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House walked into Wilson’s office, certainly for some reason. A very important one that he was about to go off on, once he sat in the chair across from the desk, he would open his mouth, really lay into Wilson—
“I’ve been trying to remember at what point you stopped calling me James,” Wilson said.
What?
“Did I ever call you James?” House said jokingly, trying to hide his unease at the sudden investigation. They both knew that he did. It didn’t serve House to admit it though.
“I can’t remember if it was before or after I started working at PPTH,” Wilson continued.
Wilson’s calm and cool inquiry put House on edge. He wasn’t sure what the angle was. House tamped down the urge to deflect too much, as that on its own might alert Wilson.
“What brought this up?” He said.
“Well, when your underling’s came rushing in with the gift I gave you, last year, by the way, it got me to thinking,” Wilson said.
“Yeah, I didn’t want to see your guilt sitting on my shelf everyday, so sue me,” House said, hoping uselessly it would be enough to distract Wilson.
“I think that inscription was the last time I called you Greg. The time before that, must have been around Stacy. She never stopped calling me James.”
Ah, that lifetime ago. The two of them used to be quite close.
“Do you still talk to her?” House asked, genuinely curious, and more than a little pained.
“Here and there,” Wilson shrugs. “Not so much after she quit.”
The silence sat there for a moment, House trying to clear his mind of the past, trying to focus on whatever Wilson was getting at.
“So. When was it?” Wilson prodded.
“How should I know?”
“You mean you, the man who remembered the day your highschool friend ate a banana for the first time, don’t remember when we shifted who we were to each other?”
There it was.
“Oh, don’t give me that,” House said, funneling his annoyance into denial.
“Why not? It’s true. I’m not even saying its bad. If you said my name in earnest now, I’d probably have a heart attack, because it means that you only have 2 weeks to live.”
“I called you Jimmy like two months ago,” House defended weakly.
“Ha! See, I know you remember,” Wilson said, waggling a finger, “And ‘Jimmy’ doesn’t count, you’re teasing me.”
“I’m always teasing you,” House said, well aware the jig was up.
Wilson leveled a look at him, straight on, no funny business. It was strange. These looks were only ever reserved for the drug addiction or medical ethics talks. As much as they psychoanalyzed each other, Wilson always backed down. Especially about things that involved his latent homosexuality.
“Why now?” House asked. Why risk everything?
Wilson stood up, grabbing the book off of the shelf and laying it on his desk, effectively evading the question.
“You’re right, I did feel guilty when I got you that. I had a feeling you wouldn’t open it. I put ‘Greg’ on there as a latch ditch attempt to appeal to your well-hidden sentimentality.”
“You bought a book worth thousands of dollars knowing I’d throw it away?”
Wilson shrugged, but didn’t answer.
“It’s funny, I feel like we are closer now than ever. Sometimes too close.”
House hesitated, catching wind of Wilson’s intention, but not wanting to speak it out loud.
“What are you getting at?”
“Maybe we call each other by our last names to distance ourselves from each other,” Wilson said. His gaze was plain, open and raw. The man was never raw, outside of the few life crisises House instigated, Wilson was always put together.
The crisis this time was one they both shared. It was one House thought he could put off forever.
He came at it the only way he could, with vicious mockery.
“So, what, you’re saying we’re homos?”
Wilson tilted his head in disapproval of the turn of phrase, but his face washed into acceptance.
“Is there another conclusion to draw from it, Greg?”
House winced at the name, sharp retort dead in his throat. No one called him Greg. His mom did. Stacy did. His dad did. All the people that knew him too well and resented him too much. The people that thought they knew the best for him, until they learned that there was no helping a man like Gregory House.
“What’s wrong with being closeted?” House said, a little desperately, “You’ve been at it since you were a little gay baby.”
The underlying fear, (the I don’t want to change us, I don’t want to risk this, this is all I can safely have, this is all I deserve) was thinly veiled. His attempt at levity barely came out.
“I mean, sure, we can be life partners in everything but name, but my parents are still going to ask me about when I’ll stop hanging out with you and find another pretty girl. And I’ve had enough of that,” Wilson said.
“Since when are you so introspective and vulnerable?”
Wilson blushed, finally ashamed of something.
“I’ve been going to therapy. It helps.”
“It helps?”
Wilson rolled his eyes and sat back down.
“We don’t have to talk about it or do anything about it. I was just curious. You can go back to your patient or whatever else you came in here to try to avoid.”
There’s no telling what House came in here for, or if there was still a world left outside the office door. Despite Wilson’s nonchalance, House knew the weight of this conversation, he knew how hard it was for Wilson to even want to bring up. For him to admit he was in therapy? None of it made sense.
Since when were they honest with each other? Even in younger years, when they were bachelors, more carefree, they’d always talked around everything. It wasn’t until later that Wilson was comfortable enough to poke House to his face, and that House was secure enough to believe in Wilson’s friendship in the first place.
After everything House put him through, there was no doubt anymore. No test he needed to conduct for proof that Wilson cared. Only treatment to administer.
“James,” House tested. It felt foreign and familiar. It didn’t quite fit. Wilson was Wilson. James was a man long left abandoned, just like Greg had been. Could they even be those people anymore?
Wilson looked up at him, eyes wide and sparkling. He looked young. Like how he was when they met. Hopeful, bright eyed. Like the James House knew all those years ago. It was jarring.
When did they both get so beaten down?
“It was after my leg,” House admitted.
House looked away, unable to meet that gaze, he cowardly looked out the window. It was beginning to rain.
“You had flown in, skipped your honeymoon. You took care of me. You and Stacy were basically fulfilling the same role, especially since the infarction made me sexless for a while. I had to push you away somehow. It was too much. I was too raw.”
(Which is to say nothing about how Greg is dead, how “House” is a carapace protecting the hollow insides of a pest that infests and rots everything it burrows into. Or how easy it would be for Wilson to crush him.)
House turns back when there is no response and is met with Wilson looking like a puppy dog. Insufferable.
“How about now?” Wilson said.
House shrugged. Wilson saw it for what it was, a glimpse of vulnerability, of want, that House didn’t know how to communicate.
Wilson got up again, complete with a neurotic hand gesture running through his hair, finally his facade relenting to show how nervous he really was. He perched on the front of the desk, not abnormally close to House, but within reaching distance. It made them both feel more comfortable.
“I’m not saying anything has to change,” Wilson said, “In fact, I wouldn’t even know how to start.”
House smirked up at him, leaning back in the chair, relieved their dynamic wasn’t rocked at all by this conversation.
“Handjobs on the couch?” He suggested.
Wilson huffed a laugh, like he did every other day around House’s lewdness.
“Sure, Greg,” Wilson said, with the full force of charm he reserved for hot nurses. House pretended to be unaffected as he got up and leaned into Wilson, grabbing the book still sitting on the desk.
“Ugh, so weird,” House said, right into his ear.
Wilson shook his head, smiling.
“I’ll see you at yours, 8pm, for couch handjobs,” Wilson said. He sounded sarcastic, but when House looked back at him, he winked.
House made a silly face, book in one hand and pumped his fist with the other. It was worth it, to see Wilson smile.