hasn’t been a single break, and maybe he thought it would be good for him to form some semblance of friendship with these new colleagues. Maybe it was more selfish than that. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to mess around with his friend, play pranks on each other and act like kids. Maybe he actually did want to come.
After all, he’d do anything to be with House. For him. Including lying to cops.
‘Maybe,’ he says slowly, tilting his head in concession, ‘I wanted to get away from it all for a couple of days. It’s not like I have a home to return to right now. I live in a hotel room. This was an excuse to let loose, act like an idiot with my best friend. In a forest.’
House gives him a side-glance as they take the steps to the front door. He opens the door for Wilson, and Wilson notices.
‘If you wanted to get away so bad, all you had to do was ask. We could have run off somewhere together, just the two of us. You could have had me all to yourself.’
It’s a joke. It’s obviously a joke, except usually when House deflects there’s a kernel of truth in it. He tries not to flounder and figure out what he really means, because if he does, he’ll go insane, so he just rolls his eyes and goes with it. House heads towards the staircase, bypassing the living room.
And then he retreats, poking his head around the living room doorframe.
‘I’d like to establish some ground rules,’ he begins.
Fellows, old and new, are tidying up the beer bottles, looking as if they’re getting ready to head to their rooms. And although they seem to be relaxing in each other’s company – for now – they do still listen to House’s authority, falling into silence and looking at him.
‘Number one: nobody calls me Greg. Not even you,’ he says, pointing at Cameron, who had a brief episode of calling everyone by their first names as a power-move one day. ‘And especially not you,’ he says, pointing at Kutner, who looks confused at being singled out like this. ‘Two: I will not participate in any activities which include any of the following words in their description – ‘team’, ‘bonding’, ‘character’, ‘building’, ‘trust’, or ‘buddy’. Three: I will be partnering up with Wilson and Wilson only. If we are forced through some turn of fate to take part in any kind of competitive activity, I will destroy all of you.’
They all watch and wait, fully expecting more rules. Wilson included. Then –
‘Oh, and four: I sleep in the nude. Knock before entering.’
House disappears from the living room threshold, leaving his colleagues with that mental image. Naturally, Wilson knows that he doesn’t sleep in the nude at all, after all the nights he’s crashed on his sofa, but the looks on their faces are too funny to correct him.
The staircase is wide, wooden, and Wilson is relieved to note that the whole cabin has been furnished nicely – not littered with animal heads or civil-war rifles. He picks up his bag, which he’d left on the landing, and the two of them search for the spare rooms.
It goes like this.
The first room on the left has two bags, two outfits laid out for tomorrow. That’s Chase and Cameron.
The second room has a bag unpacked. Probably Thirteen.
The third room has a Star Wars jumper crumpled up on the pillow. Kutner.
The fourth room has a pair of boxers and a tshirt next to the toothbrush and current issue of New York Medical Journal. Foreman.
The fifth room has an expensive looking leather weekend bag. Taub.
The sixth room is a bathroom.
The seventh room is another bathroom.
The eight room is a free bedroom.
There are no other rooms on this floor.
After searching for another magical door to appear, both House and Wilson return to the eighth room and hover in the doorway, looking in. It’s big. The ceilings are vaulted. There are chocolates on the pillow.
‘There has to be some kind of mistake,’ Wilson says.
House rounds on him. ‘Yes, the mistake is that we’re here at all.’
‘Cuddy – knew that I was coming. Did she just – miscount? I –?’
House throws his bag onto the bed, and then throws himself onto the bed, bouncing a little with his arms spread wide across the white sheets. ‘You can take the sofa.’
Wilson closes his eyes, sighs. Throws his free hand up in the air in surrender and leaves the room.
‘Close the door behind you.’
He scowls, but he does, pulling it shut with more force than necessary before heading downstairs.
This is going to be truly awful. Forget ‘fun weekend away with friend’, this is going to be torture. And he’s thrown his car key into a lake. A lake. What was he thinking-?
Kutner passes him on the staircase. Then, over Wilson’s shoulder- ‘Only one bed left, huh?’
He throws his hand in the air again, this time in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Yeah. Apparently.’
There’s a look that passes across Kutner’s face that he doesn’t entirely like. It’s almost a knowing smile. ‘Classic.’ Before he can demand any kind of clarification, Kutner’s already up the stairs and heading to his room. ‘Night, Wilson.’
‘… Night?’
Everyone else seems to have been aware of this issue as well, because the moment they see Wilson schlepping in with his weekend bag, they’re biting their lips not to laugh as they all head upstairs. Wilson throws his bag on the floor by the sofa.
‘Banished to the sofa for the night?’ Taub asks conversationally like a bartender. ‘I know the feeling. He’ll come ‘round.’
‘We’re not –’ How many times has Wilson had to argue that they’re not a couple? How often has he been riled up by jokes about their relationship? ‘Ha-ha.’
Taub smirks, and disappears up the stairs himself, leaving Wilson alone. He looks about the room. The sofa is big. There are blankets. The fire is still going. This should be fine.
Oh God. None of this is going to be fine.