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House is distracted.
It’s understandable, really. He has a unique predicament, and like every predicament, this one requires careful thought amid quiet time. While his team are droning on about the boring new case they have, he perches his chin on the end of his cane and thinks.
He thinks back to the conversation he had with Wilson’s ex about what it was like to date him. How she went on and on about how dreamy he was, how he would’ve been perfect if not for how he’d always ditch her to go see House, how he was basically a god in bed.
House thought she was exaggerating. He thought he’d known Wilson well enough to be able to tell how good of a boyfriend he was—shitty, in his estimation—just by looking at him.
House now knows she wasn’t, and he hadn’t.
For every tedious, endless, glorious moment he’s had Wilson in his bed, in his heart, he’s begun to begrudgingly understand what made him a husband thrice. Wilson carries an air of irresistible charm and a seductive aura that House could neither ignore nor resist the moment it was turned on him, despite all the years of knowing him.
It’s just different when it’s turned on him. Different from hearing about it and scoffing to himself, wondering how those women could ever make that mistake, how they could ever think it was a good idea to sleep with a married man, in his own words. Wondering what Wilson was doing with them anyway.
Damnit, he gets it now. Every swoonworthy rumor he’s heard, every dreamy sigh from Wilson’s parade of exes, every joke he’s ever made in passing, they’re all true. They all exist for a reason.
There is nothing like being at the center of Wilson’s affection. No describing it to anyone else, no rationalizing it to himself or anyone else, and certainly no resisting it. Common sense and good nature are overruled by the puppydog brown eyes that Wilson shoots you across the dinner table, that little smirk and the warmth of his hand when he folds his own over yours.
It’s exactly as powerful as he always feared. It was one of many reasons House had hesitations about jumping into…everything with him, but so far everything has worked out for the better. Almost like they were always meant to be together, and Wilson’s parade of girls were just a pipeline leading them here.
It’s rattling, how smooth Wilson is when he wants to be. When the object of his affections is House for once, and not one of his dumb blondes.
None of them were dumb, few of them were blonde, and you were just jealous and didn’t know it, the Wilson in his head adds helpfully, unimpressed. He’s right, therefore he’s even more annoying than usual.
House doesn’t have a problem with it, exactly—well, that is the problem. The problem is that it works. It works too well to undermine him, disarm him. Wilson is too good at it.
Just one look and House will forget why he started a pointless argument, just one smirk from Wilson while chewing on the tip of his pen and House will forget why he walked into his office in the first place, now that he knows what that mouth can do.
If Wilson touches him on the shoulder at work in passing, on the small of his back in the kitchen at home, or god forbid kisses his cheek on his way out of House’s office delivering coffee, ducklings be damned—that’s it, there goes House, never to be useful again.
That so called genius brain melts into a puddle of goo on the floor, and it’s as if House trips over himself like an idiot to hand Wilson his heart in his palm. It’s involuntary. It’s so incredibly beneath him, an insult to his intellect and more importantly, his reputation as unflappable.
Romantic gestures don’t work on Dr. House. Everybody knows this, House most of all. Wilson helpfully ignored that sign on the door.
And the bastard knows what he’s doing, each and every time. He does it on purpose because he knows that it stops House in his tracks like a dumb dog, and he likes the reminder that he can do this to House. He likes to keep him on his toes and show it off in front of the kids. Sadist.
House is equally at fault for letting it happen. He’s better than this. He doesn’t fall for stupid shit like this. This is the kind of thing that swooning dumb blondes in romcoms fall for, and then he makes fun of them. He might be the fourth Mrs. Wilson, but he doesn’t have to act like them.
He has to do something to compensate. Something to ruffle Wilson’s perfect appearance. To wipe the self assured smirk off his stupid handsome face, ruin the hair he still spends an hour doing every morning.
To remind himself that Wilson is just a man like all the rest of the disgusting, piggish, unattractive half of the species. House might like men, but that doesn’t mean he likes men. Most women would agree with him. To act this way because of a man is just…ugh. Embarrassing.
Damn it, this just won’t do.
“Are you even listening?” Chase demands, interrupting House’s train of thought.
House scowls and gestures to the very important invisible work he’s obviously doing. “Do you mind? I’m plotting Wilson’s demise.”
Foreman rolls his eyes. “Right, well, can you do that while diagnosing—”
“You already have your minds made up on what tests you want to run, so stop wasting my time and start wasting yours. Run them. And then, when you’re at it, run a full blood test. That might actually tell you something useful when the rest come up empty.”
The ducklings run off, leaving House to plot and plan some more. How to get Wilson back, a twelve step process. Or something like that.
#
The first step of House’s evil plan comes from a long night’s work. A hard night’s work too, in more ways than one.
It’s not a hard thing to jump Wilson as soon as he gets in the door. Wilson tries to ask why, what’s gotten into him, but House is a man on a mission. Wilson shuts up after House asks if he really wants to waste time talking. He starts making a different kind of noise after House attaches himself to the base of Wilson’s neck.
In the morning, House lingers unhelpfully in bed watching Wilson get dressed for work. It’s a good view, there’s no denying that, but he mostly wants to watch the way Wilson completely misses the marks House left on his shoulder, up his neck, just positioned so that he doesn’t see them during his glance in the mirror to button his collar.
After that, he’s too occupied with his precious hair to notice. House has plans for that hair, but it still takes a Herculean effort not to ruffle it when Wilson bends down to kiss him goodbye.
When he puts back, Wilson stares, well used to House’s devious grin spelling something bad for him. He squints suspiciously. “What?”
House shrugs innocently. “Nothing.”
Wilson frowns, slowly backing away. “See you at work,” he says, rushing out the door with his briefcase in hand. Couldn’t get away fast enough.
When House finally drags himself into work to news of a new case, it’s not long before Wilson comes in to bring him coffee. House gleefully allows him to interrupt the differential, though Wilson smiles in apology at taking House’s attention away in the middle of Foreman’s sentence. He’s constantly in the middle of a tug of war between enabling and disciplining House.
“Stay for a while,” House says, just to see what he’ll do.
“No thank you, I don’t feel like getting an earful from Cuddy this early in the morning. You should be working. Besides, I’ve got patients.” He glances at the ducklings. “Let me know if you need help corralling him before the case has truly caught his interest.”
They nod affirmative, and House rolls his eyes at the mutiny. Wilson has hopelessly endeared himself to their kids. Traitors.
Cameron is the one to ask, “Dr. Wilson, what’s that on your neck?” just when he’s on his way out.
Wilson slaps the side of his neck, rushing over to the glass doors to use them as a mirror. When he sees his reflection, the little gift House left him, he stutters out an excuse. He meets House’s eyes in the reflection, glaring with nothing short of murder. House just smiles sweetly in response.
“Uh, that’s—I cut myself shaving. Dr. House, may I speak with you for a moment in my office?”
House crosses his arms. “What’s wrong with mine?”
Wilson turns to glare at him harder. “Alone,” he grits out. “Somewhere a bit more private.” He gestures to the fishbowl walls.
House can feel the ducklings smirking at his back. He turns to them. “Someone’s in trouble,” Chase chuckles, tilting his head.
House shrugs that off. “If I die in there, will you give my eulogy?” He gestures to Cameron. She sits up straighter in her chair.
“Don’t be too long,” Foreman says, business as always, though he wears the same expression of sick pleasure at seeing his boss in trouble. “We have a dying patient, remember.”
“Yes, yes. Maybe we could actually do something about it if you found me a diagnosis for that dying patient. I don’t suppose you could actually do your jobs while I don’t do mine?” House frowns thoughtfully at that brilliant new idea while following Wilson out of the room.
Down the hall, Wilson gestures him inside his office like a gentleman and locks the door behind them. House would never admit it, but the sound of the lock turning, shut in the cage with the beast, actually makes his stomach flip.
“Whatever did I do, daddy?” House drawls innocently, batting his eyelashes.
Wilson closes his eyes and visibly gathers the remaining threads of his self-control. He raises his hands as if to block out House’s voice and drive himself back from the edge. “I thought we agreed no marks where people could see them at work. You couldn’t have warned me at home?” He shakes his head. “Of course not. That’d be assuming you were a normal and decent person. Silly me. You did it on purpose, didn’t you.”
“Oops.”
Wilson puts his hands on his hips. “Why are you doing this? What is it you want, or is this just for your own amusement?”
He’s hot when he’s annoyed, House thinks unhelpfully. The object of this exercise is to remove Wilson’s luster, to turn him into anything but hot. He internally scolds himself. Bad House. Him being hot means you’re in trouble, and…and…
Thoughts of Wilson punishing him, as he’s undoubtedly brought him here to do, flit across his mind. Suddenly House can’t remember what’s so bad about an annoyed, hot Wilson.
“Thought you weren’t getting enough stimulation at work,” House lies, perching on the edge of Wilson’s desk. “Need to make sure you stay sharp.”
“Right. Given that this would be the first time in fifteen years of knowing you that you’d be looking out for my wellbeing without prompting first, forgive me if I take that with a grain of salt.”
“What, two bros can’t look out for each other? That’s what friends do, after all. They pay attention. They care.”
The look in Wilson’s eye darkens deliciously. “Not that I care for you, obviously,” House adds, pushing him that little bit further just to see what he’ll do. “That would be gay.”
Wilson steps close to whisper, even though they went into his office for the privacy it offers. “If your team weren’t waiting for you, if you weren’t pissing me off to try and get out of treating your patient, I would put you over my knee and give you some marks to match.” He jerks his thumb angrily at the hickeys on his neck that started this.
House smirks and grabs Wilson by the hair, ruffling it every wrong way so that he knows it’ll be irreparable no matter what Wilson does. Wilson’s mouth falls open. That look of murder he reserves especially for House enters his eyes.
“What are you going to do about that, Teach?” House whispers. “Flunk me?”
Wilson raises his arms, making fists of his hands, and draws another loud breath of stability. House wishes those hands would wrap around him, manhandle him, shove him to the floor or whichever way Wilson wanted him. Take all of that beautiful anger and possessiveness out on him, until the true Wilson was laid bare before him.
Not the polite face he wears for the rest of the world, not the desperate need to people please. Only for House does he become something raw and true, something desperate and hungry for every bit of the neediness House will never admit he has.
Releasing that breath, Wilson says, “It’ll punish you more if I deny you now. Get out of here before I change my mind.” He unlocks the door and grabs House roughly to shove him out.
“Love you, honey, let’s do this again sometime,” House calls loudly over his shoulder as Wilson slams the door. He pauses for a moment of reflection.
He’s not sure how that went so terribly, utterly wrong in every way, how he entered with a plan and exited with neither what he wanted nor what he was telling himself he didn’t want. Operation Make Wilson Lose His Luster step one, failed. That didn’t remove Wilson’s stupid level of attractiveness, that encouraged it. House encouraged it.
Oh, well. He’ll try again. He dreams up his next step in his one sided war against Wilson and hobbles back to the kids. Dying patient and all.
#
His second attempt doesn’t go any better, but it started out strong. The idea did, at least. Well, it did in his head.
Stealing a tube of Cuddy’s lipstick just to kiss Wilson’s cheek with just to leave a mark just so everyone would wonder who put it there…yeah, it sounded better in his head. Totally devious, causing Wilson annoyance and the rest of the hospital staff, most prominently House’s kids, confusion.
Except the purpose of this plan was not just to sow chaos, shockingly, but to remove Wilson’s luster. That is the part of this process that he keeps forgetting about. Imagine his surprise when Wilson looks much less stupid with pink lipstick smeared across his cheek than House anticipated, as was the smoldering look that Wilson gave him once he realized what House had done.
And then Wilson wiped it off and didn’t let House get near his face again until lunchtime. Not even after House offered to let him pat him down for hidden tubes of lipstick, with the added bonus of Wilson feeling him up.
So, yeah. Fail.
Attempt number three is hiding all of Wilson’s ties. Annoying, confusing, with the added bonus of keeping him at home ten minutes more while he searches every nook and cranny for where House hid them. He manages to distract Wilson long enough that he won’t have time to buy a tie before work, which he is disgustingly obsessed with arriving on time to. Overall, mission accomplished.
The name of the game is ruffle Wilson, make him less than perfect on the eye. House forgot one key thing: less clothes on Wilson is not a good thing for House’s concentration or victory. That one was doomed to fail from the start.
Stupid, stupid. Wilson is turning him into this; a sex crazed idiot. But most embarrassingly of all, it’s not just the sex, mindblowing though that is. It’s the love. The disgusting, embarrassing, craven, gooey affection that Wilson gives him, that fills House’s chest every time they touch.
Every time Wilson calls him something sweet. Everything he swore he didn’t need, didn’t want, would never get. Certainly not from Wilson. That’s what inspired this silent war. Not just dick.
Wilson nips attempt four in the bud (silly string sneak attack) and summons House to his office. The kids are off running tests, terrorizing Cuddy, perhaps having sex in the janitor’s closet all together, so they’re not here to witness his shame, at least.
When the lock clicks shut, House says this time, “I hope this won’t go like last time. Blue balls.”
Wilson sighs one of those quiet sighs that he reserves for when House is being annoying as always, but Wilson doesn’t think he deserves the full force of his ire. It’s pitying, which washes over House’s shoulders in outrage, but Wilson speaks before he can voice that outrage. “House. Tell me why. Then I’ll give you whatever you want.”
House rolls his eyes. “Bold of you to assume that positive reinforcement would work better than denial.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
House sighs. “You can praise me or degrade me, I don’t care. It’ll slide off my feathers the same. This isn’t over.” He stalks toward the door, which Wilson blocks with his body. “I know I said I didn’t want blue balls, but let me out.” He tries not to look at Wilson, still with his collar infuriatingly buttoned up to the top, but with no pristine tie.
It looks wrong. It’s a slight against the universe. Water runs, the earth spins, James Wilson wears a tie to work. It’s a level of plain wrong that’s intensely hot.
“You won’t tell me why you’ve been terrorizing my appearance for no reason. That means you either want to extort something out of me, or you don’t want to tell me the reason. I’m going to go with the latter.”
Wilson crosses his arms and squints up at him with one of those looks that could pierce his soul if he let it. “You’re playing a game I’m designed to lose. You’re mad at me. Okay, that could be anything.” He blows out a heavy sigh. “Will you give me five minutes to think of everything I could’ve possibly done to slight you in the last week? That’s really a game you should play, you know.”
House reaches for the door handle one more time, scowls when that’s unsuccessful, then heads for the balcony door. Wilson races him there and blocks that door too. House sets back on his heels, feeling for his copy of the keys.
“I stole them back,” Wilson says with a sweet smile he doesn’t mean. “We can do this all day.”
House does not give in because Wilson fixes those puppy eyes on him. He does not give in when Wilson puts his hands on his waist, just idly tapping and waiting with his head tilted. He gives in because he senses an opportunity to gain the upper hand. He supposes it’s not fair to poor, poor Wilson if he doesn’t even know he’s playing a game. House has to give him some help, he’s going to need it.
“You usually have the grace to at least tell me what you want and be an ass about it, instead of simply being an ass and waiting for me to figure out what you want. Are you trying to prove a point? That I’m too vain? I think—”
“I know what you think,” House snaps. “I wanted to bring you back down to the level of earth with the rest of us cretins. Remove your illusions that you belong among the angels. We’re all dragging you down with us, saint.”
It’s a flimsy excuse, a thinner lie, but it’s the best he can do when Wilson’s looking at him like that.
House watches Wilson’s mind spin for a moment, breaking eye contact just to berate himself for how utterly stupid it was to give himself away like that. He can feel his face heating up with every moment of Wilson’s eyes roving over it.
Wilson raises his arms, his brow furrowing like it does when he’s just dissected one of House’s schemes. “Let me clarify. You actually liked the affection and attention I was giving you in our mutual romantic relationship, which we discussed and consented to, were then confused by how vulnerable it made you feel…and your solution was to start terrorizing me until I came to the same conclusion on my own and let up?
“Or was it until the luster wore off, and you could convince yourself that if my hair was messy and I was annoyed with you, you wouldn’t find me as attractive?”
Wilson tears into his soul effortlessly as he always does, House staring on like each word and that fucking stare doesn’t tug at the very heart of him in a way he thought was burned out of him with Stacy.
Wilson’s brow burrows. “Or—or until I got sick enough of you that I decided it wasn’t worth it and broke up with you so that you wouldn’t have to confront the fact that a real relationship might make you happy once in a while? And it’s okay to feel vulnerable because you trust me not to break your heart? Was that it? Was that truth too hard to swallow?”
House purses his lips, pretends to think about it for a moment, and then nods rapidly. “I resent that last part, but sure, you’ve foiled my evil plan.”
Wilson pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “You and your asinine conclusions will never cease to amaze me. How you get from Point A to Point B while still being wrong…”
“But I’m not wrong. Admit it, if I kept going, it would get to you. You’d put me out in the doghouse. I wouldn’t be able to spy on you in the shower from there, but at least then you’d know that you could do your hair in peace—”
Wilson rolls his eyes, sighs much louder, and leans down to cutting House off in the middle of his sentence with a kiss on the mouth. House falls into it with a soft sigh.
When he pulls back, House chases his lips, though he’d never admit it. Wilson stands over him with his hands braced on the desk, hovering tantalizingly above House’s face. House says, his voice softer than he intended, “Rude. I was talking, you know.”
Wilson smirks. Everything House did to try to wipe it off didn’t work. He’s struggling to remember why it was a bad idea to keep it around. “Do you remember what you were talking about?”
House searches his brain and discovers that the details are hazy when Wilson is right there, staring expectantly, with that sexy eyebrow arched. He wets his lips, internally thrilling at the way Wilson’s eyes lock onto that movement. “Nothing important.”
Wilson smiles and kisses him again, seemingly as a reward. House regrettably pulls back to ask, “What are you doing? You hate doing this at work.”
Wilson sighs and kisses him again once, twice, like he can’t help himself. “House.”
“Yes, dear?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Wilson snorts. “I seem to be good at that lately.” He slides a hand around the back of House’s neck, up into his hair. It does the job.
House decides that he can deal with Wilson’s perfect hair and his stupid smirk and his smooth demeanor as long as no one else does. Minimizing the damage, really. Keeping all of Wilson’s deviousness to himself so that it doesn’t spread onto anyone else. Chivalrous.
Everybody lies. Why shouldn’t he?