Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“No.”

Wilson stared at him, mouth slightly open and eyes wide. House remained steely, leaning heavily on his cane.

“I’m sorry, did you just say no?”

“Yep.”

It was the end of the workday, and what should have been a regular Tuesday in January. There was a Switzerland theme snow globe at the edge of Wilson’s desk from a patient who had given it to him as a “thank you” for the extra few months chemotherapy had given him to travel. Everyone always thanked Wilson for just a little more time. 

Wilson’s face fell, his lip curling, “you know, I should have expected this. Why would you ever do something nice for me? My mistake.”

“Can’t do it! Already have plans for that night.” House shrugged. Wilson’s office smelled like coffee and mint from the pommade he put in his hair. The smell was making his throat close.

“You already made plans for my wedding night?”

“Somebody has to satisfy your mother, what with you not being able to anymore now that you’re hitched to a new mare.”

A dry laugh clawed its way out of Wilson’s mouth, “This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it? Most people would be honored to be the best man.”

“If you wanted most people, you probably shouldn’t have come to me.” 

House hobbled out of Wilson’s office, wincing at his leg and intent on not looking back. He shut the door behind him, shook some pills into his hand, and swallowed them, glaring at the passing nurse wearing a questionable look. 

It took levels of perseverance comparable to the passion itself for House to reach his own office, draw the blinds, turn off the light, and fall heavily into his chair. He was so tired. He hadn’t slept since Wilson told him about the engagement, and the knowledge that he would inevitably be asked to be the best man only hastened his mounting anxiety like the frost on his window. 

He glanced at the clock, too deep in thought to really care how fast time was slipping away. The drugs had kicked in, that, he was sure of. The room was fuzzy — blurred edges creeping in his peripheral, the only truly visible objects were in his never moving, always the same office. He loved it in this room. He loved the bookshelf in the corner. He loved the way the glass door opened into the room with his fellows, always swinging properly on the hinges to a sea of faces wantonly pleased (or terrified) to see him. They hadn’t had a case in a solid week, almost a diagnostics department record. Right before he had made the trek to Wilson’s office for the uncomfortable offer, he had given the fellows a night off. That was sure to tick Cuddy off and send her his way. That was, if Wilson didn’t call her to complain first.

He scoffed into the air, swallowing down the saliva that was pooling in his mouth. Had he miscounted how many pills he had taken? It didn’t matter. He was glad for the malaise, the silence, the darkness swallowing him whole. He felt like a caterpillar, hiding from the abrasive exterior of his cocoon office where he would be expected to fly. House, for all he truly wanted to, could not fly for Wilson. He couldn’t even walk.

Just as he anticipated, Cuddy was at his door. She knocked. She never knocked. He rolled his eyes.

“Yes, dear!” He snapped, picking up his ball and bouncing it on the desk. She opened the door, looking like a woman who had just adopted a dog from the shelter, and was afraid it would snap if she got too close to it. “I’m not going to bite you just because I’m sitting in the dark.”

She slumped. It was a concession, and she knew it. Now he was really in for a lecture. 

“It was wrong of you to say no to Wilson.”

“Yes. I suppose you’re right.” He pouted and bounced the ball again hard enough for it to snap back at him, not really putting enough energy into the taunt for it to land. “But Mom, I didn’t want to!”

“Is this what you really want? To alienate your only friend because you don’t want to go through the effort of planning a bachelor party?”

House looked at her, long and hard. He imagined a lightning strike zapping from the ceiling and striking her, pushing her out of his door and back into the hall. He kept his mouth shut.

“Unless,” she walked closer to the desk. “There’s another reason.”

“Would you quit the therapy session? Go to Cameron if you want a dramatic confession.”

“I’m not looking for anything,” she deflated. “Put on your big boy pants, House. You know you have to do this.”

The ball bounced so hard it flew over his head and clunked into the glass wall, flopping dramatically to the floor. He sighed, squinting his fuzzy eyes. “What’s in it for me?”

“Two weeks off clinic duty.”

“Five.”

“Three.”

“Four.”

She sighed. Rubbed her eyes. He wanted to go home. 

“Four,” she agreed and turned to leave but stopped in the doorway. “Don’t spoil this for him. And don’t come high, or drunk, or whatever else you have planned. He does a lot for you, you know. This is the damn least you could do for him.”

House swallowed and felt the mass of spit and what was left of his pride sludge down his throat. He nodded. She left, shutting the door behind her and plunging him back into darkness. He waited, closed his eyes, and listened to the hallway. If he listened, he figured he could identify when Wilson left his office. The gentle flap of his loafers. The long but rushed stride of his legs. He always moved so fast. 

He waited. Five minutes, ten minutes, then lost count. An hour passed. Why hadn’t Wilson gone home? Was he hoping, stupidly, uselessly, that House would come back to his office and apologize? 

I’m sorry, Wilson, House imagined himself saying in this fantasy, please forgive me, I was just being me! Oh so silly, of course I’ll be your best man. Gosh, that would make me so happy. It would be the greatest honor! I promise not to fuck up your life again, and again, and —

House’s eyes opened. He heard it, the walking, which passed him by with no hesitation. 

He waited fifteen minutes before to be sure Wilson was gone before he stood, leg roaring, and limped to the parking lot. 

He drove his motorcycle at 75 in a 45, swerving around the few cars on the road at this hour just to feel the wind of a close collision in his veins. The Chinese food he ordered was at his front door when he arrived, and he sat at his coffee table with two beers and watched soaps until the fog in his brain from the pills was replaced with fog from the alcohol. Then, when the alcohol wasn’t enough, he took more pills. They soothed his burning blood like popsicles in the sun. He threw one in the air and caught it in his mouth. It tasted like a battery, leaving a metallic singe on his tongue when he didn’t swallow fast enough to beat the dissolving exterior coat. 

The next day, Chase was flipping through a magazine and poking at one of the pages to get Cameron’s attention when House trudged into the office, an hour late with a raging headache.

“Nice look if you want to get her attention. Maybe next time spray a few more pumps of cologne, just so we all know you’re really putting in the effort to get it. The ladies love when you lay it on thick.”

Chase chewed his cheek, slightly flushed. To her credit, Cameron remained unmoved. 

“You rejected Wilson’s offer of best man,” she said, crossing her arms.

Ah.

House spun and shouted “blabbermouth!” in the direction of Cuddy’s office. He was used to the whole hospital knowing his business, as public enemy #1. The only reason anyone thought he had any scrap of humanity in him was because Wilson enjoyed his company. Now that he had well and truly fucked that up too, he was forever doomed to be checking his office chair for whoopie cushions.

“You what?” Foreman, who had been lurking near the coffee machine pleasantly chimed in with a laugh.

“Ha, ha. Very funny. Are we done laughing?” House tossed a file on the table. “We have a case! A real life person who needs saving.”

“It’s your personal life that’s going to need saving after word gets out to the hospital,” Foreman said. 

“And how will your personal life be after I tell the whole hospital you pull your pants down all the way to your ankles at the urinal?”

Foreman rolled his eyes, and Chase looked at him as though he ate an infant for breakfast. “He’s lying!”

“Besides, Wilson will get divorced within three years. There'll be another wedding. Another party! Maybe I won’t be busy for that one.”

Foreman crossed his arms, “want to bet on that?”

“Betting on my Wilson’s love life? Foreman, that’s devious.”

“Fifty bucks says they make it four.”

House snorted, “your loss.”

Cameron looked appalled, her eyes wide, “we should be happy for Wilson! Not betting on his downfall!”

“A 34 year old female goes into cardiac arrest…” House interrupted, eager to change the conversation.

~ ~ ~

House knew he had to tell Wilson he was going to agree to the damn thing before lunch, or else he’d have to pay for his own. That, and he’d risk Bertha, who was a geriatric aged woman with the hots for Wilson, spitting in his reuben. With the minions off to run tests on the literally heartbroken single mother, he moseyed on over to Wilson’s office with the haste of a man walking into his coffin. 

He swung open the door and coughed, catching the attention of not only Wilson, but his weeping patient whomst he was in the middle of a meeting with. 

“I apologize for my colleague,” Wilson said with a glare at House, “he’s not very considerate.”

“Hear that?” House pointed his cane at Wilson, “he just said that for a personal reason. At my core, I’m just misunderstood.”

“Will you excuse us? I’m so sorry.” The patient nodded, and wiped her tears with a tissue from the pink box on the desk. The pair walked out onto the deck, Wilson’s hands on his hips.

“I’ll do it,” House groaned.

Wilson stared at him, smoke practically pluming from his ears. “You took me out of a very serious patient meeting to tell me you’ve begrudgingly agreed to be my best man?”

“Oh please, you have a meeting like this at least three times a week.”

“She has two months to live!”

House looked at his watch, “time is ticking.”

Wilson rubbed his eyes, bags resting where his hands were. “What made you change your mind? Did Cuddy give you time off clinic duty?”

House studied a weed that was sprouting through a crack in the pavement.

“Oh my god, she did! Didn’t she?” Wilson began to pace, hands on his hips. 

“Oh please, you’re acting like this is the worst thing I could have done to you.” 

Wilson took three long steps so he was standing right in front of House, their noses inches away from each other. “You are my best friend. You are the only person in my life—” Wilson scoffed. “You had to be bribed. Bribed!”

House poked the weed with his cane. It didn’t move, stuck between the slits and blocked from proper sunlight. It would never grow more than it already had. 

Wilson’s head snapped up, looking to the world overcome with the kind of revelation that prophets write about. “Do you hate me? Is our whole friendship a farce?”

House blinked, his hand white knuckling the cane. He rubbed his leg. The pain fizzled and popped up his body, sprouting up his neck and into his head. With a practiced hand, not even noticing he was doing it, he reached into his pocket for the pill bottle. 

Wilson gripped his wrist, stopping the hand from reaching its destination. House finally looked up from the weed and saw Wilson’s eyes, red rimmed and wet. His stomach churned.

“Answer me, House. I swear to —”

“I’ve seen you get married once before.” House said, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing he did hate Wilson.

Hating him would be so much easier.

“When I met you, you were getting divorced. Sam. Bonnie. Now, Julie. Is this really it? Another notch in the belt?”

“Sam and Bonnie were not notches in a belt!”

“Listen to me, Wilson,” House breathed, a deep exhale leaving his nose. Wilson was still holding his wrist. It burned. He wanted Wilson to understand. He wanted him to feel what House was thinking and realize that being Wilson’s best man would be the second most agonizing thing he had ever done. Maybe even the first. The thing was that Wilson was always doomed to have another wife. Another nurse. Another lithe body in his bed to keep him warm and his toes wet, but as soon as he was up to his neck in an emotional relationship, he sunk. House was always drowning in Wilson’s water. He was tired of swimming.

“What?”

“I’ll do it —” he risked sliding the cuff of Wilson’s shirt sleeve into his fingers and tugged before pulling his wrist away. “I want to do it.”

Wilson seemed satisfied with that answer. He nodded, blinking away what were surely girly tears. His cheeks were flushed. House kicked this inner voice for thinking he looked pretty.

“And you’re planning the bachelor party,” he said, smiling.

House’s pager went off. “I’ll make sure to hire the best my regular pimp has to offer.” 

He crushed the weed with his cane as he left.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing House could do, it was throw a party. The problem with a party for Wilson, though, was that the two of them didn’t really have any friends besides each other. For that reason, House’s apartment was the venue of choice. He had packed a bowl, refrigerated two six packs of beer, and even picked up a nice bourbon from the kid at the liquor store with a nose piercing. To top it all off, he had “the L word” cued on the television and a stripper coming at 12:30.  

He went to the bathroom and washed his face and shaved. The blade nicked him on the jaw and he groaned, unenthused at the notion of explaining to Wilson that he had dolled himself up for their two person “bachelor party”. He gripped the sink for a second, watching the blood drip from his chin and splatter on the white porcelain before diffusing into the water. 

Just as he finished pulling on his sweater, Wilson knocked on the door.

“No, not yet!” He yelled, as he hobbled to the door, “I told the company to send the naked mariachi band at 12:30!” 

Wilson was standing behind the door, grinning and wearing a navy button up with the top three undone. His nose was red from the cold. You’re supposed to get married in the warmer months, of course, but Wilson could never resist getting hitched on his own whim. His hair was perfectly styled, probably blow dried per usual. He smelled like mint. House inhaled when he walked through the door. 

“Freezing outside,” Wilson said, shivering a bit.

“It is January.”

“The wind really picked up in the last ten minutes. I think it might snow.”

“Then let’s hope you paid my electric bill.”

Wilson snorted. House could feel his eyes on him.

“You dressed nice,” he said, and House sat down on the couch. Wilson was right. He was wearing a white, cable knit sweater and well worn khakis. “You’re very nearly color coordinated.”

“A white and off white combo is very in fashion at the moment, all the kids are doing it.”

Wilson raised his hands in mock surrender, still looking relatively surprised House had put in effort. He looked around at the various contents on the coffee table and smiled, a big toothy grin that sent flurries in House’s chest. 

“All for me?”

“You wish,” House said, picking up the bowl and lighting it. They passed it back and forth, taking pulls until fog filled the air and the two of them were lounging comfortably with a beer each. 

They made simple conversation for a while, cracking jokes and making lewd comments about the show. 

“Fuck, marry, kill…”

“Wilson, are you a twelve year old girl?”

Wilson looked at him with red rimmed and gleaming eyes, hair slightly tousled from moving around. “Indulge me. It’s my bachelor party.”

“It’s my weed,” House replied, snatching the bowl back.

“Cuddy, Cameron, and Chase.”

“Now that’s just not fair, what about Foreman? Are you racist or something?”

Wilson snorted, “would you have selected him for anything other than kill?”

“I bet Foreman is a great lay, has that fiery attitude.”

“You like fiery attitudes in bed?” Wilson raised a lazy eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” House took a long sip of beer.

“Come on,” Wilson poked him and took a swig, “answer.”

“Kill Cameron. Mary Cuddy. Fuck Chase.”

Wilson nearly spat out the beer, “Fuck Chase?”

“First you’re racist, now you’re homophobic? Wilson, I’m gonna have to report you to HR if you keep harassing —”

“You’d fuck Chase over Cameron? ”

“Oh come on Wilson, Chase has gotta be a freak in bed.”

“I knew you didn’t really like her, but wow, that is something.”

A subtle layer of apprehension broke through House’s stoned and drunken stupor. “You’re the one who put him in the lineup.”

The room went silent except for the television. House kept sneaking poorly concealed, worried glances at Wilson. He poured them both glasses of the bourbon. They drank. At 12:30, the doorbell rang and House was glad for the excuse to get up from the couch. 

“Whatever could this be?” He asked no one. Wilson turned his neck from the couch. 

Inside stepped the hired stripper, brunette and tall with a skimpy nurse costume so tight that her breasts resembled balloon animals. She came and sat on Wilson’s lap, licking her teeth. Wilson was laughing his ass off, all bright cheeks as shirt buttons came loose. 

House watched from the kitchen, going alone with it all and pretending the whole thing wasn’t eating him up inside. There was a nagging feeling in his stomach that told him this had been lame. He had put up too much of a fuss and then hadn’t delivered. Then he looked at Wilson, who was fully focused on the busty stripper (as he should be, he was spending $500 on this) and figured he might have done an okay job. 

By the time she left, the pair of them were beyond sloshed, Wilson’s shirt still half buttoned and out of breath from laughing. He looked nearly edible. House blinked.

“So… what do we do now?” Wilson slurred, hands on his hips.

“Why’d you always stand like that?” House asked, staring.

Wilson inspected his hands positioned on his hands, “gives me command of the room!”

House snorted, “like you don’t already have it.”

“S’that supposed to mean?” Wilson approached House, who moved to sit on the couch and rubbed his thigh. “Does your leg hurt?”

“Leg always hurts, Wilson. Always hurts.”

Wilson’s face fell with his legs, and then he was kneeling in front of House on the couch.

“Tipping me for the party?” House swallowed. Hard.

Wilson gazed up at him, stars in his eyes and lips pink. He reached forward, hands painfully gentle and rested them on House’s scar. House reeled, breath failing to escape his lungs. He closed his eyes and willed the liquor out of his system. With a tenderness that made House’s fingers go numb, Wilson rubbed his scar. House’s eyes fluttered closed, and he held back a groan. It really did feel good, Wilson knew what he was doing. It being Wilson doing it only made it more intense

“Why are you marrying Julie?” He asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth, “she’s no different from the others. Why bother?”

Wilson slid his thumb along the worst of the damage. “She’s nice. I love her. What else do I need?”

“And when this one fails? And you end up back on my couch?” House winced as he struck a particularly sensitive spot.

Wilson paused and looked up at him, puzzled, “it’s a little late to tell me to get cold feet.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” House said, because he liked ruining things. Because he wanted Wilson to hear it, even in a roundabout way.

A crash at the window broke them both out of their stupor. Snow was coming down the curtains and a branch had snapped from a tree.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to go home,” Wilson said, blinking. He pulled his hands away from House, smiling awkwardly and rubbing the back of his neck. The khaki cooled from the lack of warmth.

“We’ve gone through a six pack, half a bottle of bourbon, and two bowls,” House said, shifting. “I don’t think you were ever going to go home.”

“That’s okay,” Wilson confessed, “I’d rather stay.”

A flush threatened to claw up House’s neck. Damn him.

“I’m taking the bed.”

“Of course, why would you do something nice for the groom?”

“Goodnight, Wilson,” he said, standing and limping to the bedroom. He couldn’t bring himself to brush his teeth. 

It must have only been a couple hours when House woke up to the gentle flap of socked feet and the long but rushed stride of Wilson’s legs. His heartbeat picked up as Wilson climbed into his bed and got under the duvet.

“You need better heating,” he grumbled meagerly before knocking out. House didn’t move. He held back sleep for as long as he could, feeling the rise and fall of Wilson’s breath in the mattress. He memorized the pattern, and jotted it down in a catalog of things that made Wilson, Wilson . Wilson’s hand migrated to House’s middle back after rolling to the side, and House mapped the warmth of his fingers too. 

He felt utterly pathetic, laying there pining for his best friend the night before his wedding. If God was real, he was a sadist. What, teasing him with a night with Wilson like this — touching his back, rubbing his leg, climbing into his bed — was too much. For the first time since his infarction, he felt like he might implode. To Wilson, this was just buddies sharing the only bed on a snowy evening. He might have even had a fun night. To House, this was everything because he was nothing if not an object permanently mounted in Wilson’s orbit. Wilson would never love House because he figured that somebody built with that much pain inside his body didn’t have room in his heart for love. 

When House couldn’t fight sleep any longer, the darkness pulled him in like the warm embrace of Wilson’s palm flattened on his back.

He dreamed of course, as he always did lately, of Wilson. Of silk button ups and threaded sweaters. Of pancakes on the stove, filling the apartment up with syrupy warmth it only knew when he was there, and light music flowing on the piano while Wilson played stupid mobile games on their couch. 

They drove to the hospital together, backs of hands grazing as they waltzed through the front door, a little early for House and a little late for Wilson — a perfect center point between the two of them that firmly fixed each other as better people. 

House smiled more, ate meals at regular times, and when people asked how his leg was doing with their usual pitying murmurs, he could look them in the eye and tell them it was better. The reasons being that Wilson would massage it at night, one hand on House’s leg, the other wedged between the pages of a book and periodically looking up to make sure he wasn’t pressing too hard. 

“Is this too much?” He’d ask when House would wince, and House would think that nothing Wilson could do, or had ever done, would be too much. He’d think that he had finally carved out a hole of peace for himself in all his pain and suffering, and he’d put his hands in Wilson’s hair and reply “never”, but only because he could barely contain the affection he had without sounding like a girl.

When he woke, Wilson was gone. The apartment was cleaned, of course, dishes put away and trash thrown out. There was a note on the coffee table scribbled in Wilson’s horrific doctor’s handwriting that read —

See you there. You still have to do the speech.

He scrunched up the paper and threw it in the emptied garbage can and picked up the half bottle of bourbon from the counter. Despite Cuddy’s suggestion, House refused to go to the wedding sober. 

Chapter Text

As he knotted his tie and slid his arms into a suit that had become too large for him, he felt, stupidly, like he was preparing for a funeral. It wasn’t anything so serious — Wilson would surely be divorced again (if the current trends continued) within the next five years. During that time, not much would change. 

Sure, Wilson would be a bit preoccupied for the first few months, but soon he would bore of Julie as he had Sam and Bonnie. His eyes would wander. He’d start wearing green ties. He’d spend a night on House’s couch and make it a routine. They’d eat Chinese food and watch movies like Wilson should be doing with his wife, and House would pretend it wasn’t domestic. He’d pretend it was all perfectly normal because it was. 

This was their relationship. Wilson would in the sun searching for love, melt his wings, fall right into House’s ocean, and nurse his wounds long enough to build new ones. 

The drive to the venue was long, and even though he didn’t particularly care if he got messed up from the motorcycle, Cuddy had insisted on giving him a lift. As he saw her pull over onto his street corner through his window, he snatched his now full flask, tucked it into his jacket pocket, and took a large gulp from the bottle for good measure.

“You smell like liquor,” Cuddy said before he had even sat down in the passenger seat.

“And you look like a prostitute.” She looked nothing of the sort, of course. Cuddy was always beautiful, and when she put in real effort like this, he really had to admire it. Her dress was emerald green, silky but not showy. The pearls around her neck were just the right size to be considered humble, and her hair rested perfectly contained around her shoulders as if she had scolded it into submission. 

She gave him a sympathetic look, and he stuck his tongue out at her.

The venue itself was a Ritz-esque hotel made of new marble and tacky chandeliers. It was very Julie, House thought, and not very Wilson. This was how his weddings tended to be, though, so he tried not to think about it. 

As it was, not thinking about it made him explicitly think about it.

He thought about what a true Wilson wedding would be — a small wedding party, someplace nice but not gaudy, fine wine at dinner and chocolate cake, vows exchanged privately but classic ones presented at the service, something smelling of warm candles and tasteful flowers (not just roses) — it would all be very intimate and nothing like the place they were in right now. 

House cleared his throat, heart rate a little erratic as he made his way to the groom’s hotel room on the next floor.

“Nervous?” He said and limped into the room to find Wilson pacing and scratching his neck. The man whipped around when he heard House’s voice and launched at him, seemingly in a trance.

“House,” he looked at House up and down, “you came.”

House shifted awkwardly and resisted grabbing the flask. “No, I’m a projection of your imagination.”

“Are you drunk?” Wilson asked, but House didn’t get the chance to reply before he was rambling again, “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if this is right. I’ve been married before, what if you’re right? Am I always doomed to fail at this?”

This time, House did take out the flask, morals be damned. He took a sip, smacked his lips, and offered it to Wilson.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and drank. 

House stood awkwardly, shifting on his feet. Wilson stared at the flask, and then out the window.

“You’re not saying anything,” Wilson paused, “shouldn’t you have something mean to say?”

House searched his head for a quip, or just about anything to fill the silence in the room. He thought of nothing, watching Wilson in the light of the window and fighting off the nausea of a nursed hangover and the hollowness in his chest. 

“House?” Wilson approached, stopping just a few paces from him and smelling like mint. Like woody cologne with a hint of flower underneath. “Are you alright?” He asked lightly, in that way he always did when he had keyed into House’s true emotions. When he had seen through the wall and made it into his brain. 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re being quiet.”

“I’m talking right now.”

Wilson squinted at him, “you’re too —” he pinched his jaw, looking for the words, “passive.”

House bit the inside of his cheek. 

“I’m almost hoping you’ve got some big prank planned. Something that will prove to me it’s really you in there.”

“It’s all me,” House said, his haunted expression not lost on Wilson, “I’m here.”

Wilson’s fingers twitched at his side, as though tossing around the awkwardness. “But—” he caved, melting a little bit into the floor.

“Come on,” House said and nodded towards the door, “you’re gonna be late. Don’t give her a reason to divorce you before you’re already married. I’ll lose the bet.”

The small curve of a smile graced Wilson’s lips. He nodded, and reached out a hand to clasp it on House’s shoulder as he walked past. House swallowed around the lump in his throat and followed him out.

The ceremony itself was lengthy, and boring, and something House would not normally be caught dead at. He had been standing for far too long and hadn't had the foresight to pop a few extra pills to compensate for the long amounts of standing that the job of best man required. 

He watched Wilson. It was easy, considering he was standing right next to him the whole time. It was a mercy that he couldn’t see Wilson’s face, but he could see Julie’s. He watched her, too. Her smooth skin and cloudy eyes. She smiled through her vows, holding Wilson’s hands in hers and laughing as she listed off the things she loved about him. 

“You’re fiercely loyal…” she had said at some point, when House had zoned out watching the back of Wilson’s neck and he barely managed to restrain a laugh. 

When the priest asked for objections, Wilson glanced quickly over his shoulder to find House silent and blinking at the floral arrangement. House wasn’t going to object. He didn’t have a plan. All he had was the pain in his leg, and, for once, was thankful for the distraction.

After the service, the guests made their eager way to the party on the second floor of the hotel. House made a beeline for the open bar, ordering a shot of tequila and sucking it down before the newlyweds had even made it in the room.

“Another,” he commanded the bartender, who looked at him with a cocked eyebrow that screamed “You’re pathetic.”

He was, of course, but that was not a revelation.

Wilson and Julie danced to a song House didn’t recognize. He didn’t care. He popped a pill and watched them embrace, swaying on the dance floor all blushed and doe eyed and it made his stomach churn. 

“Beautiful ceremony,” Cuddy said from her seat next to him.

He huffed, keeping his gaze on the couple dancing.

“You don’t agree?”

“Does it matter?” 

She paused, took a sip from her wine glass, and glanced at him. There was silence for a moment, then another before she asked “you write the speech?”

He flicked his eyes at her, just enough to see the smugness on her face, “poured over it.”

“Mhm,” she said.

“Don’t think I’m capable of working hard on something?”

“You’ve misunderstood the meaning of my ‘mhm’.”

“Have I failed to understand the meaning of your low cut top?”

She glared at him and shifted in her seat. “I know you’re capable of working hard on something. But it has to be interesting.”

“Is my best friend’s wedding not interesting?”

“To you?” She huffed out a laugh, “no. You’re convinced there will be more. That they won’t work out.” She lowered her voice, leaning into his ear, “I heard about your bet.”

“Foreman’s gonna lose. Look at them, moonstruck now, sure. Just wait.”

“I, for one, am rooting for his happiness. He’s certainly not getting it from anyone else.”

“I’m a ray of sunshine in Wilson’s sad, dejected life,” House replied.

The song ended. Cuddy laughed at his joke. It would all be over soon.

~ ~ ~

“Right, everyone,” House said. He had a pill in his hand which he washed down with champagne (his fifth drink of the night and fourth pill, but who was counting?). With a last shift of suit jacket and a cough to clear his throat, he braced himself for whatever was about to come out of his mouth. He had not, in fact, written a speech.

“So good to see everyone again. How long has it been since the last get together like this for Wilson?” House feigned deep thought and paused, “right, four years? Who could forget the other two times we had all assembled in front of a man of God to join Wilson and a wonderful bride in holy matrimony.”

Someone coughed.

“You know what they say, though. Third time's a charm!” He shot a glance at Wilson, who was glaring glaciers at him. 

“House…” Wilson mumbled into his champagne glass and kicked House under the table.

“What? Do we all want to be honest or not? All right. I’ll make it nice. The world thinks Wilson is a good person. He is a world renowned oncologist. He graduated from McGill, Columbia, and Penn at the tops of his class. He is kind to all his patients, more than most doctors delivering death sentences to their patients on a daily basis. He fixes his hair every morning with mint hair gel and irons his underwear.” 

House paused and risked a glance at Julie. Her hair was done up in beautiful braids that flowed down past her shoulder blades, and the highlight of her makeup caught the chandelier light and lit up her face. He dropped his head into his chest, and took a stubborn swallow.

“For all his goodness in his career, Wilson is not that good of a person. He is disloyal to his wives. He drinks shitty whiskey straight from the bottle. He is friends with me, and that’s a moral chip off the block as is. You all think he is a good person, but that’s because he’s a manipulative son of a bitch who's got you all wrapped around his finger.”

Cuddy stood up, metaphorical tranquilizer already in her fist.

“He continues to get himself into relationships that aren't good for him because he always needs to save something, but he can’t save himself. He is my—  my best friend. My colleague. The only person in my lousy life who gives a shit. The only person who has stuck by my side, even when I didn’t deserve it. Wilson isn’t a good man, not all the time. But who is?”

Wilson looked up at him, eyes flickering golden brown with something like warmth. 

“He gives a damn about people. He tries. He loves,” House paused — breathed, “he tries. It's those things that make Wilson good. Not his accolades. Not his failed relationships or his friendship with a lunatic cripple. He tries to be good, and most of you—” he gestured out at the crowd, “cannot say the same. I know I can’t.”

House closed his eyes and confessed. “Sometimes, he makes me want to try. And that’s… that’s more than anyone else can say.”

“A toast,” House said, raising his drink. Glasses clinked as they lifted from the table. “To Wilson, and Julie. And… trying to be good.”

He drank, swallowing down the whole glass as he did so, enjoying the bubbling pain as it went down his throat. He excused himself without so much as a glance in Wilson’s direction and bolted for the bathroom.

The festivities clambered on in the other room, along with applause that made his stomach turn as he slumped against a stall door and banged his head against the wall. His mind was foggy from the liquor and pills, vision swimming as the adrenaline crashed from his speech and his world fell before him. 

He took a shuddering breath, reaching into his pocket for a pill and finding none. The world went quiet and dull around the edges. He leaned on the wall and shimmied out of the bathroom, made his way to the elevator and pressed the button for “up”. The locked hotel room door opened with a click from his keycard. He landed, heavy and tired, on the plush king bed of a room he shared with no one and fell into a fitful sleep nearly instantly. He dreamed, as he always did, of Wilson.

House’s sweater resting on Wilson’s shoulders in the chilly night of their apartment. Snow falling out the window as he played Christmas songs on the piano. The smell of mint, pine, and home cooked meals served with cabernet sauvignon across a crackling fire. Red kissed lips, stained burgundy from the wine and the flush. 

Wilson standing from the couch and coming to join House on the piano bench. Wilson resting his head on House’s shoulder, asking him to play Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer because it was the only Christmas song he had really heard as a jewish kid. The world falling away behind them. A life that would never be his.

What House had not seen, and would never know of, was that Wilson had followed him to the bathroom. He was held up, you see, by the copious amounts of toasting and congratulations from his guests. House will never know that Cuddy had given Wilson a look of despairing realization from across the room. He will never know that Wilson had marched to that bathroom with the full intention of calling him an idiot and pulling him into his arms with all the warmth and strength in New Jersey.

The truth of the matter was that by the time Wilson got to the bathroom, House had already fled, and Wilson’s convictions were not strong enough to carry his own confession through that very alcoholic evening into a terribly late morning. No, Wilson would forget about his little realization after House’s speech because House had been right. He was not a good man. He was not strong enough.

What was one more failed marriage, anyway?