Chapter Text
May 1999. The Warner-Cuddy Residence.
Weddings were stupid. House could write a book describing in detail the myriad ways in which weddings were stupid. In fact, he had. He’d even shopped the draft around with a few publishers and gotten some bites before Stacy caught on to the scheme.
She wasn't thrilled with the possibility of his authorial debut. After all, the publication of Put the Ring Down and No One Gets Hurt (alternately titled Weddings are Wack: Murdering the Matrimonial Madness) by Gregory House, professional wedding planner, could put a dent in their business. People might not want to pay the world’s least romantic misanthrope to plan their wedding if they read such a manifesto. House countered that 1) it would be really fucking funny though and 2) people already defied their better instincts and paid him great deals of money to organize their crackpot ceremonies, so what harm could a book deal do? Business hadn’t tanked after they’d introduced their special loyal customer rate: 10% off your second wedding planned with us, just provide proof of divorce!
Stacy admitted the humor in the proposal but remained unmoved on its lack of financial wisdom. Appealing to her wife, a notably humorless doctor House referred to exclusively by her last name of “Cuddy,” produced no better results.
“Wilson would think it’s funny,” House insisted.
“Then why don’t you tell him about it?” Cuddy asked, curls bouncing innocently.
“Eat glass,” House deftly countered.
Wilson wasn’t a topic to be taken lightly at the moment.
Stacy decided she and her wife would prefer a House-free home at that point. House tried to lash himself to their kitchen table with his belt in order to better refuse the offer to evacuate the premises. But his best-frenemies-slash-exes knew his tricks too well and deposited him shortly on the stoop with only minimal use of sharp heel-points in sensitive areas of anatomy.
He sat on their concrete steps, licking his wounds and still thinking about the book. It currently ended with a list of recommended steps for the patient concerned they may have contracted Engagement-itis or even full-blown Wedding Syndrome:
1) Drop what you’re doing and run for the border while you still can.
2) Consult a psychological professional. Maybe you can blame this all on your mother?
3) If worst comes to worst, sign a goddamn pre-nup. Otherwise he/she/they WILL get the Camaro, the kids, and the kitchen sink.
This conclusion haunted his bike ride back to his own empty apartment. Even revving the engine at a disapproving neighbor didn’t make him feel better. Nothing would that particular night.
The night before his oldest client, his best friend, and just possibly the love of his life (shut up shut up shut up), was set to walk down the aisle with wife number three. Third time’s the fucking charm, evidently!
The prenup criteria didn’t apply (unlikely that Julie would fight for custody of House in a court of law when things inevitably went to hell). House wouldn’t blame his mom for where he was now. He couldn’t even blame his dad. And in more ways than one, he couldn’t run.
How the hell had it come to this?
If he wanted to locate the source of this particularly intractable cardiac infection (diagnosis: heartsickness) then he had to start at the end. The end of his medical career. The end of the life he thought he needed. In a lot of ways, that end had set up all the other endings to come. Break-ups and lapses and waning affection—a whole lifetime of endings. Starting with the night he met Wilson.
Eight years earlier: April 1991. 29th Street Tavern, Baltimore.
On any other night, a pair of beautiful brunettes approaching House at a bar would’ve been cause for celebration. Especially when one was a semi-friend who’d proven vulnerable to the occasional one-night stand when sufficiently stressed by school and plied with booze, and the other had the sweet, unspoiled look of someone House would very much like to bring to his knees.
Another time, though.
“Cuddy,” House grumbled, “I didn’t realize you were bringing company to the postmortem.”
“What are we autopsying?” Cuddy inspected the glasses littering the bar at House’s elbow, “Your sobriety?”
“Sobriety schmobriety. I have been…ejected!” House raised his freshest scotch in a toast, “Medical school has officially said, it’s not me, it’s you. Changed the locks, gave me a box with my stuff in it, and started making out with the hot guy they told me not to worry about. Metaphorically,” House squinted into his drink, “Though even metaphorically I’m not sure who a med school would make out with. A law school?”
Cuddy’s pretty features crumpled under the weight of misplaced and entirely unnecessary guilt. “House, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“But being a doctor was your dream. Your life.”
“Yes. And that dream and that life are dead and buried and screaming six feet under. But you being sorry about it will just piss me off more.”
“You could appeal the decision—”
“I could. I’m not going to. Whether you cheat on a test or on your girlfriend, lying to cover it up doesn’t save anything, it just prolongs the inevitable. I cheated. They think I’m the scum of the earth. Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s over.”
Drawn like a moth to sadness, the newcomer laid a soft hand on House’s arm, “Well, cheating scum or not, I’m sorry too. Though I can pretend not to be if you’d prefer.”
“You could also pretend to be a stripper to comfort me,” House suggested.
“Darn, I left my G-string in my other pants.”
House cracked his first smile since his future had crashed down around his ears.
“House, this is James Wilson,” Cuddy belatedly introduced her guest, “We met at the endocrinology lecture.”
House took a second visual tour of soon-to-be-doctor James Wilson. Very pretty. House was taken, but it was still nice to have fine art on the walls, so to speak. “Nice to meet ya, James. Jim. Jimmy. No, none of those are working for me.”
“What would you prefer? John, Jack, Jeff?”
“Worse and worse. I think I’ll have to follow the surname rule.”
Wilson—for that was what he was now dubbed, and shall forever be—nodded wisely and glanced at his companion, “I get it, that’s why she’s Cuddy and you’re House. That’s kind of cute. In a mildly sociopathic way.”
“Stacy’s the only one who has first name privileges. Getting to nail him on the regular and all.” Cuddy glanced around pointedly, “Where is she?”
House frowned up at Cuddy. “Stacy, Stacy, Stacy. I’m starting to think you like my girlfriend more than me.”
“I’d like any given toad in a swamp more than you. But Stacy should be here to support you.”
“She would be. If I’d told her.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Because Stacy gave up everything for my dream. She was on track to get her own big shiny advanced degree, and now she’s temping in an office to support us while I’m busy flunking out of school and making a mockery of her sacrifice.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I sound a prize fool.”
House sloshed his drink half onto the bar, spinning around to find Stacy stood arms akimbo just beyond his shoulder.
“How did you—” House found himself asking instead of deducing, which was a sign of just how fucked up he was.
“I did something really crazy. I checked the messages on the answering machine at home. Heard one from the school confirming your immediate expulsion from the program.” Her head hung at a judgmental yet sympathetic angle, dark hair swooping past one eye to curl at her neck. She was especially beautiful when she thought he was being especially stupid.
“I was really stupid,” House admitted.
“Yeah, yeah, Greg House impulsively breaks the rules to suit his own imagined ethical universe of broader rights and wrongs. More news at ten.”
“You definitely know me too well.” House snapped his fingers at the bartender and demanded a gin and tonic, which he got with typical ‘fuck off’ speed. He skidded it down the bar to Stacy, who stood on his left but didn’t sit.
“At least you know my order.” She downed the drink in one go and then stalked off in the direction of the least crowded table in the very crowded bar. She leaned in to say something to the pair of dudebros taking up a table sized for at least six. The blood drained from their faces. They left in a hurry. Stacy spun around with a smile and gestured for the trio at the bar to join her.
“God, I love that woman,” House mumbled, and slid off his stool to follow.
Cuddy and Stacy took the interior seats against the beer-tacky wall while House and Wilson bravely sat in the waitstaff-splashing corridor zone.
They all agreed to drink not to the death of House’s medical career, but to literally anything else. Wilson ordered them all shots and House decided his good first impression had been right on the money. This guy was cute and funny and amenable to keeping House well-liquored. House wanted to put him in a little wooden music box and keep him in his pocket.
Maybe House was already pretty drunk. Whatever.
“To the 29th!” Cuddy started them off neutrally with a wave to their current setting. They all did a shot with the tired expertise of professionals on the wrong side of their twenties.
“To that McDonalds that opened in Moscow!” House offered, thinking he could really go for some Mickey D’s right now.
“That’s his way of saying ‘world peace,’” Stacy explained.
“No it fucking isn’t.”
“To world peace and mediocre fries!” Wilson compromised and House affectionately knocked their glasses together.
“To the NBA!” House suggested.
“To the W NBA!” Cuddy corrected.
“To closeted dykes,” he shot back.
“To useless fags,” she retorted.
“To new friends,” Wilson intervened. When House booed loudly, he modified, “and new enemies.” House really wanted to know what his mouth tasted like. Stacy better get House back to the apartment before he was inebriated enough to think blowing this guy in the men’s room was a stellar idea. (It wouldn’t be the first time.) Given Cuddy's unerring gaydar, Wilson was probably at least pally with Dorothy and might be amenable to the suggestion.
Whereas Stacy preferred stolid political terms like “queer” or “bisexual” for herself, House enjoyed describing his sexuality in the least clarifying and most objectionable language possible. Ideally, a person forcing his opinion on the subject would leave the conversation half-convinced he was some sort of double agent and a top-tier pervert. They wouldn’t be wrong.
The toasts continued.
“To women’s breasts!” (House.)
“To men’s breasts!” (Cuddy.)
“Rabbit season!” Stacy called, matched by a perfect, “Duck season!” reply from Wilson. They clinked their glasses while House and Cuddy growled at each other a bit.
“To German opera!” Stacy continued, slapping an ancient Die Fledermaus poster taped to the wall near her face.
“To German women!” House tacked on.
“To German women in opera!” Cuddy proposed, which produced a détente in the House-Cuddy skirmish.
“To the liver transplant I’ll need, come tomorrow,” Wilson hefted his glass.
“To illegally performing Wilson’s liver transplant tomorrow,” House matched the gesture.
“To suing House for back alley organ dealing tomorrow,” Wilson parried and downed his shot before House could raise a counter-suit.
House turned and gave Stacy his often used, ‘Can I please play the threesome card tonight?’ lone-eyebrow-raise. She returned her less commonly deployed, ‘I’m not saying no’ lip-curl. He followed up with the double-action, ‘How about foursome?’ eyebrow waggle. She said something with a wink that House couldn’t repeat in mixed company. He just about rubbed his hands together in evil glee.
Then, of course, Wilson had to go and kill the mood. “To my fiancée!”
“To your…frankfurter?” House suggested, hopeful that a misplaced consonant could account for the cold prickle down his spine.
“My fiancée, Sam. We just got engaged,” Wilson sighed, a dopey smile creasing his face. He still looked hot. It was deeply unfair.
House gave Stacy the world’s most pathetic kicked-puppy eyes and she patted his knee in sympathy. “All the good ones...” she murmured in his ear and kissed his cheek before returning to the toast and cheering (betrayer), “To your engagement! We just met you and don’t know her, but still wish you all the best.” She kicked House under the table preemptively, nipping his unborn “no we don’t” in the bud.
“Congrats,” Cuddy squeezed Wilson’s forearm, “How long have you and Sam been together?”
“Almost six months. Which might not seem like long, but when you know, you know.”
“Six months, huh?” House jeered, “Practically a lifetime. Or at least, two thirds of one.”
Wilson narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t the nineteenth century. There’s no baby.”
“Too bad. At least that would be a decent reason to get locked down by some random girl you’re shtupping.”
“Here we go,” Stacy closed her eyes and pressed an elegant hand to her temple.
Cuddy flicked her pointer finger in House’s face, “You’re mocking them for not taking it slow? You and Stacy moved in together five days after you met!”
Wilson’s face lit up with a romantic glow and House blew out that candle as quickly as possible. “Yeah, we moved in to a cheap apartment, we didn’t sign legally-bonding lifetime contracts. I’m not even on her lease.”
“That’s because you’re a menace, dear. And I love my credit score more than I love you.”
“That’s fair,” House slung a happy arm around her shoulders, “And you also love me enough to stay even though you know I’m not, as they say in the movies, the marrying kind.”
“I guess I’m not surprised that you don’t believe in marriage,” Cuddy sighed, crossing her arms.
“That makes marriage sound like a UFO. There’s nothing to believe in, it exists, it’s common, it’s deadly and closer than you think.”
“Married people live longer on average,” Wilson argued.
“Married men,” Cuddy broke in, “live longer because they get fawned on by women. Their wives actually have statistically shorter lives. Because, you know, the fawning.”
“See!” House pointed at her.
“Don’t co-opt my feminism for your tirade,” Cuddy pointed right back.
“Too late! Marriage is sexist, in addition to being generically stupid.”
Although clearly on the road to irritated, Wilson didn’t seem insulted. He seemed…engaged. Which was also hot. And not helpful to House’s ‘don’t fuck the almost-married man’ campaign. “What’s your beef with commitment? How long have you and Stacy been together?”
“Two glorious years—”
Stacy coughed, “—three years last February—”
“—three glorious years of happy semi-monogamous commitment without the threat of a ring.”
“So, what, you just hate the institution?”
House nodded. “Yes. And everything it stands for and all the legal and social bullshit that goes with it.”
“Well, if that’s all…”
“Marriage kills relationships,” House pronounced, finally getting his teeth into the meat of his rant (Stacy went about locating more pretzels, in no need of a reprise), “perfectly good functioning partnerships rot and wither because of the artificial constraints matrimony puts on human beings. A marriage is a third party, the thing people have to be loyal to more than each other. It’s an ideal. And people can’t live up to ideals. Putting a person on the matrimonial pedestal guarantees only one thing: that they’ll come tumbling down.”
House had been tipping further and further forward and now Wilson met him halfway so they were almost nose to nose. “You don’t think two people can promise to love, honor, and cherish one another, and then follow through on their word?”
“Sure, they can. But if they really wanted to, why would they need a legal document, financial incentive, and the immense social pressure of their hundred closest family and friends to keep them to it?”
“Those aren’t…threats. You don’t get married to—to blackmail someone into staying with you forever.”
“No?”
“No!”
“Three years,” House predicted, leaning back and putting a safer distance between them.
“Pardon?”
“Now’s the part where he gets really personal with the insults,” Cuddy explained, offering Stacy peanuts when her pretzel quest ended in vain.
“You think my marriage will only last three years?” Wilson realized.
“One year of happiness while the sex is still good and the novelty hasn’t worn off,” House ticked the points on his fingers, “One year of mediocre contentment as you get the itch but tell yourself it’s just ordinary growing pains in the relationship and it’ll be better once your residency is over. And one year of complete and total misery as you realize you’re suffocating and this whole till-death thing was a massive mistake but you don’t have a clue how to admit that to her or to yourself.”
Wilson fish-mouthed in shock for a minute before frowning and grabbing a handful of peanuts.
“Wow,” Stacy smiled kindly at him, “You didn’t just survive your first House-shock, you made it through without crying, screaming, or attempted violence. I wish I had something to give you to mark the occasion.”
“Had my relationship relentlessly savaged by a drunk stranger and all I got was this lousy T-shirt?”
“That wasn’t relentless,” House contradicted, “trust me, you’ll know relentless—”
“Anyway,” Cuddy interrupted brightly, reaching her House-nonsense saturation point, “Wilson, have you started talking wedding details or are you just enjoying the engagement?”
“We’ve actually already picked a date,” Wilson bounced back to excited happiness with admirable speed, “It’s just four months out, which we’ve been informed is insanely short notice and means no professional wedding planner will go near us.”
“Who needs a professional?” House interjected, not liking how quickly attention had drifted from his well-argued thesis on the puerility of marriage, “Any old idiot can plan a wedding.”
“Oh, really?” Stacy replied archly.
“Sorry, babe,” House gave an exaggerated grimace and stage-whispered to Wilson, “Business major. With a concentration in—”
“—event management,” Stacy completed the thought, “which is why I know that any old idiot can ruin a wedding. You, for instance, could throw a notably disastrous wedding.”
“On the contrary, any wedding of mine—planned, that is, not participating—would be a goddamn party to remember.”
“Be that as it may—or may not—you haven’t got the head for details.”
“I’ve got the head for other things,” House waggled his brows and leaned in to bite at her neck.
“Down boy,” she splashed the remains of her drink in his hair.
“Seriously, between the two of us, you on deets and me on the vision…” House got a little glassy-eyed as he stared into space.
“Uh oh,” Cuddy said under her breath, “I don’t like that look.”
“I could do it,” he muttered, then wiggled Stacy by the shoulder, “We could do it.”
“Do what?” Stacy asked sensibly.
House pointed at Wilson as Whitney Houston hit a high note on the bar’s tinny radio speakers.
“Do Wilson?”
Wilson’s eyes went wide. House observed the rising flush with pleasure and corrected somewhat regretfully, “Do Wilson’s wedding. Duh.”
“Do it as in…”
“As in, I’m no longer an unemployed loser med student, I’m just an unemployed loser. You’ve told me you can’t stand to go back to law school after breathing free, decently paid, full-night’s sleep air. Maybe we could both use a career change. Unless you’ve become really passionate about stenography.”
“Right. Because a pivot to wedding planning is so natural and obvious.”
“For you it is. For me…well, that’s what would make it interesting. And obviously, if it sucks ass I’ll chuck it out the window, right after those last three wasted years of learning medicine.”
House turned on Wilson, ready to be showered with praise for his brilliant turning of booted-out-of-school-lemons into wedding-cash-lemonade.
Wilson said kindly, “You’re insane.”
“So are you,” House shot back, “Otherwise you would’ve fled by now.”
“Fine, I’m…intrigued enough to listen to your ravings.”
House steepled his fingers on the table. Partially to look cool and lightly menacing, partly to balance his torso because damn, those shots were starting to kick in.
“Three years,” he reiterated, noting the tightening of muscles around Wilson’s mouth as they returned to House’s dire marital prognostication, “I will do this for you now, for free, because I’m such a nice guy—and also a drunken novice who might serve the reception champagne in red solo cups—and you check in with me in three years. And tell me the truth. If you’re happy, great. I can feel all warm and fuzzy knowing my cynicism has been defeated by the power of true love. But if you’re scanning the phone book for divorce lawyers by flashlight at 2 AM…then you pay me what I’m owed. Whatever a wedding planner would make—hundreds, probably? A thousand dollars? You’ll be a rich fucking doctor by then so it won’t matter. Cut me a big fat check, which still won’t be as sweet as knowing I was right.”
Wilson’s jaw had dropped slowly open during the course of this speech. It snapped shut now with determination. “You know what? You have a deal.” He held his hand out.
House took it and shook it. “Should we seal it with a blood pact? Or maybe a kiss?”
“I think a gentleman’s agreement will cover it,” Wilson hastened to say, “Presuming you even remember this conversation tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’ll remember. By tomorrow night, I’ll have thought up a theme to knock your guests’ goddamn socks off.”
“Speaking of God, I’m Jewish. And Sam’s a semi-lapsed Episcopalian.”
“You just made that word up. And who’s Sam?”
“My future wife.”
“Oh, right. Well, I suppose she can have a say in things too.”
“Generous of you.”
“It’ll take, what, a week to throw this shindig together?” House consulted Stacy with a bleary squint.
“Sure, honey, that sounds reasonable,” Stacy pinched his cheek, smooth with the responsible-student freshness he’d had just that morning, “It’s been a while since you had once of your manic scheming periods. If you don’t sleep and you steal some Ritalin, you could probably do it in a couple days!”
“Good plan. See, this is why I need you as my partner in connubial crime.”
“That at least sounds like a fun new variety of crime.”
Cuddy nervously chewed the rim of her glass, eyes flicking amongst the players. “Wilson. Just a reminder that you don’t have to listen to this crazy man.”
“Oh, I know,” Wilson assured her, “I can handle him.”
House grinned wickedly and Cuddy considered getting that promise in writing.
She winced at Stacy, “I feel like I’ve accidentally introduced a lit match to gasoline.”
“That’s a good metaphor. Wanna get out of the blast range?”
Cuddy nodded and Stacy stood, pressing a kiss to House’s forehead as the women departed for less foolishness-ridden waters, leaving House and Wilson to embark on the most absurd, expertise-free, drunken wedding planning the world had ever seen.
EXCERPT: "How To Plan Your New Best Friend’s Wedding in Just Four Months (With No Money Or Experience)"
This is a special section of the book for you kids and kidettes who find yourselves in the super common position of suddenly and unexpectedly having to plan the wedding of some guy you met in a bar last night.
Never fear, you’re not the first miserable schmuck to get left holding the metaphorical bouquet! (Or the literal bouquet-if-you-know-what-I-mean, if you’re lucky and the bride’s a drinker.) Your friendly neighborhood professional wedding planner is here with some useful advice for the novice event planner currently sweating at the sight of that scary, scary timeline.
A Baker’s Dozen Tips and Tricks for the Eager Amateur:
- Hire a goddamn professional. What do you think this is, a toddler’s birthday party? You can’t fix this with a grocery store cake and a stuffed bear. Unlike a child, the bride won’t forget about this shitshow, given her fully developed hippocampus (hopefully it’s already fully cooked—if not, now’s the time to call CPS, people!)
- No, seriously, you’re looking for an out, but there isn’t one. Unless you’re hosting fewer than thirty people and are happy serving KFC on paper plates at the reception: bite the bullet, call daddy for a little extra moolah, and start interviewing expert wedding planners. The money you would save on their fees pales in comparison to what it’ll cost to do everything badly, twice, and late.
- Okay, fuckface, you think I’m kidding? You think you’re so much smarter than me? Fine. Do it yourself. But you’re going to be making a buttload of lists and somehow never manage to cross anything off of them, ever.
- Reserve a venue. Now.
- Are you sure you reserved it? Good. Are you sure you got it for a good day, not a Wednesday that’ll have everyone being like “what, does this dickhead think I don’t have a job to go to, that I can just swan off to their party on a hump day at their whim?”
- Great. Now you can start telling people. Invitations! Leave plenty of time for the bride to rub her upcoming wedding in the faces of all her single friends.
- Start looking for your big event pillars: food, flowers, décor. Be polite to your vendors. They’re worth their weight in gold. That said, sometimes you just have to shout, “Who’s a girl gotta FUCK to get some decent service around here?!”
- Travel ninety miles in a broke-down jalopy with no A/C because there was a personal ad in the paper advertising 200 lightly used votive candles for $0, you’ve just gotta drive and come get ‘em yourself buddy, and hell you’re on a budget and the price of gas isn’t that high, is it?
- Pick a theme. If you picked “Paris,” you’re wrong, start over.
- Don’t worry about the dress. She will worry about the dress enough for both of you. Get the guy in a tux that fits and call it a day.
- “DJ or live music???” They both suck for different reasons, just pick your poison and move the fuck on.
- Get someone cool to run the bachelor and/or bachelorette parties. You, the person reading this section and trying to plan this wedding, are definitely not cool enough.
- Make sure the happy couple has a decent honeymoon spot to flee to once the horrors have passed. They deserve uninterrupted sex and room service after 24 solid hours of everyone and their cousin (literally) snidely wishing them the best while quietly taking bets on how long it takes for the bride to pork the best man.
Step 1 for amateurs, for real: Get a proper wedding planning book from the bookstore, or the library if you’re a cheap-ass motherfucker who thinks he’s too good to write in the margins. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you’re like, “hey, I’ve already got a book, this book!” Shut the hell up, this isn’t a wedding planning template it’s a half-humor half-exposé half-memoir (yes, that’s too many halves, another clue this isn’t a logistical guidebook). Suggested reading below…
Phone transcript between Greg House and James Wilson
W: So. You’re still serious about this.
H: As a heart attack. Not that I know much about coronaries, being a lowly ex-med-student…
W: Okay, fine. Sam’s barely interested in having a ceremony anyway, I'm the one who thinks this should be a day to remember. So, on my head be it if you end up throwing us a wedding in a disused pool hall with potato chip appetizers and Bud Light for the toasts.
H: [scrabbling noise] Hold on, I’m taking notes, this is great.
W: [the unmistakable sound of a man putting his face in his hands in despair]
H: Stop worrying so much!
W: I can’t, it’s my natural setting. I’m Admiral Anxious.
H: Well, take off your stripes for a minute, I’ve got it all covered. I purchased a book today.
W: Oh, a book? A whole book?
H: Yes, it’s called Wedding Plans: 50 Unique Themes for the Wedding of Your Dreams and it’s by some woman named Sharon Dlugosch. You hear that? Anyone brave enough to put a name like Dlugosch onto an actual printed tome must know her shit.
W: Can’t argue with that logic.
H: I’ve also got Wedding Planning for Dummies in case anyone else gets involved and needs a leg up, and Budget Weddings for Dummies in case you decide to stop being an idiot with your finances.
W: Wouldn’t that require Budget Weddings for Ex-Dummies, then?
H: You raise an interesting point.
W: Sam’s parents still insist on paying for everything, and they also insist on a guest list as long as my arm and a fancy dinner and a dress rehearsal and everything I didn’t even know existed before this engagement.
H: So, the budget is still officially at ‘gee, I wish we could spend this dough on our med school debt’ levels.
W: And also, ‘gee, I’m gonna feel like shit when I send you the bill, so let’s keep it below Taj Mahal’ levels.
H: I will be folding all your reception napkins into cranes myself. Gotcha.
Four unlikely months later: August 1991. Baltimore Event Center.
“If you don’t get that corner straightened out in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to come up there and use your balls as a counterweight,” House threatened the inept grunt currently attempting to set up the chuppah frame.
“Nothing like an atmosphere of violence and fear to set the romantic mood,” a warm voice commented from behind House.
“Oh, look, it’s the condemned man,” House replied, turning to find Wilson in his tux with an excited grin stretching his handsome face. “Come to check out the gallows before the main event?”
“Ha ha,” Wilson slid his hands into his pockets, almost bouncing with joy, “It all looks incredible, House.”
“Yes, well, I am a genius. And Stacy helped. Not too bad for a couple of amateurs.”
“It’s perfect,” Wilson confirmed, “We couldn’t have asked for anything better. Sam wanted me to tell you how grateful we are.”
“Is that so,” House drawled, “Where is the ol’ ball and chain to-be?”
“She, um,” Wilson laughed uncomfortably, “she’s just getting ready. Told me to go and talk to you myself. She…I know it’s ridiculous, but she thinks you don’t like her.”
“I don’t.” House let Wilson’s shocked expression roll off him.
“You don’t—I know you don’t like weddings, brides in general, but—” Wilson tried to fix it. House didn’t let him.
“True, I hate weddings and think brides are hilariously inhuman. But I also do, specifically, despise your bride. She’s a frigid bitch who’ll drain the life out of you in record speed. After spending even as little time as possible with her these past few months, I’m revising my original bet. Two years and six months, then I expect to see my check.”
The happiness curving Wilson’s face hardened into flinty lines of anger. “And you’re telling me this now. Today. My wedding day.”
“I knew it was hopeless to try and talk you out of it earlier. It’s still hopeless now. But this is my last chance to tell you this is a terrible mistake before you’ll need to cough up alimony to get out of dodge. C’mon, Wilson,” House wheedled, more rote performance than actual belief animating his pat to Wilson’s shoulder, “Save yourself a lot of pain. It’s not too late to blow this popsicle stand and get a beer instead.”
For a moment, House thought—hoped—that Wilson was going to punch him. But he didn’t. He just squared his jaw and declared, “You’re a real bastard.”
“I know. I’m thinking of getting it engraved on my business cards.” House decided to give the traditional handshake a miss. “Since your mega-controlling wife will surely ban me from future football-Sundays and backyard cookouts, I guess this is the end of a beautiful friendship. For now. Reach out in a couple years and we can pick up where we left off.”
House turned on his heel and stalked away before Wilson could scrounge up the words to reply.
“Oh, you didn’t,” Stacy abandoned the caterer she’d been wrangling as soon as she spotted House’s battle-posture enter the kitchen.
“Oh, I did.” House drew abreast of her and stole a canape off the tray of a passing waiter.
Stacy bit her lip and considered. “I guess I should be glad you didn’t pull a full ‘speak now or forever hold your peace.’”
“I did consider it. But that would’ve just pushed him to marry her even harder. He’s still eagerly wrapping the albatross around his neck, but at least I know I did my bit.”
“If only I could figure out how to stop you from doing your bit. I’d make millions on the patent.”
House grinned and crammed the hors d’oeuvre in his mouth.
“I guess it was inevitable,” Stacy fixed him with a look, “He was going to break your heart when he said 'I do.' You had to break his first.”
With as much dignity as he could muster with a shrimp tail hanging out of his mouth, House declared, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re just lucky I’m not the jealous type. And that I can handle all the day-of details.”
House nodded, “I probably shouldn’t be on the grounds for Sam to find. Murders tend to bring the vibe down.”
“Getaway car’s parked out back,” Stacy jerked her chin in the direction of the emergency exit, “I’ll give you the instant replay up to the altar later.”
“You’re amazing. And not just in bed and behind the clipboard.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m in line for the Nobel. Now fuck off and let me do my job.”
House bowed, kissed her, and fled.
It set a precedent. House never attended another wedding he planned after that. He hardly even met with their clients after the Wilson debacle, deciding that emotional involvement in their relationships was just another headache he could ill-afford on his new self-employed health care package.
And there were many weddings. Sure, it all started as an intoxicated bit of clownery, but House found that there was a strange and persistent pleasure to be had in controlling the day so many Americans considered the most important in their life.
It was a different kind of ‘life or death’ than what he’d been preparing for in medicine. Less literal, a lot more dramatic. In some ways, higher stakes, because the worst a patient could do was die on you, whereas a very alive client could show up at your office with a can of gasoline, a book of matches, and her spoiled wedding photos to leave as an arsonist’s signature letting you know exactly why you deserved that blaze of destruction. (If that example sounds awfully specific to you, then you may also be interested in knowing that Stacy signed up for a few jujitsu classes and House is now always highly aware of the office fire extinguisher’s location.)
Their business got off the ground in Baltimore but didn’t hit its stride until the titular pair decided to move back to Stacy’s home state of New Jersey. Her father was a retired Princeton professor of law (“cough cough, daddy issues”, House would say, and Stacy would reply, “hello Pot, I’m Kettle,” or sometimes just smack him over the head with whatever was nearest) and her mother’s health was beginning to decline. Stacy wanted to be near her family and House wanted to be further away from the school that had decided it no longer required his services.
House-Warner Wedding Solutions became officially incorporated in 1992. Stacy liked that the name sounded professional. House liked that it sounded deceptively like a cartoonish assassination business (“imagine a Russian accent,” he’d enthuse, “we have your solution right here…BANG!”). Stacy liked that it made them sound like a hyphenated married couple, which made House squirm. House liked that at least his name came first.
House and Stacy worked well together. Where “together” was a slight misnomer, as their work was often more parallel than intersecting. Depending on his initial level of interest in the affair, House would have Stacy take the patients’—sorry, the happy couple’s—history at an initial consult, and then he’d hunker down with the file and start plotting. Although Stacy loudly rebuked him when he skipped out on those first essential client meetings, she privately agreed that they went more smoothly without him. When he saw the couple not as a puzzle to be solved, packaged, frosted, and shipped to the altar, but as actual people intent on spending their lives together, he became…opinionated.
“Not another one,” Stacy groaned as the future Mr. and Mrs. Shore—perhaps, no longer destined to share that name—stormed out of their office with House’s scornful diagnosis of how badly their respective psychoses complemented each other still ringing in the air.
“We get to keep the downpayment,” House shrugged.
“And just for that, you get to argue with the Yellow Pages ad guy about our placement for this year’s printing,” Stacy slapped the landline off of House’s desk and into his lap before stomping away.
Most of the time, however, they were a well-oiled machine. Stacy was sensible, personable, and organized. She could juggle more vendors than most people even realized were in operation. She could keep a calendar like a son of a bitch. She could console a bride sobbing over the hem of her dress being raised half an inch too high oh my god it’s all over just push me off a bridge and get it done with.
House couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with the emotional angle of weddings, but found that to be just dandy since feelings rarely came into the matter once you got down to it. Weddings were financial, weddings were symbolic, weddings were ritualistic, but whatever emotions were pasted on top didn’t ultimately matter. They’d be there—or not be there—regardless of the wedding itself. Thus, the wedding itself was all that mattered.
House-Warner Wedding Solutions became a well-known fixture of the eastern seaboard event planning scene not because it was the most affordable (it wasn’t) or the most glamorous (even less so) but because it had a certain, undeniable, unnamable magic that could transform a wedding from a sweaty, overpriced Sunday afternoon ceremony into anything. The rock-solid foundation of a partnership that would last for sixty years. An occasion that would send the couple into the elite stratosphere and allow them to skip a half dozen steps of brutal social climbing. Once, memorably, a sting operation that brought a decades-long human trafficking ring to light (Stacy had to convince House that no, they couldn’t use those photos of the bride being thrown against the hood of a cop car in handcuffs on their PR materials).
House looked past “we’re so committed to tradition” and “we’re thinking of an earth tone color palette” and “honestly the details don’t matter as long as we’re together <3” to find whatever broken thing those two were trying to fix by slapping a ring on it. And then, he cured it. Sometimes just for a day, sometimes for longer, but he always found the answer and did what he could to click that final piece into place and observe the greater whole with the smug satisfaction of a petty demigod.
In other words, House was House. And it turned out that “interpersonally degenerate but essential to our lives so we’ve gotta keep him around” wasn’t a trait limited to doctors. Who knew?
He could never decide whether he was grateful or furious for how easily people—clients, vendors, wedding guests, total strangers—forgave his offensive behavior simply by virtue of his (accidental and often resentful) career choice. From bouts of manic obsessive detail persnicketing to blue periods of listless disinterest, there was something about being a big tall eccentric obviously-not-straight-yet-hmm-wait-isn’t-she-his-girlfriend? wedding planner that allowed him to get away with absolute murder. “He’s nuts, but he’s a genius,” their favorite florist said as House took a bite out of an inferior rose-and-baby’s-breath arrangement to ensure it wouldn’t make it to center stage. “That’s just how artists are,” the caterer would sigh when she found House amongst the appetizers with a ruler and level. “No, this is unacceptable!” some deep buried unspeakable part of House would want to shout back, holding a live electrical wire and waving it behind the bandstand while the DJ just chuckled indulgently. House pushed and pushed but the world refused to hold him accountable.
This was usually the point where Stacy stepped in.
They really did work well together. They were well matched, whether as lovers or best friends or co-workers. Except they could only really wear one of those hats at any given moment, and as their business boomed, House began to suspect that the priority of those roles was starting to blur.
To be his friend meant being brutally honest as a business partner, and being a good co-planner meant kicking his ass as a boyfriend, and around and around they went until some days House thought Stacy might memo him a kiss goodnight.
Over those fledgling years of their business, they found there was such a thing as too much togetherness. Stacy was brilliant and funny and House thought he was brilliant and funny too, but still. There was a limit to her patience for his antics and his patience for her impatience. House might have thought that was just inevitable. Except, for certain evidence to the contrary in the form of four very enjoyable months in which he’d shared days and days and days of endless working and planning and joking and lazing around with just one person. House and he whose name was not spoken for Totally Normal and Unimportant Reasons Thanks for Asking had been inseparable to the point of codependency and then it had all ended in a moment and that was just fine because that was the whole point of marriage wasn’t it? One person got to claim you forever and fuck everybody else. House knew he was “everybody else.” And he was totally cool with it.
He didn’t even think about Wilson anymore.
Excerpt: “Marriageable”
Dear reader. If you’re wondering at this point, hey, Greg (don’t call me Greg, we’re not close like that), why do you always talk about only a man and a woman getting married? It’s the nineties! Same-sex couples do marriage-esque shindigs all the time! Stop being a homophobe! Well, first suck my dick. Second, tell that to the law. [G.H. edit, 1996: Tell it to that big bitch DOMA, in particular.] Thank god, gay people can’t get married. Marriage being exclusively for normie male-female couples is the only major form of extant heterophobia in existence and I for one could not be more pleased. Let the straights have their nasty institution, keep us out of it. (“Us” you repeat in slack-jawed wonder? Yes, us, what part of “mean wedding planner” did you not get? Scram, peasant.*)
*Stacy Warner edit, 1992: Now everyone is going to think you’re Martin Short from Father of the Bride.
G.H. — 1) they already probably did 2) I’m still going to divorce you for that comment
S.W — Have to marry me first :)
G.H. — :(
July 1993. Princeton.
“That was Lisa.” At House’s nonplussed glare, Stacy clarified, “Lisa Cuddy. You know, one of your wide circle of friends.”
“Ah, right, Cuddy. Forgot she had a first name. She still got the perkiest tits on the East Coast?”
“It’s funny, I forgot to ask her. Safe to assume yes, though. Slightly more important than the firmness of her breasts—only slightly, mind you—is that she’s interviewing for several hospital administrator positions in the area next week. Wants to grab dinner.”
“Great. We can check in on the tit question in person.”
“Exactly my thoughts. Also, support the advancement of her career as a woman in a male-dominated field. Whatever.”
Dinner was at an unbearably fancy restaurant and House was made to wear a tie. He waged war with a lobster while the women talked and laughed and generally vibed all over the place. Double yuck.
Cuddy excused herself to the ladies and Stacy clamped onto House’s arm with both sets of long nails. “Threesome card. I’m playing it.”
“Sorry, sweetie, I have a headache.”
Stacy frowned. “Are you kidding? She never agreed when we were back in Baltimore. You got to sample the goods, I never got the chance. She’s had like five glasses of wine! This is an opportunity to take advantage of.”
“For you.”
“For us.”
House swallowed the rest of his drink in one go. “I can’t, Stace. I won’t.”
“I don’t understand you. When did this stop being one of your prime fantasies?”
“When I realized I wouldn’t be the virile male centerpiece of the triangle but a totally unnecessary third wheel.” House fixed her with a knowing gaze. “I remember what you two were like before she moved out of Baltimore to start her residency. Especially when I was all wrapped up in you-know-who’s wedding and you two were left alone…”
“House, what do you mean?”
“I mean you were two dykes in a pod.” Stacy gave him a capital-L Look but he didn’t flinch. “I’m not trying to be an asshole about it. I mean, there’s the usual standard underlayer of assholery but—you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I mean…” House clutched at empty air for the right words and found none.
“You’re threatened by her?” Stacy tried to make it sound like a joke, but it wasn’t. “Greg,” she took his chin in her hand and locked their eyes together, “I’d never cheat on you.”
“I know that,” House said, “that’s why when I say no, I’m not down to clown with our gorgeous guest, I trust that you won’t either.” He stood abruptly from the table, patting his pockets performatively for his wallet.
Stacy rolled her eyes. “I’ll get the bill.” She pulled some cash from her purse and tucked it into his belt. “Don’t stiff the cab driver.”
House waved her off and headed home to drink something stronger than a Merlot and try not to think about how Stacy had signed on to get serious with an almost-doctor, and now she was living with a struggling wedding planner of all things and dining with a sexy up-and-coming MD and which of those two options would he pick in her shoes?
Cuddy, of course, moved to Princeton. She would probably have been just fine letting her friendship with House remain how it had been, severed by time and geography, but for Stacy’s sake she put up a civil front. She and House bickered incessantly and had the occasional escalating prank war (they eventually had to declare their offices off-limits to reduce the professional and collateral damage) but they also developed a bitter sort of mutual respect alongside the growing resentment.
Stacy insisted that they weren’t rivals and House insisted they weren’t friends and Cuddy insisted that they were surely mature enough to deal with this shit and the end result was a lot of very tense dinners and close-calls both in terms of sex and violence.
House wished they could just go back to the world where everything in Stacy’s life was 100% about him. Stacy thought he should grow up and maybe find a friend of his own to make up for the fact that she wasn’t eating, breathing, and drinking All Things Greg 24/7.
Like House was going to do that.
September 1994. House and Stacy’s apartment.
House didn’t know who the hell would be knocking on his door. Not just on a Friday, not just at night, but in general. People didn’t knock for him. People sometimes knocked for Stacy, but Stacy wasn’t there. Ergo, whence the knocking?
Still, assuming it wasn’t a hallucination or apparition, the thing to do with a knocked-upon door was to open it and so House satisfied his curiosity by peeling himself off the couch and throwing open the door with a brusque, “What?”
It was Wilson. His Wilson. Sam’s Wilson, he corrected.
Without saying a word (though swaying slightly) Wilson held out a check.
House corrected himself again. Not Sam’s Wilson. Ha.
“Two grand,” House whistled as he took the check and gave Wilson a once-over. Gently plastered. Well-dressed. Sad around the eyes. A little older. Still gorgeous. “Did you drive all the way up from Baltimore just to tell me I was right?”
“Didn’t drive,” Wilson protested, “ ’m drunk! Took a cab. Also. Conference at Princeton. Already here.”
“Fine. You took a cab from a conference hotel no doubt full of gorgeous willing women just to tell me I was right? Me, the jerk you haven’t talked to in years, who already knew he was right?”
“Ugh. Gorgeous willing women. Are everywhere. It’s a problem.”
House sighed. Stepped back. Let Wilson in. “I knew it wouldn’t last with your wife. But I didn’t peg you for a cheater just a few years out the gate. Loyalty seemed like a strong suit with you.”
“It’s easy to be loyal when you’re obsessed with someone. When they’re all you think about.” Wilson’s eyes were too close and too sober. “Harder when you feel like you’re invisible to them.”
House glanced down to the relative safety of the check. He tried to tuck it back into Wilson’s coat. That turned out to be an unsafe move. Wilson protested and grabbed House’s wrist, clumsily trying to stop the return, and great, now they were basically holding hands, fingers tangled against Wilson’s chest, that was so much better.
House harrumphed and tried to break free, “I didn’t win. I dropped my bet to two years, six months. You held out for the original three.”
“No, I didn’t. Just didn’t want to drive two plus hours to admit it. Now, I have a reason to be here, so it’s marginally less humiliating.”
Wilson pressed the check back into House’s palm and House acquiesced and slipped it into his back pocket. Who was he to turn down fairly won cash? It was the responsible thing to do as a small business owner. “How did you find ‘here,’ anyway?”
“Stopped talking to you ‘cause you’re a lunatic. Didn’t stop talking to Stacy. She’s nice. Cards for birthdays and holidays.”
Wilson stumbled forward and House caught him by the elbows. His hands were then too occupied to do anything about what Wilson did next, which was kiss him. Sweet and soft and slipping in a hint of tongue, he tasted better than the beer lingering on his lips.
“Mm,” Wilson murmured against House’s stunned mouth, “Wanted to do that for…for three years.”
“You haven’t seen me in three years. And that last time I was trying to break up your marriage.”
“I know. But don’t worry. I managed to break it up all on my own.”
Wilson leaned back in and House had never exactly been a tower of moral rectitude. He let Wilson kiss him some more despite the plentiful reasons he shouldn’t. The one reason, that he wanted it, was enough for the moment.
But Wilson’s left hand came up to cup House’s cheek and he felt the flesh-hot press of a wedding band and the wrongness overcame the want. “Stop, I…stop.”
Wilson obediently tripped backwards, up against the closed door. “Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t…you’re still…Stacy. I mean—”
“Stacy and I are on a break. She’s staying at her sister’s for a few days.”
“Oh…I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She could be back tomorrow. Or never. We’re very combustible that way. Hard to plan around, but it keeps the spark alive.”
“Does that mean…” Wilson’s big hopeful eyes ground right into House’s chest.
“I don’t know,” he said, though he did know. “Are you leaving Sam?”
“I don’t know,” Wilson echoed. “She doesn’t know about what I did. Yet. But it’s done.” He reached for House’s face again and House froze up. “Can a little more really hurt?”
“Yeah,” House answered icily, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you two wrongs don’t make a right? That applies to fucking two people who aren’t your wife.”
The harsh words had the desired effect of putting Wilson’s hackles up. “You’re fine with harassment, bribery, academic misconduct, graft, and general cruelty, but you have a moral aversion to infidelity?”
“I’m a complicated guy.”
Wilson chewed his lip, evaluating, “If you don’t want this, House, if you don’t want me, just say so. I’ll go.”
“I didn’t say that. I don’t want you to go.” It was a huge admission for House. Fortunately, Wilson was one of two people in the universe who could understand that.
“Good,” Wilson blew out a nervous breath, “Because this is mortifying enough without you having been secretly straight and not at all horny for me this whole time.”
House cracked a grin, “Yeah, that’s definitely not the problem.”
When Wilson reached for him this time, House let it happen. “Those four months, House. I’d never felt anything like it," Wilson admitted, tongue temporarily not tied by shame. "I tried to tell myself it was Sam and getting married and being in love. But it was…you were the best friend I’d ever had. Maybe I just want that feeling again. Even if it’s only for a night.”
“One night,” House repeated, weaving forward so their lips nearly touched again, “That hardly even counts.”
He took Wilson’s left hand and gripped that damn wedding ring. It slid off with far less resistance than it should’ve. Cheater’s ease, he guessed. He dumped the gold circle in Wilson’s pocket then grabbed his ass, like ridding his hand of the taste of commitment.
House let the feelings he’d held back and buried and planted gardens of repression on top of for three years come crawling and screaming and clawing out and he dragged Wilson in close to give him the kiss he’d been waiting to give him for far, far too long.
Wilson’s mouth opened gladly to the onslaught, his whole body welcoming as House cornered him against the doorframe. His skin was soft were it met House’s lips and tongue, barely a hint of stubble. Had he shaved fresh for the conference or for House?
House dragged an exploratory hand from the curve of Wilson’s throat, down the planes of his chest, sweeping down his stomach—a little softer, a little more of a rise. House liked the hold he got at his waist.
All-consuming need for Wilson’s mouth tamed to controllable levels, House took the intimate tour of Wilson’s body on the road, skimming along his jaw to suck at his throat and paw at his tie. Wilson sighed and then grabbed the back of House’s T-shirt and pulled it over his head without asking. Once it was gone, House slammed their mouths back together and got serious about Wilson’s buttons while Wilson tried to feel his fill of House’s chest, hands skating around to pull on his back whenever too much space developed between them. Part of House wished the buttons weren’t giving so easily because he wanted to tear them off of Wilson, make sure he could never wear that shirt again, trap him here—
“House,” Wilson moaned his name and House’s knees threatened jelly-like behavior and he gripped Wilson tighter like maybe if he was close enough the emotions this was stirring up would just miss him entirely. “Take me to bed.” Wilson’s deep voice had a begging note. He didn’t need to beg, but fuck, House wanted him to. “Please, House, take me. I’m so tired... I want to be lazy and lie back and be taken and I want you to do it to me.”
“Okay. Deal.” House wanted him to sign on the dotted line, because if Wilson left that request—that promise—unfulfilled then House was going to kill someone, possibly himself.
He got a hold on Wilson by the belt loops and started directing him towards the bedroom, Wilson stumbling backwards and clutching at House’s shoulders for balance. House wasn’t helping efforts by kissing him roughly and biting whenever he slowed, which of course correlated to whenever House’s teeth brushed Wilson’s skin and made him tense and gasp.
They made it over the threshold and Wilson glanced over his shoulder to find, “A bare mattress?”
“There’s a comforter,” House pointed out the tangled dark blue bedspread nearly falling off the edge, “Stacy does the laundry. The machine and I aren’t on speaking terms.”
Wilson rolled his eyes and started to automatically tidy the bed, which was both ridiculous and stupidly hot.
“Don’t bother,” House pressed up behind him, grinding his hips into Wilson's ass where he was bent over the mattress, “Planning on wrecking it soon.”
“I don’t want to…leave a mess.” Wilson looked back over his shoulder at House, the unsaid things ringing between them.
“Stacy won’t be mad,” House assured him, truthfully as it happened. “What happens on break stays on break, we’re not hypocrites. Besides. She was down to share you when we met. She’ll probably enjoy the recap.”
“Share?” Wilson’s eyes went wide. “Like…”
“A threesome,” House enunciated loudly, “It would’ve been good. She looks amazing spread out on her back, you could’ve fucked her while I got ready to take you from behind. Filling and filled all at once, it’s a crazy amount of sensation, you’d have lost your mind—”
“—currently losing my mind—” Wilson threw his arms back around House’s neck and kissed him ferociously, “I really, really, really need you inside me. Like, yesterday.”
House would’ve saluted if his hands weren’t glued to Wilson’s sides, would’ve sworn allegiance if his mouth wasn’t already taken.
Wilson undid the button on House’s jeans and dragged the zipper down with his thumb, nail scraping lightly over the tent in his briefs. House didn’t have the patience for teasing. At least, not himself getting teased.
House pulled open Wilson’s pants and pushed them down, thumbs hooked in boxers to reveal everything in one smooth glide. Off balance as he tried to belatedly kick off shoes and socks and finally the slacks snarled around his ankles, Wilson fell easily when House pushed his chest, sending him bouncing back into the center of mattress, gloriously naked. Now House could multi-task: stripping off the rest of his own clothes and admiring Wilson as he snaked back up against the headboard, legs falling apart in invitation. Don’t mind if I do.
House prowled forward until he was on top of Wilson, mouth ducking and diving in almost-kisses that left Wilson furious and roiling under him, chasing his lips and dragging hungry nails down his arms.
In a performance of calm, House leaned away to rummage in the well-stocked bedside table. Wilson made a soft, tragic keening noise and House hurried back, finally kissing him properly down into the lone lumpy pillow.
“Back soon,” House murmured against Wilson’s lips, then cracked the cap on the lube. He slid down Wilson’s body, detouring to bite at a few particularly enticing landmarks, before settling between his legs to get to work.
Well, maybe not straight to work.
He started mouthing at Wilson’s half-hard cock, letting the head slip between his lips, waiting for a sign to let him know it was alright. Wilson’s whole body lit up and he groaned and clutched at non-existent sheets. House took that for a yes and let the length slide as deep as he could take it.
With Wilson hot and throbbing in his mouth, he slicked up two fingers on his right hand and started a quick, practiced exploration of his hole. Wilson gasped and arched at the first touch—so responsive, his shiver was contagious and House almost shook as he increased the suction of his mouth and the pressure of his fingers in harmony.
“House…” Wilson’s chest was already pink with exertion, rising up his neck, almost aglow in the barely lit room. His hand slid into House’s hair, so gentle, not pulling at all. Just a tender stroke, cupping the curve of his skull. House slid almost all the way off, tonguing at the head until Wilson’s fingers finally tightened in a spasm. Then House grinned and went deep, swallowing his approval.
Part of him wanted to finish Wilson like this. Make him spurt hot and out of control down his throat. Kick him out barely satisfied before this got too dangerous and House had no escape route left. But he also thought if he didn’t get his dick in Wilson soon he’d start committing even more atrocities than his usual rate.
He let Wilson’s cock slip free of his mouth to bob slick and red against his stomach and he sat back on his haunches to enjoy the sight of Wilson a writhing, sweating mess—and he was just getting started.
House retrieved a condom and rolled it on, catching Wilson’s eye, “Don’t worry, I always suit up when I’m fucking married men.”
“Had a lot of us?”
“Oh, oodles.”
“Such a liar,” Wilson wriggled happily as House’s hands found a grip on his waist. “Actually,” he tapped House’s shoulder in a hilariously polite gesture, “Could you…when you said you would’ve…”
House slanted his head to the side as he tried to guess, and then smirked. “Oh, you want it from behind?”
Wilson didn’t reply except to grumble and hide his face as he rolled over onto his stomach and propped himself up on his hands and knees. House slid his palms up and down Wilson’s back, gliding lower with each cycle until finally spreading his ass and lining up at his entrance.
It would probably be a good idea to check in. One last time. Before it was really too late.
House started pressing inside.
Wilson bit down on a moan and clawed at the mattress, squirming until House finished thrusting home with a quick snap of his hips that left Wilson breathless and still.
“Alright?” House laid a palm at the small of Wilson’s back, tracing it up his spine, along his neck, threading fingers into the damp hair at his nape.
“Mm…mm-hmm.” Wilson’s head dipped under House’s fingers. House kept his hand there as he pulled back and then plunged deep again, not yet bringing forth the sound he wanted from Wilson. He adjusted his angle with a few shallow thrusts, free hand angling Wilson further open, and then the tenor of Wilson’s shaky breaths caught and changed. House pursued it, clutching the thread of pleasure and pulling until a deep helpless groan wracked Wilson’s ribs and then House leveraged his weight and position to begin taking long dragging powerful thrusts that threatened to topple Wilson onto his face if he didn’t brace himself against the headboard—which he did, enthusiastically.
“Oh, yes, House…” Wilson’s voice confirmed what his body was already screaming, “just like that.”
House wished he could taste him, bent forward because he could, this wasn’t a dream anymore. Salt and skin. The flavor of hot flesh. The detail of texture that even his dedicated imaginings couldn’t replicate. That now he knew, he could return to at any moment, every moment he wanted to.
“I thought about it,” Wilson admitted suddenly, “I thought about it that first night when I met you. I thought I was—ah, ah…” he grasped wildly at the ridge of the mattress, knees sliding on the roughly silky texture as House tried to fuck the rest of the words out of him, “oh, I thought I was going crazy because we were talking about my wedding but there was…there was…a track in my head that couldn’t stop fixating on your mouth.”
“Yeah? What did you want to do to my mouth.”
“I wanted to kiss you,” Wilson confessed, too sweet and too real. “It was…a problem. Knew. It was. But I couldn’t stop finding…every…excuse…” He paused as a half-shout escaped and he had to gasp through House’s renewed pressure on his prostate. “That time,” he burst out with the rest, “when Sam ditched the cake tasting…and it was just you and me…and you were licking chocolate frosting off your fingers…”
“I’m a whore for ganache,” House agreed.
“If the shop owner hadn’t been right there…House, I would’ve pushed you under the table…”
“Mm…” House’s hips lost their rhythm for a beat as he was bowled over by the fantasy, “you could’ve. I’d have let you…I—ah, god, Wilson…” he grasped at him, not sure he could even get through the thought, “I’d have let you force your way inside. Fuck my mouth in between the angel food and the strawberry cream.”
Wilson groaned inarticulately, forehead pressed to the mattress as he struggled to keep himself upright, body singing with lust for the words and for what he was getting right now.
The beast with two backs was hot as all get out, the drain of athletic requirements easily matched by the filthy sight, getting to watch himself disappear into Wilson over and over. He couldn’t see Wilson’s face but he could hear him and Wilson spared no expense in communicating his pleasure even as actual language started to disintegrate. When House adjusted his grip to pull Wilson’s hips back into each one of his thrusts, Wilson climbed half an octave and House thrilled, eyes closing of their own volition as he soaked it all in.
Three years of bottled up lust—they weren’t going to last long. And why should they? The intensity was bursting through their bodies. House might not be a doctor, but he was pretty sure dragging this out could be fatal. House wanted to put on a performance to remember but he was wrestling with cresting waves of pleasure that threatened to pull him under with every drag of friction, every spark of pressure as he bottomed out, every anticipatory beat of sweat-hot air against bare skin.
He wrapped an arm around Wilson’s chest, palm brushing over a hard nipple as he pulled their bodies tight together, lips moving numbly against whatever skin he encountered. Everything was concentrating and circling around and around into a tighter and tighter sensation where House kept fucking so, so deep inside him.
Wilson’s arms and thighs had started to tremble and House didn’t have previous data to match against but he’d guess Wilson was getting good and close. He wondered if he could push him over the edge untouched. Oh, but he also wanted to get his hand on that silky flesh—decisions, decisions…
“God, House,” Wilson broke into House’s fevered thoughts, “I love how you feel…it feels so good, you taking me from behind, all rough and full, exactly what I wanted…” his hand fluttered down to where House still gripped his chest close, “but now…I want to finish on my back. Let me see you. Please, House, give it to me.” He twisted his neck, lips seeking a kiss House couldn’t help but reciprocate, a messy brush of panting mouths as he shoved Wilson flat on the bed to flip him over, and now he could see him and kiss him properly, tongue diving deep as he pulled Wilson’s knees up on either side of his hips and took advantage of the new angle to ram home so roughly Wilson’s eyes rolled up in his head and his neck arched.
“Gonna…oh…” Wilson’s body tensed and tightened around House, and House decided he wanted it all, upping the speed and pressure as much as he could while also wrapping uncoordinated fingers around Wilson’s cock and giving it a quick stroke as he started to shake and come. He cried out with every last thrust of House’s hips and answering spurt and he was so tight as he made noises just short of sobs and rocked through his orgasm.
He started to settle, limp and pleasure-flooded even as House couldn’t slow down, the end gathering in the tight bunch of his aching body.
“House, yes, please,” what Wilson was begging for now didn’t matter, he was getting it, “yes, oh, want to feel…feel you finish in me.”
A whine snuck out of House but he was so far gone and so hard and it wasn’t supposed to be as good as when you imagined it, fuck, Wilson was so warm and oh, god—he smiled. Wilson smiled up at him, joy-slack muscles pulling into the softest smile House had ever seen in his miserable life.
How dare he, House buried his face in Wilson’s neck, the last safe haven. How dare he smile at me, look at me like that, make me see a whole life in his unfairly beautiful brown eyes, it shouldn’t be allowed. People shouldn’t be allowed to do that to other people without their permission.
“House…” Wilson used his name as an anchor, teeth playfully nipping at his earlobe while he wriggled his body in an enticing call back to the moment, “I can feel how close you are…come for me, please, take what you need from me…”
House gripped Wilson’s left hand, fallen spent against the mattress, lacing their fingers together. He crawled his lips along Wilson’s jaw, seeking his mouth for something that he couldn’t focus on enough to be a kiss, just breathing him in and tasting him and surrounding himself with Wilson, just him, only them—
He cried out against Wilson’s lips as he finally let his pleasure peak and spread through his bones as he filled Wilson with last, shuddering, electric thrusts, burying himself deep as he could go as the release washed through his veins.
The wind wasn’t just knocked out of him, it was ripped out. He fell string-slashed marionette style half on to Wilson, who coughed and shoved House off his suddenly compressed lungs but kept him close enough to cuddle. House was wiped enough not to protest any of it.
Everything, his whole body, was so sensitive but also blurry, the air cool against sweaty skin yet radiating warmth in the space around them. House had his nose tucked into Wilson’s neck, their hands still entwined on one side while Wilson’s free hand traced up and down House’s back, sometimes straying to twirl into his hair. Distantly, he noted Wilson snagging tissues to clean himself up. Satisfaction, comfort, peace, House was so wrapped up in it he almost fell asleep. But a lingering burr of common sense latched into his brain and yanked—this was real life, he couldn’t just fade to black and deal with things later when the credits rolled.
House didn’t usually have a problem talking. Bystanders, in fact, would agree that his problem lay far more to the side of not talking. But he had zero clue what to start with right now. It’s not like there was a chill, breezy way to say, “I’ll be thinking about the way you moaned when I was inside you until I’m cold in my grave.” Or for that matter, “So, have you already drawn up the divorce papers, or…?”
To House’s gratitude, Wilson broke the silence with a quiet but fervent, “God, that was good.”
House considered possible replies, and carefully selected the worst of the lot. “Better than your wife?” He retreated a few inches to observe the effect properly.
Wilson’s face screwed up in a fast-paced mix of anger, remorse, and exhaustion. “I don’t have an answer for that.”
“You want me to help you construct a point-by-point comparison model?”
“No, I don’t.” Wilson released House to cover his face in both hands for a moment, then spoke from behind his shield, “It’s apples and oranges. Man, woman, new, familiar, forbidden, exclusive. Besides. Sam and I have always been compatible, it’s not the sex itself that’s the problem.”
“Frequency?”
“Partly.” Wilson finally emerged from behind his fingers, though he still didn’t look at House. “But the reason behind our mutual frigidity is the real issue. It’s the little things.”
House’s mouth quirked in a humorless grin. “It always is. Normally I’d suspect that she’s pissed at you for leaving the seat up, but knowing you—”
“—the goddamn milk,” Wilson immediately raged, “How many times do I have to put it back in the main part of the fridge? The door is too warm! It’s not safe for food that spoils so easily! She’s as much a doctor as I am, why should I have to bug her about it and start a fight when she could just notice it herself and stop?”
Not just the milk, then, House realized. That underneath it all, Sam didn’t get Wilson enough to understand what he wanted without him having to say it. That she didn’t see the hundred and one tiny irritations he suffered on a daily basis just to keep her happy and avoid a blowout. Which was absurdly unfair of Wilson—she was a wife, not a telepath. Still. House had figured it out in about twenty seconds.
House didn’t share any of this therapeutic insight. Instead, he slid a hand across Wilson’s chest and said, “Bitch. Bitch who loves foodborne illness.” He kept reaching past Wilson until he could scrabble just below Stacy’s bedside table, where she thought he didn’t know she kept her stash.
He emerged with a pack of Menthols and a lighter.
“Huh.” Wilson narrowed his eyes as House knocked a cigarette free and snapped the lighter ablaze. “Did I ever tell you what medical specialty I decided on?”
“Nope.”
“Oncology.”
House blew a thin stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth, right into Wilson’s face.
Wilson coughed and grumbled, “Give it here,” snatching the lit cig and taking a deep drag.
“Bad boy,” House prodded, joking but also a little turned on.
“That’s me,” Wilson handed it back as he exhaled, “bad to the bone.”
House sucked on the cigarette pensively as Wilson’s eyes closed again, frown lines spreading out, hand rising to rub anxiously at his forehead.
“Wow,” House observed dryly, “most people enjoy a little more afterglow before diving directly into the guilt portion of the evening.”
“I’m not most people.” Wilson shoved up on his elbows then into a sitting position, still beautifully naked on top of the rugged mattress. He looked down at House and House saw something awful in his face.
House viciously stubbed out the cigarette on the thick resin of the bedside table, uncaring of the ugly burn it instantly produced. “I guess you’ll be going home to the milk-spoiler now.”
Wilson’s face became unreadable. “I cheated on her. More than once. And I regret it but I also know I’d do it again.”
House nodded. “You’re still gonna go home to her. You’re gonna go home and have resentful sex with your evil wife and then cry and tell her you cheated and then once you’ve properly wrecked the relationship you can tell yourself that you would have stayed, you really wanted to stay, only she wouldn’t let you. But there’s a flaw in that plan.”
“Only one?” Wilson replied testily.
“Yeah. She might forgive you.”
Wilson got out of bed. House watched him hunt down his clothes in reverse of their removal, first underwear, then pants, finally sitting on the edge of the bed to put his shoes back on. The acidic warning of devastation climbed House’s throat. He couldn’t speak.
He saw the glint of dull metal in the light as Wilson retrieved his wedding ring and slid it back on. Back into place. Everything and everyone back into place.
Not turning, Wilson spoke. “I missed you, House. I missed you for years. I don’t want to miss you again.”
“Too bad. I don’t see any other option.”
“Really?” Wilson jerked his head over his shoulder to glare at House, “All that brilliance and you can’t imagine us just being adults about this and giving friendship another try?”
“No.” House tilted his head, daring Wilson to acknowledge the truth.
Wilson didn’t.
“Just another meaningless conference hook-up,” House continued, grabbing the comforter Wilson was sitting on and tugging until he stood, then pulling it up and over himself. “Add my notch to your bedpost. Go home.”
Wilson looked so lost, standing at the foot of House’s bed. House and Stacy’s bed. She might still come back this time.
Feeling Wilson needed prompting, and that House would prefer some privacy for his upcoming breakdown, House snapped, “Lock the door on your way out.”
Wilson lurched forward, then started coming around the bed.
“Wrong direction,” House pointed out, then felt Wilson’s fingers close around his cheek. “You don’t kiss one-night stands goodbye.”
Wilson leaned down anyway. “You don’t make the rules.”
House closed his eyes and tried to enjoy his final taste. It was ashes in his mouth.
He listened to Wilson hunt down the last of his clothes, trailed throughout the apartment, the almost imperceptible whisper of fabric against skin.
Wilson locked the door on his way out.
Stacy found House two days later eating peanut butter directly from the jar on the couch while a marathon of seaQuest DSV ran unwatched before his eyes.
“Hi.” She gracefully lowered herself beside his flopped-out attitude. Hair perfect, makeup pristine, dark pantsuit impeccable. A study in opposites.
“Hey.” He offered her the peanut butter and she politely declined.
“How’ve you been?” she asked.
He shrugged and raised his eyebrows in return.
“I’m alright. Missed you.” She knocked her knee into his and he mirrored the gesture. “But I heard you weren’t lonely. Lisa mentioned that a mutual friend was in town. Our very first client.”
House took the fifth.
Stacy tried to catch his eye and he expertly ping-ponged his gaze out of reach. “Greg…did you kiss him or kill him? One of those options is fine, one isn’t.”
“The body’s in the basement.”
“We don’t have a basement.”
“Right, I must have put his dismembered corpse in the closet.” House hooked a thumb over his shoulder but Stacy wasn’t in the mood for patter. House sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Wilson was here. He stayed for an evening.”
“And?”
“And…”
“And! I assume sex was had—”
“—masterful use of the passive voice—”
“—but was it as good as you thought it’d be?”
“…Yeah.”
Stacy took his shoulder seriously, “Good as me?”
House pulled his mouth into a mocking grimace, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings…”
“Wow!” Totally unfazed, Stacy just grinned. “I’m not surprised. I remember how you used to look at him.”
“Excuse you, I didn’t—”
“Greg House, you are one of the most romantic people I’ve ever met.”
“Slander!”
“You rarely fall in love, but when you do, it’s at first sight and it never goes away. I would know. You looked at him like you looked at me.”
Resisting the urge to just get up and leave this shitty conversation, House instead plunged forward with a cold, “Yes, we fucked, it was great. And then he left.”
“Okay…” Stacy trailed off and shook House by the elbow, “But are you going to see him again?”
“I mean. Assuming I don’t go blind, sure. I might see him and his wife if I crash a Johns Hopkins reunion or something.”
Stacy groaned and shoved him until he almost tipped off the couch. “Why are you so obnoxious? Do you have any idea how few people in the world can stand your particular brand of insane misanthropy? You’re sure doing an expert job at pushing all two and a half of us away.”
“Not just my pushing. Other pulls. How is she?” he asked, meeting her eye with all the cool understanding in his heart.
“My sister?” Stacy parried cleanly.
“No. The person you were really staying with. The half, of the two and a half people who voluntarily seek my company.” He waited.
“She’s great,” Stacy finally admitted.
In a less sanguine reflection of her earlier query, House asked, “Great as me?”
“Oh, I know that answer would hurt your feelings,” Stacy shot back. “She makes me feel…safe.”
“Safe isn’t sexy.”
“It is when you do it right.” Stacy reached out and ran a tired hand through House’s hair, circled her thumb along his cheekbone. “Greg, I came back. I came back because I love you. That’s why I always come back.”
“And if you find someone who loves you and doesn’t drive you away? If you already have?”
Stacy huffed and pushed to her feet, completing a sharp, angry ellipse of pacing around the cramped living room. “Five years together. Off and on. You and me have made it half a decade, through being so poor we’re living off of dry rice, through losing our careers, through my mom passing away… I thought—no, I know you’re the love of my life. And it’s easy to love you. So, why do you have to make it so hard to live with you?”
“I’m not trying to.”
“You’re not trying not to.”
“Yeah. I’m just being me.” House thought of fridges and milk and what was supposed to be and what was. “If you can’t live with me as I am, then maybe the love part just doesn’t matter.”
House spotted a tear slip past the immaculate line of Stacy’s mascara. She hid it with a deft swipe of her ring finger. Her empty ring finger.
“Well. Maybe you’re right. You always have to be, so whether or not you are, you might make it true. Eventually.” She stalked over to the couch and straddled him in a quick, fluid movement, knees pinning his hips and arms going around his neck. “But I’m not ready to let you go. Not today.”
House let himself be kissed, sinking into it, almost gone— “Wait. How did Cuddy know that Wilson was in town? Was she at the same conference?”
Stacy’s eyebrows went up. “What conference? She’s the one who asked him here. Job interview. She’s getting moved up to Dean of Medicine—youngest ever and the first woman, not that you care—and wants to hire Wilson as the new head of Oncology. Catch a rising star and get an old friend in her corner all at once.”
“Fuck.” House dropped his head back against the couch.
And though she didn’t need to, Stacy confirmed, “He took the job. James is moving to Princeton next month.”