Archive of Our Own

To love is to tell the story of the world.     There was
an ocean with a boat     mountains     a meadow     too painful to stare
at directly. Haven’t I been here before? Yes.     No:     not quite here.

"On World-Making" by Nomi Stone

House would swear sometimes that his life is scripted. There are people set upon this earth specifically to annoy him. Mainly this is fine, as gaining enough of House’s care to be annoyed typically yields good results, but really, there has to be some cosmic specter up there laughing. House, staunch atheist though he may be, almost hopes there is, if only so that somebody is getting something out of this dog-and-pony show.

So there’s this patient. There’s always a patient. And the patient is agender. “Which one?” House asks, greeted only with a placid, cat-like blink from said patient, who answers, “I thought doctors knew their Greek?” An indelicate laugh from Thirteen.

Okay. House is fine with this. Mainly to be annoying to everyone around him, he persists in calling the kid by nouns only rather than the neutral pronouns they prefer, and it’s entertaining in any case to watch Taub struggle deeply with it—interestingly, not with the concept, but rather its execution. Pick agender, any gender. The potential for off-color jokes is plentiful.

Except there’s more. The patient is asexual, too, evidenced—apparently—by the black ring on their middle finger. Further prodding reveals that, I swear, your honor, they and their partner have never had sex despite having been together for three and a half years. Clef—this is the kid’s name—seems nonchalant about the whole thing, as if this isn’t weird, and House has to respect the poker face if nothing else. Okay, so that rules out underlying syphilis complicating the lab results, which makes Kutner about 80 bucks poorer.

“You’re just okay with this?” Taub demands of Clef’s partner, Wane (as in an act of the moon, not the last name of a bat), who conspicuously isn’t wearing the black ring. To which Wane gives him the slow up-and-down and says, “I reckon you’ve survived longer dry spells,” and, dammit, House kinda likes these kids, which annoys him even more.

“Sex isn’t everything,” he proclaims, just to see if he can make Taub spontaneously combust, even though he’s calling it now: Wane is cheating. (Can one cheat, if sex isn’t part of one’s relationship in the first place? Questions abound.) “Didn’t you know love is longsuffering?”

“I’m aromantic,” Clef pipes up. House huffs, dropping the chart he was holding; it glances off the edge of the targeted table and clatters to the floor. Kutner says “Ope” and bends to pick it up.

“Now I know you’re fucking with me,” House accuses. He gets a black-ringed middle finger, a shit-eating grin (despite Clef’s wan, sick features), and a “I’m not fucking with—”

“Anyone. Yes, very funny. But seriously, is there anything you kids won’t not do these days? Whatever happened to the sexual revolution? What’s the point of being with anybody at all?”

“A question everyone has to answer in some way,” Wane says sagely.

“Whatever is happening between the two of you confuses me,” Taub says bluntly.

“I dig it,” Kutner appends, giving two thumbs-up, one around House’s dropped medical chart.

“May a love like this never find me,” House says cheerfully. On that proclamation, Clef’s eyes roll to the heavens—exasperation, maybe, or the call of the angels—and they start to seize, and that’s the next little while. Like House said, you couldn’t write this shit.

*

He would have gone on to hound Wane about whether he’s getting any on the side, maybe do some light stalking, had the kid not admitted that she and Clef are in an open relationship. That’s maybe the least weird thing about them. They both live in a house with another couple whose names are Ester and Pip. “Did a six-year-old name all four of you?” House asks. No, says Wane. It was Wane who named Pip, and Ester named itself (and House can privately admit it picked a bitchin’ name).

Oh, and Wane and Pip are dating, which makes it much easier to get Wane to go home and make the others look for black mold. House sends Kutner with him with firm instructions that he’s not allowed to fuck anyone in that house, which House has very low hopes of Kutner obeying—he has a thing for patients’ close relations, as it turns out.

“Not my type,” Kutner insists, though Ester’s Facebook page will show, as early as this weekend, a flash-riddled bar picture of it sloppily kissing Kutner’s glitter-sheened cheek. If you ask House why he’s privy to this, he’ll say some bullshit about protecting his sources.

Uncharacteristically, House is so fascinated by the lurid dynamics between these four—Wane calls it a “polycule,” though House is leaning towards “comorbidities”—that he avoids making mischief of his own for an entire 36 hours. You see, for example, Pip formerly dated this guy who was the son of a Red Sox player, and he was dating Ester at the time, so Pip essentially stole it, and Red Sox Jr. is still pissed and got Pip banned from their favorite bar, and so Wane goes there to sow discord among Pip’s former friend group, and—scratch what House said earlier, this is exactly the kind of love that should find him, if any.

Not that he wants it, or has any hope for it regardless. The only love that comes to him these days is other people’s, made his problem. Most often, Wilson’s periodical flirtations with inevitable collapse.

The latest of which is Amber. The letter “A” seems determined to follow him right now, hey? And this blonde bane of his existence would not have happened were it not for House’s own gambit with the administration. Oh, god, now he can’t unsee it. A’s at every turn.

It’s still early days with Amber, so there’s hope yet of Wilson blowing it somehow, though House is starting to see the signs of impending cohabitation—Wilson’s coming to work in fresh shirts but still smelling of her perfume, for example, or showing up to work late (Amber’s apartment being further from the hospital than Wilson’s). But House is determined to get them to break up, if Wilson won’t self-sabotage on his own. In fact, he almost thinks Wilson wants it to happen, because with Julie he didn’t even give House the chance—refused to talk about her, only let House meet her once or twice before the sudden elopement, the predictable decay. He knows how House is. He hid her for a polite period of time, as a woman does her cleavage, before allowing this tenuous period where he endures House poking and prodding and plotting his ill machinations.

So he wants House involved. If you ask Wilson, he’ll say some trite nonsense like Can’t a man want his best friend and his girlfriend to get along, but he certainly must know by now that this is like handing House a water balloon and telling him not to throw it. Wilson doesn’t expect House to be anything but what he is.

Actually maybe that’s a bad sign. With all the other women, there’s been an air of exasperation, a dual burden: Wilson wanting him to Be nice House, can’t you be happy for me just this once (it’s never just once), can’t you let me have anything that isn’t you—and at the same time, Wilson knows he doesn’t want that, doesn’t expect that. Not really.

But with Amber it’s been different. To hear Wilson tell it, he’d insist it’s the healthiest, most clear-eyed relationship of his life (come on, it’s been, like, three weeks), that they’re communicating openly, that they both know what they’re getting into. She sees me. Ugh. House has heard him say that how many times? And yet, no wheedling. No Please, House, you could stand to go a single day without causing a scene. I almost think you want me to fail—

I do, you idiot. For your own good. He’d said as much about Bonnie, and Wilson’d not spoken to him for about four days, which was almost a record. (The record was eight, since moving to Princeton, anyway, and that had been Bonnie-related, too.)

He’s not nagging this time. House decides he doesn’t like this. There’s an established pattern with these things, and if Wilson has become this desensitized to his bullshit it just means that he needs to step up his game.

The thing is, he’s pretty sure that Wilson is gay. This has been a conviction of his for awhile. All of the signs are there. Jimmy Wilson is an exercise in checking boxes, buttoned-up, coasting. Windsor tie knot to polished loafers: it’s repression all the way down. The closet looks good in business-casual. The chaos he’s capable of is leashed tight by a deep well of denial and compartmentalization; it’s House’s job as his best friend to crack the lid, isn’t it?

Wilson will probably never come out of the closet. That’s almost what makes it more fun. House loves to be aggravated by something unsolvable—better yet, something that can easily be solved, but for the sheer stubbornness of the person burdened with it. Still, he wouldn’t be Gregory House if he didn’t try anyway.

But despite the 2010s looming, one does not simply walk up to his best friend and declare him gay. All of their friendship, in a way, has been a long con, edging ever closer to that buried truth. House has circled it like a bird of prey through various means, but these kids—god bless these crazy kids. He’s got brand new ammo.

Google is stymied, at first, with his beautifully-worded query (“what aromantic mean”). Annoyed, he goes straight to the source, while they’re conscious, that is, in between sudden crashes. Clef is suffering from a touch of palsy but is all too eager to lisp out the acronym of something called an AVEN, which to House sounds like some kind of misspelled name for a bird. Delightfully, this leads to an Internet forum, his favorite source of misinformation and petty drama.

The nomenclature is yet new. House is giddy off of brand-new folk linguistics, taking some time to gleefully absorb the nascent infighting that the term “aromantic” is already inciting among AVEN’s user base. (A surprisingly large amount of internet-goers don’t want to have sex, which House would’ve supposed was the whole point of the ‘net, but trust humanity to always evade the mean.) In a move inspired by the likes of Foxworthy, House scrawls down a messy list of crowdsourced factors, per the patrons of AVEN, and then leans back in his Eames chair, plotting. Brave new loveless world.

There’s no mold in the little commune household, which Kutner reports is, curiously, one-bedroom. Apparently Ester sleeps on the floor, which hasn’t been a point of contention until now: with Clef in the hospital, Ester would like to sleep in the bed, which the other two are in hysterics about, now convinced Ester has been holding a deep and abiding resentment this entire time. Fascinating. House sends in labs, pancreas stuff mostly, and Clef gets an NG tube put in, boring stuff really. All of which makes House serendipitously hungry, and so he wheedles at Wilson to accompany him for an unseasonably late lunch. Which is to say, House eats, Wilson sits and watches him eat, and Wilson pays.

“Say, Wilson,” House says. Time for the big guns. “Food for thought. I have this patient who’s reminding me a lot of you right now.”

“Is it the rampant infidelity I’ve been hearing so much about?” Wilson asks, which means he’s been talking to Taub and nobody else. “Because if so, I’m about to be offended.”

“It isn’t infidelity, Taub’s just jealous. Who doesn’t want to be part of a dubious love amoeba?” Feign nonchalance. “Oh, wait, that’s what it was—Clef, my patient, is the odd one out.”

“Did you say Cleft? Like ass cheeks?”

“No, you dirty boy—” A wince from his meal partner; yeah, that one was pretty weird, even for House— “Clef. Like a music thing?”

“If you say so.” Wilson leans back in his seat, waiting for House to get to the point. “The odd one out?”

“Yeah. I don’t really know why they’re there, entirely. Probably just for the...cuddling?” House furrows his brow. No, don’t get sidetracked. “Agender, asexual, and aromantic. Can you imagine that?”

“Asexual I think I’ve heard before,” Wilson muses slowly. “That’s like plants?”

“Maybe. Now that’d be a landmark case. At least to Clef it means no boinking—”

“Boinking,” Wilson echoes in horror.

“—but no pronouns, either. It’s been really funny watching Taub try and deal with all that.”

“I can imagine.” Wilson laughs through his nose softly, giving House that oh, House sort of look that used to fill him with all kinds of moronic hope. A long moment of House placidly eating, waiting idly, and then, “Sorry, did you say earlier that this patient reminds you of me in some way?”

House grins in a way he’d like to imagine is shark-like but probably just gives imp. “I don’t recall.”

Wilson gives him a flat look. The kind he gives House when he knows he’s about to be profoundly annoyed by something, but isn’t yet sure how. “What are you trying to imply?”

“It just got me thinking, is all.” House says this around a half-chewed mouthful of cafeteria fries. Wilson, inured by this point to his visceral eating habits, simply blinks dully. “Finally, we’ve got a word for someone who maybe likes to warm others’ beds, maybe even sleeps around depending who you ask, but doesn’t actually like being in love.” He’s aware he’s botching it, if you ask the AVENites, but for the purposes of getting in Wilson’s head, it’s working fine. Wilson looks at him blankly for a moment before kneading at his brow with a thumb and forefinger—score.

“What are you, what is this, House?” he groans, one big brown doe eye glinting out at House between fingers and fringe. Stupid big baby eyes. “What kind of a mind game are you trying to run on me now? Is, is this about Amber again? How many times do I have to tell you—”

“You’re the one who’s always bringing her up! I haven’t brought her up once this entire conversation!”

“You—just, I—ooh,” Wilson finally manages, a mad little noise that usually takes a lot more effort to get. House doesn’t like this because it’s clearly due to the Amber effect, and not something he himself has earned. “Well—well go on, then! What’s your big theory, huh? What’s the play this time? You think I’m, what, some unfeeling loveless robot who’s just going through the motions?”

“Harsh words from the guy who got the highest score on his sensitivity training—”

“—not a thing, that’s not true, House—”

“—and anyway you said it, not me. Though I think my patient would probably characterize it as uncharitable. There’s a whole forum of young abstinence enjoyers who would crucify you for that, you know.”

“So then explain it to me. And I’ll decide how angry to be with you after that.”

“Well, if you insist. You’re great at ticking the boxes. Buying the flowers and the chocolates, the grand romantic gestures—but it’s all a bit impersonal, isn’t it, Jimmy?” It’s nothing Julie and Bonnie and probably Sam haven’t said before, so if it sounds harsh coming out of House’s mouth, it doesn’t phase Wilson more than this whole thing already does. “You know what’s expected of you. You’re the good guy in those big city romance movies. But if I think about it, looking back on all these relationships—I’m not convinced you’ve ever actually wanted to be in love.” With a woman, that is.

“Then why in the hell would I go to all the trouble, then?” Wilson asks exhaustedly. House is losing him. He’s tired instead of mad, which wasn’t the intended goal. “If I didn’t want it, why buy a ring, why—why buy the house? Why even try to save my marriages, hm?”

Well. With Bonnie, he didn’t really try. With Julie, he was almost glad to give her everything, just to have it over and done with. House knows this. Wilson knows House knows this. The brief, heated stare-off between them over the cafeteria table says it all, but House lets it go unspoken. “Because you like the way it makes your life make sense to other people,” he says instead. “Because if someone else can be in love with you, can want to marry you, then that’s another thing on the list of what James Wilson is doing right.” Now Wilson’s getting mad again, his brown eyes sparking with an annoyance that has always made him look a little like an avenging angel to House. Something out of a cathedral window, stained glass speared through with sunshine. Normal platonic thoughts.

“You’re unbelievable,” Wilson spits out, one of his trademark Angry Wilson phrases. House has got him good with this one if that’s all he can think of to say. “That’s just—I can’t believe you, House.”

“Just think about it,” House says, with faux gentility, which only serves to rile Wilson further. Almost in unison, they stand from the table, Wilson with a pissed-off clatter, House with a Vicodin tilt. “I just thought it was interesting.”

“You are so full of shit it’s a wonder you don’t spill,” Wilson snarls under his breath, storming away with a huff. On cue, House’s pager goes off. Code blue on Clef. Whoever’s scripting this shit has a funny sense of humor, he thinks, turning to lope towards the diagnostics lab and see if those tests turned up anything.

From his office, for the rest of the day, he can feel Wilson seething from all the way down the hall. A familiar warmth, the destructive fire of conflict House’s favorite one to bask in. Cuddy’s anger is a close second. Enough to warm him almost all the way through, cutting the narcotic numbness down to a manageable simmer.

He’s kicked off a thing with Wilson that will last for days. It sustains itself in little passing jabs, traded in elevators, or when they automatically fall in step in the hall—it pleases him to no end, the way Wilson can’t help but do it no matter how angry with House he is, even if he’s refusing to speak to him, just habitually appends himself like a dog to House’s heels—I didn’t know loveless robots wore scarves and That’s me, a freak who’s been faking it for decades and Oh, Jimmy, if anyone could do it, it’s you. (Scrapped at the last second: Women fake it all the time, just ask [insert ex-wife here]. It’s so easy at this point that House has options.)

There are longer bouts of bickering, too, whenever they have the time. There’s a bit of an interesting dynamic right now between Wilson and the newest round of fellows, to whom he is not just Dr. Wilson, whom Dr. House is always bothering, but Dr. Wilson, who is dating someone whose job I stole. Amber is their first point of reference for Wilson. It pisses House off. Can everyone just get over Amber already, please! There’s a much cooler blonde standing right here!

In any case, Wilson sidles into diagnostics on a far-fetched oncology consult right in the middle of an active debate on the merits of the three A’s to which Clef subscribes. Kutner’s of the opinion that “whatever is whatever,” whatever that means; Thirteen doesn’t really care much, though she will go to bat against Taub, who doesn’t really have anything against any of the A’s besides that they’re annoying to him to try and navigate. His attempts to explain this without sounding bigoted amuse House to no end.

“And then there’s this aromantic thing,” Taub is in the middle of saying. “Low libido, okay, I get that. Asexuality makes sense from a biological perspective—” Mentally, House tallies up the cash he’ll get off Kutner for the bet he’d placed on Taub brings up evolutionary psychology—“even androgyny, I understand that. But aromantic. Wow. Romance is human! Wouldn’t you say?”

“Why?” Thirteen asks, leaning her chin into her palm.

“Because women exist, for one,” Taub says emphatically, to which Thirteen has no choice but to nod. “I think, you know, sometimes it just takes time to meet the right person! There’s nothing wrong with that!”

“Humor me,” Wilson butts in. Oh, here we go. Getting the kids involved means he’s serious. “What would you even define as ‘romantic’ versus any other type of love? How do you, y’know, know you’re in love?”

“Well, you don’t,” Kutner says. What? Everyone else in the room turns to squint at him. “You don’t really know,” he insists. “It’s about if you work together, y’know? Go on a few dates, maybe have sex, and you have fun, and the same goals, and things work out—bam. Love.”

“No?” Taub sputters. “That’s—what are you talking about? It’s passion, man. You can have it way before you ever get a date with someone! It sweeps you away, whether you like it or not—what are you talking about, things work out?”

“He has a point,” House argues. “He’s talking about love, and you’re talking about infatuation—”

“No, I’m talking about love,” Taub insists. “As in, love love. Even after awhile, if you’re really in love—you still feel it. That drive. The, the butterflies. The sense that you would die for that person.”

“Now, I don’t know about die,” Thirteen objects. “I still don’t think I’d do that.”

“Seriously?” Taub puts his hands on his hips. “Even if it would save that person’s life?”

“I’ve had enough of dying. I think anyone who would want me to do that for them doesn’t love me the way I want to be loved.”

“Well it’s not about what they want, it’s about what you would do.”

“Well I wouldn’t do it.”

“I don’t know,” Kutner muses. “If that’s what love is, I think I’ve been in love a lot then? I would die for a friend, even. Or even maybe somebody I don’t know that well.”

“You’re suicidal, that hardly counts,” Taub grouses.

“Nah, I’d do it if I was happy too. But no, there’s the part where you feel, like, normal-excited about them, and want to bang maybe, and then there’s the part where you have to decide if you’re gonna let it flood you all the way through—do you guys not get that?”

“No,” Thirteen, Taub, and Wilson say at the same time. House is just squinting at him, trying to dissect Kutner in his mind.

“Odd one out,” Thirteen says to House, a moment later. “Care to explain?”

“Oh, no, biologists aren’t supposed to interfere with the wildlife,” House answers.

“Dr. House thinks that I’m aromantic,” Wilson says, and the other three look between the two of them as if already silently putting money on things. House does not appreciate it, even though his encouragement has a lot to do with the behavior. “Or, I guess more accurately, that I’ve been faking being in love every single time I’ve been married.”

“I mean. I don’t know your exes, but you’re not in love with Amber,” Kutner says. Wilson fixes him with an incredulous stare that viscerally reminds the younger man that he’s still technically speaking to a senior, not just Dr. Wilson, who’s dating my ex-coworker and in a constant battle of wits with my boss. There’s a hilarious moment where Kutner visibly waffles on whether to commit before he says: “No offense,” and flashes a peace sign that kind of hits more like a middle finger.

“Offense is not on my radar, it’s the bafflement you’re noticing,” Wilson sputters, talking with his hands. House leans back in his chair, feeling like a little kid at his first big league game. Giddy. “Please, enlighten me!”

“If it’s like what Taub said, and it’s all about grand gestures, that is, then you’re probably in love with her,” Kutner hedges. “But if it’s like what I said, and it’s about alignment—then no. You’re infatuated, maybe, but not in love. If you were in love, you would be able to see that it isn’t working out. Love is meant to lend clarity, not blindside you.”

House lets out an impressed whistle. A flush creeps up Wilson’s neck, and House can see he’s almost as pissed-off at Kutner as he sometimes gets with House, which is incredibly interesting and rare.

“Lawrence,” Taub sighs, “I think we’ve already established that you’re in the minority here. C’mon, Dr. Wilson, it’s obvious to me at least that you...care about Amber.”

“Something about the way you’ve said that makes it sound facetious!” Wilson accuses.

“It’s not, I swear! She’s one of your priorities, that’s not something I’d in any way question!”

“Taub, you lukewarm little muppet, it’s only Wilson, will you just say what you mean?” House gripes.

“I—” Taub wipes his hands off on the lapels of his lab coat, then puts them behind his back like a kid at the principal’s office. “I mean this in the nicest possible way. You’re missing...The Look.” His inflection makes the title case obvious. “And that’s not to say you just haven’t done it in front of us yet, it’s just, that’s just the only thing.” Wilson sputters and gestures at him in a way that’s meant to say elaborate. “That look men get, when their woman walks into the room?” Thirteen gags mildly at the way he’s chosen to phrase it. “I just mean—the one that says you want something. That whatever you were just doing doesn’t matter anymore—The Look. All of you, quit looking at me like you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, come on, that can’t be your metric,” Thirteen scoffs. “‘The Look?’ If that’s what we’re going by, you’re in love with every woman shorter than you that you’ve ever seen, and Wilson’s in love with House.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Wilson says, though to whom, it’s unclear, and storms out of the room. Taub and Kutner are conversing in intense eye contact, suddenly, as if they’ve both just stumbled upon something marvelous. Into the silence of the room, Thirteen slowly says, “...Huh.”

“I think if that proved anything, it’s that I trust none of you with matters of the heart,” House says, easily dismissing the whole thing, because he’s pretty sure everyone is stupid but him most of the time. There’s no such thing as a The Look, Kutner (still) needs to be monitored around sharp implements, and Wilson’s (still) definitely gay. The only one who got anywhere close to being correct is Thirteen, but she loses credibility points the moment one considers that she’s dating Foreman.

Nobody, House decides, can really figure out what love is about. And perhaps that’s the thing entire.

*

After Clef succumbs to an acute adrenal crisis, House goes nuclear and summons all the residents of the strange little commune for rigorous blood testing and a barrage of environmental questions. He’s hitting that point in the case where he feels fucking insane. Everything is relevant because nothing makes sense. Ester’s recently developed a slew of digestive intolerances, Wane comes in sporting hives, and Pip is relapsing into an ice-crunching addiction that they kicked a year ago—what does it mean?!

Cuddy calls. You Can’t Just Order Frivolous Labs House. Nothing is frivolous, anything could fucking matter at this point. He and Cuddy have the same argument three different ways. He could script this in his sleep—and suddenly Wilson, too, is in this episode, not even hiding behind his flimsy excuse of Have We Thought About Leukemias, clearly here to gawk at the youth and bicker with House.

Wane is holding Pip’s hand while they get their blood drawn, meanwhile Ester is making googly eyes at Kutner, and Wilson leans against the wall, his hands shoved in his pockets, and asks, “So are you all unromantic, or how does that work, exactly? Is that how you manage all the multiple partner things—no attachment?”

“Well.” Ester starts. “I’d say—I guess I’d argue that’s an oversimplification.”

“Which part?”

“I think it’s ‘aromantic’ that you mean, first of all? And if so, then no, we don’t all identify that way.”

“As for the polyamory, it works because of the talking,” Pip adds.

“Lots of talking,” agrees Wane. “So much talking.”

“I’m quite romantic in all directions,” Ester resumes. “Whereas Pip I feel is more on the subtle end. And with Wane it’s very conditional.”

“This potentially explains the hives,” Taub says to Wane, who rolls her eyes.

“It isn’t like you’re implying,” Wane says snippily. “Overly difficult, or a pain in the ass—it’s actually quite easy, if you care enough to do it well.” Taub holds up his hands appeasingly, giving Kutner a look like Can you believe this? Kutner gives him a look like You’re on your own. House is lately of the opinion that theirs is the second most interesting bromance in the room, a high honor, given his and Wilson’s takes first. “Everyone gets their needs met, and nobody’s wholly responsible for all of another person’s needs—when it was just me and Clef, it wasn’t going well.”

“Well, that’s a bit grim, isn’t it?” Taub argues, because he’s only more likely to be belligerent when nobody’s agreeing with him. “You’re saying that the person you’ve chosen to be with isn’t enough for you—wouldn’t you characterize that as unloving?”

“That’s your love image, man,” Pip chimes in. “Not mine, and not Wane’s. Maybe whoever you’re with has the same one. Or maybe not.”

“Sorry, love image?”

“It’s like a metaphor,” Pip explains. “Clef kinda started it. Like, if you could imagine a perfect image for how love feels like to you, or what you want your relationship to be. Mine is like...a cozy sweater. Nothing dramatic or overbearing, just something I put on to keep me warm. A reliable favorite thing.” Taub again looks around the room for validation.

“Love is a thing that happens to you,” he insists. “It’s—it’s life-changing! It isn’t something you can run away from, or take off and put on at will—”

“So then your love image would be, like...a car crash,” Pip decides. House snorts indelicately.

“For Clef, it’s like a snowglobe,” Wane says, with a mournful sort of intonation that actually kind of hurts. As odd as these kids may be, their bonds are obvious...inexplicable, but obvious. “Love is something they like to look at, to have in close proximity—but not something they embody. It’s like, like—”

“A spectacle?” House supplies dryly.

“Part of their environment,” Wane answers, annoyed.

“Anyway,” Ester says, swinging its legs idly in the hospital chair, “pretty much everybody assumes that their love image is just how love is. And then you get into a relationship, and the other person could be totally different. ‘Car crash’ love and ‘snowglobe’ love, or even ‘sweater’ love, aren’t necessarily going to complement each other.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with Clef, but ‘sweater’ love is just...platonic,” Taub argues. “There’s no passion. No side effects—”

“Geez, ‘car crash’ was really accurate for you,” Thirteen interrupts. “Like, I get what you’re saying, but man, the way you love sounds crippling. For me it’s like being on molly. It’s all heightened, but there’s none of this, I don’t know—”

“‘Affliction’ and ‘affection’ are close enough in the dictionary,” House says. Thirteen groans and Kutner gives him a thumbs-down.

“I still don’t know what any of you are talking about, tragically,” Kutner sighs. “It’s an unlocked door. You can walk through it, or leave it closed, but it’s always there.”

“Lawrence, have you considered that you’re so depressed you’ve looped back around to being euphoric?” Taub asks, his hands on his hips, looking very middle-aged right now.

“I could easily fall in love with you, I just haven’t been motivated, and I think that only says good things about my character,” Kutner answers immediately. Thirteen’s jaw drops a little. There’s a chorus of Whoa and Wow and Hey, now from other occupants of the lab, which suddenly feels a little claustrophobic with tension.

“My love image is the doctors in here doing their jobs,” House decides, “instead of standing around arguing about love they’re all falling short of.” Except, weirdly, Kutner, who seems to be doing just fine. Taub shakes his head, Wilson gives House a dirty look, and Thirteen just laughs. Nobody’s moving fast enough, so House swings his cane in a wide arc, causing Taub to jump and yelp like a housewife seeing a rat. Enough about love; there’s work to be done.

*

Wilson finds him later, in the cafeteria. House is rearranging the kettle chips on his plate and thinking about hemoglobin.

“What on earth is going on with the men in your department?” Wilson asks. “Two of them have a strange, quasi-gay bond forming, and the third thinks I’m aromantic.”

“You’re still hung up on that?”

“Wh—it’s an insane thing to say, and not to mention, offensive! You’ve basically accused me of faking not even my past marriages but my current relationship, you understand—the happiest one of my life, mind you—”

“You say that about every single one of them, Wilson. And it’s maybe even true. But being the happiest relationship in your life does not equate to you being happy about relationships,” House says, rubbing his temples. A headache is approaching. This thing with his patient is really testing him. “And it’s got no bearing on the separate phenomenon of being in love.”

“For god’s sake, House. You can’t really think that, can you? Really?” Wilson dips his head a little, low enough to encourage House’s eye contact. Ugh. He’s sporting that signature look of twin determination and earnestness that always breaks House from the existential spiral. Goddamn him. “Either you’re messing me around, and your real goal is to, I imagine, screw with my relationship somehow, or you just don’t know me as well as I’d like to think.”

“Enlighten me, then. C’mon. Do your best Pip. What’s your love image?” Wilson scoffs, but he’s smiling, the big goof, a “love image” being exactly the kind of New Age-y psych romanticism to appeal to him.

“Ohh...I don’t know about snowglobes, or doors, or sweaters. I don’t know.” House gestures at him, so he continues. “It’s not an image, it’s not—I can’t distill it down to a thing. Maybe Thirteen was close….” He trails off, looking at the corner of the wall in a way that tells House he’s going into his own mind in a way he so rarely does with anyone else. A Wilsonian stream-of-consciousness. His headache waits politely in the wings, and he settles further into the vinyl cafeteria booth, waiting. “It’s like...a sixth sense. Something that’s taken up residence inside me, something animal. An appetite, a—do you know how you can meet maybe the nicest, most placid dog you’ve ever seen, and then all of a sudden something will set it off and it’s just...mean, like it’s gone back to being a creature all at once? And you realize anything could happen, at any time? It’s like that. Like I could be mean, or I could be horrible, just to chase it down. Or it could make me that way, and there isn’t anything I could do to stop it.”

...Huh. House feels a bit shivery under the skin, suddenly. “Chase it down. Is the chasing from being in love, or are you chasing love itself, knowing you’ll never quite understand it?”

Wilson narrows his eyes at House, a mild flush peeking over his collar, as it always does whenever he’s gone off on a ramble and House has reminded him of his presence by being awful. “Is there any difference? It’s all one image,” he declares. “I look into the mirror and there’s something there with me that I don’t understand—it’s all one image.”

“Like a parasite.”

“No, like a—stop it, will you! For god’s sake, what is this really about? I know you don’t think I’m aromantic, because it’s completely nonsensical, so—” A parasite. Oh. House has solved the case. “What is it?”

“I need to go and put some labs in.” But there’s time for this. Just a little time, always. “But all right, Wilson. Let me know what Amber says about your parasite love image tomorrow, will you?” Wilson makes a lot of very incoherent, annoyed sputtery noises in lieu of a response, and House leaves before he can quite get it together. Yeah. Time, always, for this.

*

Clef responds well to the initial treatment, and after some more testing, Pip ends up on the same meds. Pip’s pronouns are he today, which he kindly communicates by way of a pin that you can slide different pronouns in and out of. House refuses to admit this is kind of cool. Anyway, pronouns and all, Pip is admitted overnight for observation, but House isn’t worried.

A family member of Pip’s shows up and makes a big stink about The Lifestyle—House didn’t know that buying cheap pork was in any way related to being fruity, but okay—trying to gatekeep Wane and Ester from the room. It’s Taub, surprisingly, who goes to bat, with an edge of mania that speaks to some kind of personal reckoning that House could not currently be less interested in. Despite having solved it all, the headache he was staving off has formed a thunderhead. Maybe it’s his obviously rising temper that gets Cuddy down personally to tell off Pip’s relative, but nonetheless it gets done.

Cuddy deigns to stop by Diagnostics on her way out, catching House with his head lolled all the way back in the Eames chair, pretending gravity has any bearing on the ache. “The strangest thing just happened,” Cuddy says. “Dr. Kutner came into the room to try and check your patient’s vitals, and Dr. Taub got red all the way up to his eyebrows and all but ran away. Any idea what that’s about?”

“The gay is contagious,” House sighs. “Sadly, it isn’t contagious enough. I could really do with some hot girl-on-girl action—”

“Get a sex change, and maybe then we’ll talk.” He barks a laugh, then winces as it jostles his brain pan. “You know, I also saw Wilson just now? I asked him if he would get after you to do your mandatory sensitivity training and he said ‘Since when is that my job?’—” She does a pretty good Wilson, it has to be said—“and I said, ‘Since when hasn’t it been?’ and he just walked away as if he hadn’t heard me. What have you done to Dr. Wilson this time?”

“I’ve done nothing to him. Which is really too bad, as I, too, have caught the gay, and I have an insatiable desire for—”

“Do not. Finish that sentence.” He considers doing it anyway but finds himself too tired.

“Don’t you think the pronoun squad have been enough sensitivity training for one year, anyway?”

“If you’re referring to them as the ‘pronoun squad’ then no, I think not. Do the sensitivity training, House. And do not have Dr. Kutner do it for you. I’ve already bribed him to fail it if you ask him to.” God fucking dammit.

“Joke’s on you, I can fail it just fine by myself,” he yells, in the direction of the sound of her heels receding. Keeping his eyes closed unfortunately does not shield the migraine from the force of his own raised voice.

So it is that House spends a couple of blissful days not thinking about the whole thing much at all, except to enjoy the occasional amusement of Taub not being able to stand Kutner’s presence very well right now. The headache eventually clears, coinciding, just about, with Clef’s release from the hospital into three pairs of variously-loving arms. May a long life of snowglobes await.

Sometime in the last couple of days, Kutner has started to jokingly leave gifts of courtship for Taub to find—muffins from the cafeteria, sticky notes (Thinking of you –XOXO), once a carton of those chalky Valentine’s hearts that House really has to wonder how he found this late in the year. Thirteen and House start a betting ring of two over how long it will take for Kutner to realize he isn’t joking after all. Wilson has refused to join in; in fact, he’s refused to eat lunch with House for two days in a row now, which House doesn’t entirely mind. It’s to be expected after episodes of meddling in Wilson’s love life. Wilson knows him well enough by now to know that the period of silent treatment is directly proportionate to the magnitude of the prank House will play on him when it ends.

Accordingly, House goes this entire period of time assuming that something about his aromanticism ploy has just really gotten under Wilson’s skin. It’s gratifying in the way it always is, and though he may be snubbed, he’s also smug, which helps. So imagine his displeasure when he finds out it has less to do with him than he would like, and more to do with Amber than he wants.

He finds this out by way of finally storming Wilson’s office on the third day of silence, right as the workday wraps up. Wilson is in the middle of packing up to go home. He’s in the same shirt as yesterday, which is the first sign of calamity, and he raises his head to fix House with a shrewd, exhausted stare, which heralds the second. “I was wondering when you would show up,” he says. Ow. “Are you here because you already know, or do I need to tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Amber’s broken up with me. Hope you’re happy.” There’s a dullness to his intonation that intrigues House. It’s the post-breakup Wilson tone that’s half sadness and half guilty relief. Oh, House is all over this. Not only has Amber stolen the post-glow of his far-fetched gambit, he didn’t even see this coming, which aggravates him to no end. He takes a particular sort of joy in forecasting it and the way that his prophesying gets Wilson all riled up.

“Does it have anything to do with our revelations this past week?” he asks, wanting a little bit more—and there it is: the familiar glint of supreme annoyance in his best friend’s eyes, cutting through the monotone. “Aww. She broke up with you just because you’re aromantic?”

“No, House, she broke up with me because I’m not,” Wilson says shortly, turning to his bookshelf and flinging a paperback at House. He catches it rather smoothly for someone who’s fumbling so hard. What? “If anything, I think maybe it’s you who has some self-reflection to do,” he continues. “Now, would you get out of the way? I have a hotel room to move back into.”

At a loss, House does. Watches Wilson’s back as he lopes down the hallway, his shoulders almost purposefully squared. Then looks at the cover of the book he’s had thrown at him, dog-eared and flagged with sticky notes bearing Amber’s handwriting, the title lending to its aura of utter schlock. Love and Limerence.

What on earth? “Very chick-lit, Amber,” he mutters to himself. Who uses a paperback to annotate a breakup? Then again, he supposes he’s seen stranger relationship dynamics recently.

It’s amusement, a general annoyance with Amber, and anger that he’d missed this storm on the horizon that leads him to crack the thing open instead of chucking it directly into the garbage, kicking back in the Eames chair under the assumption his perusal will be brief. He skips the introduction, because he’s less interested in what the author has to say than he is in whatever the hell Amber divined from it.

Limerence, purports the author, is not some sort of raunchy poetry but rather the experience of being so intensely in love as to eclipse everything else in one’s life. Very “car crash.” Amber seems to have been particularly interested in this concept as applied to Wilson, given she’s highlighted several portions of the author’s list of factors regarding the feeling.

In the margins of the passage, Amber writes, James—you to a T. Further down, where a bullet point mentions “Intensification through adversity (at least, up to a point),” she has vigorously underlined the words and written: Said point, yet to be found. House snorts. If she’s counting their relationship as particularly “adverse” then Wilson clearly hasn’t told her much about Julie.

The thing that really gets him, though, is her insertion of a sticky note where the author talks about how many of those who experience limerence also experience it waning after it’s been reciprocated for a certain period of time.

The sticky note reads: Why your marriages fail—you run out of limerence + no gentler love takes its place. There’s a placid neutrality to the way she’s writing. A woman who systematically outlines and logics out her breakups—dammit, it’s so pathological that House kind of has to love it.

At the very end of the chapter, neat print in the whitespace calmly explains, It is already running out and I don’t want to deal with the aftermath.

But Amber kept reading, and kept writing, so House continues on. His eternal voyeurism of Wilson has never granted him this close of a window to his relationships imploding, so dammit, he’s fascinated. He doesn’t realize until he’s skimmed through another two chapters that he’s beginning to fall for a trap of sorts.

In the margins, Amber has written, then underlined twice, the word House. A sticky note at the bottom of the page reads Everyone thinks he’s the jealous one but really it’s you. Okay. This is getting juicy. And yet a frisson of danger runs itself up his spine. There is the sense that if he keeps going with this he’s liable to get stung.

House, to his frequent peril, has never been one to shy back from the brink, so why start now? He grits his teeth and soldiers on.

In the margins here, Amber has simply written, Come on. House has no idea what she means by this; on another note, a passage where the author declares that most periods of limerence max out at 2 years, Amber’s written, Julie. Then a cryptic smiley face, knowing as the Mona Lisa. He gets that well enough.

It’s a passage later in the book—one he almost misses; the chapter’s hardly dog-eared at all—that finally justifies the way his mouth has at some point gone dry with the sense of impending self-realization. It’s surrounded by a lot of fluff about how limerence is irrational and all-consuming, and thus taboo and scary to people (ridiculous, House might add). All very innocuous, or so one would like to believe.

Its accompanying sticky note reads, HOUSE IS EXACTLY THE TYPE TO WANT TO HOLD A SPIDER. The caps are a bit theatrical, he thinks, trying to hold on to sarcasm and thus his sanity. And the spider is YOU, she adds. House closes the book. Glares, off into empty space. Opens it again. Closes it. Opens.

Another sticky note. House never reciprocates, just observes = beating the 2-year expiration date. Unstoppable force + immovable object. He’s dizzy. He closes the book again.

...Opens it. One last note for the road. I love you too much for you to stay in love with me, and I’m okay with that. Thanks for spending the time while we had it. Good luck, my little spider. Go get your man.

Closes it.

Throws it across the room, less out of anger and more out of fear.

Admitting that Amber figured something out before he did is admitting she possesses some House-like skill for running circles around people’s minds, and he hates that, he really does. So he’s not admitting it. He’s not admitting anything. Just...thinking.

He slouches himself down at an angle in the chair, the corner of the accursed book still just visible beyond the edge of the desk, and thinks. About spiders and snakes, the freeway at night, stained glass cathedral windows.

*

Others’ love lives have been a hall of mirrors around him these past couple weeks. Less a snowglobe, House thinks, and more a kaleidoscope, a thing unfolding around him, himself the unflapped center. The empty space the mirrors surround. It’s always been like that, really—him and love.

He’s never felt as if there’s anything he’s missing. No, he actually gets it all quite clearly. But love is infinitely more interesting observed at arm’s length than as a thing that’s happening to him. Even in his relationships with others, he’s felt that way. Has absorbed their affections with an eye that’s more clinical than needy, then reflected back what he feels is deserved.

Past partners have called him “stingy” for it. Stacy, though. She was much the same. They spent a couple weeks of a honeymoon period almost deliberately refracting back at each other until House at last snapped that she’d kind of overstayed her welcome, hadn’t she, and she’d beamed at him like he’d hung her the moon and said, “Oh, there you are.” Left, happily and easily—said, over her shoulder, like it was simple: “If you get to the point where you need space, I’m probably there, too, Greg. Just tell me next time. I’ll leave you alone when you want it, but I’m not going anywhere.”

They’d worked that way. In a lot of senses it had felt like living with a best friend he also had sex with. A deeply interesting and singular experience in his life. She slept on the couch often, not because she was angry with him but because she liked the quality of the morning light in the living room better than in the bedroom, preferring to wake up that way when she didn’t have anywhere to be. Once he’d suggested just moving the bed in there, but she asked, “Is it because you miss sharing a bed with me, or because you feel like you should?” He’d taken a pause to consider the question. She’d continued, “Because I like the nights we do share better for the ones we don’t.”

She was always a litigator. You couldn’t argue with that. Reading Amber’s notes reminds him a lot of that aspect of Stacy. It’s all very reasoned-out, and she seems more delighted to have solved James than she is sad to lose the love.

(He didn’t miss sharing the bed, he’d realized—only wanted Stacy to be happy. That was the quality of refraction that she deserved.)

As for Wilson. In matters of the heart he’s always felt he had them reversed. Like he was partnered romantically with his best friend, and best friends with his soulmate. Just...the wrong sort of person to switch everyone to the “right spots” and still survive. Okay. He was happy the way he was.

See, he’s always known that Wilson would fall into something with him, if he started it. Oh, Jimmy would very likely spend the entire time silently rationalizing to himself that he wasn’t really gay, and—most certainly, when he was younger—would have taken great pains to conceal the entire thing from everyone he knew. But he would, if House did. That was never the issue. The issue was knowing very well that Wilson wasn’t someone he could keep like that, and also someone he couldn’t bear to lose. It was far more important to House that he kept Wilson, rather than how, and that’s always been the difference between him and someone who, as Tannov puts it, is “limerent”—he can live without actualizing it, is in fact happy to.

Wilson, he’s always been convinced, would believe he could love House into loving the way everyone else does (though it’s abundantly clear by now that “everyone else” is a gross over-exaggeration). And when he eventually realized he couldn’t, the illusion would swiftly break, and the love would exit him so completely that he wouldn’t be able to look at House again—would feel House had deceived him, strung him along, made a fool out of him. So yeah, no. House wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole.

But then a man gets a paperback thrown at his face and his heart starts to get stupid ideas.

It all comes back to Amber, goddammit. Up until today, nobody but Stacy has ever pegged House so thoroughly with so little information to go off of—hell, even Wilson has always failed to put words to this particular oddity, though House wonders if that isn’t due to some hopeful denialism within himself. And she did it at two degrees of separation, through sticky notes intended for Wilson’s perusal.

One has to wonder if she could be right about Wilson, too. And he figures Wilson, too, is wondering, given he gave the book to House when he could very well have kept it to himself—they’re probably both wondering if it’s really possible to have it all.

Go get your man.

Wilson’s probably expecting House to barge into his hotel room demanding answers, or to chase him around at work, or fill up his voicemail box. No, House decides, stooping to pick up the book again as he exits his office and heads, at long last, towards home—if Wilson wants to get into trouble, he can damn well come to House. It can’t be up to House to start it, not this time.

*

It takes about four days of icing him out in the hallways and vanishing around corners for Wilson to finally show up to House’s place and let himself in. House had a feeling today would be the day, because Wilson had a particular kind of kicked-puppy look about him; in an effort to both not jinx it and to telegraph that he doesn’t care, he’s laying on the floor listening to a vinyl when Wilson comes in. Watching the ice in his drink melt as the sunset goes from gold to ruby. He’s got something jazz playing, something instrumental. He can’t stand to think in words, not right now.

Wilson has groceries, which he silently puts away in the kitchen before pouring himself a drink and joining House on the carpet, cross-legged. He’s in his sock feet. House has been watching him through one slitted eye while strings rise and fall, crescendo petering out just as he sits. “You found me,” House says.

“Yeah.” Wilson takes his tie off. House watches him wind the silk carefully into a spiral, doe-eyed with focus, as though each crease matters. “I thought at first that you needed space to process, but then I got to thinking it was probably nothing new to you.”

“What, the notes in the book? No.” Wilson stretches his legs out in front of him, flexing his toes with a labored breath. House has been thinking he needs to get insoles with how much he’s been complaining lately of his feet hurting. “Yes, but no.”

“I don’t know what that means.” A pause. “But then it turns out there’s a lot of things I didn’t know.”

“Mmhmm.” House shuts his eyes, leaving Wilson to stew in the silence. Pretending he can’t feel where Wilson’s eyes bore into him, irritated. You lead this time, for god’s sake.

“Was she right? About you, I mean?” Finally. “It would explain some things about you and Stacy, I suppose?”

“I don’t get that lovesickness, yeah. I just care enough to stay in it with someone sometimes. If it interests me. Stacy was the same way.”

“So what’s your love image, then? You never told me.” He opens his eyes then. Takes in the flushed curve of Wilson’s cheek above him in the waning light, the creases in his sleeves from rolling them up and down all day. You, he thinks, but doesn’t say.

“You know how stones grate against each other? Tectonic plates, maybe. Always pushing back and forth. Neither giving up its alotted space.”

“Like men in a sports bar on game night,” Wilson remarks. “You want...friction, erosion—?”

“Aggravation.” Those damn A-words. Wilson swallows hard. Takes a gulp of his drink and swallows even harder.

“You once said that I aggravated you like nobody else ever had, and I’ve never stopped thinking about it.” House laughs, a surprised bark of it at first, then a stream of raspy giggles that takes a minute to peter out.

“Freak.”

“Did you mean it, House?” Puppy-dog eyes turn on him, and he thinks about distances. Geological forces riding along together for eras and eras, grinding like a dreamer’s teeth or leaning apart but never out of sight of one another. The earth is one big ball of scales; there’s no room for escape, and maybe there never has been. He could cross this distance, he’s beginning to think, and even have it widen again, and never lose sight of Wilson. He could never lose Wilson, not really.

“If you were a spider, I’d pick you up off the ground, yeah.” Now it’s Wilson who breaks off into heady laughter, his cheeks reddening further. House takes this all in intently, fascinated. “And I’d carry you around and throw you in women’s faces to watch them scream.”

“You’re horrible,” Wilson exclaims, still laughing.

“You’re horrible. You’re always horrible around me, Jimmy.” You’re the one who said love makes you that way. Make good on it, dammit.

“Yeah, I am.” Another swig of his drink before Wilson sets it clatteringly on the coffee table, interlacing his fingers awkwardly. “Amber was right about me, too.”

“I gathered as much.” House has been trying not to be offended over this; he’s said many of the same things about Wilson over the years, albeit perhaps less gracefully and with fewer citations, but he supposes it must land differently from someone who’s loved you the way Amber has. “But that was never the question. I’ve always seen you clearly.”

“The question is whether she’s right about us.”

“Yeah.”

A long silence, during which Wilson seems to be waiting on him to qualify—to explain away Amber’s theories, to shut the door. Or open it. House does neither. “You’ve always known, haven’t you?” Wilson says quietly.

“Yeah, Jimmy.” House watches the news land. There’s some pain, but most of it seems old, like Wilson’s already trodden that ground, perhaps even just in the last few days.

“And you didn’t say anything.”

“No.”

“Even though you—you did, right? Also want me, however it is that you want people?” House nods. “But you still never said anything?”

“I didn’t have the right words. Can you blame me?”

“...No.”

“You would’ve tried to fix me. Maybe you still will. Maybe I would’ve faked it. But you’d have found me out. You always find me out. And then—what?”

“Mm.” Wilson pouts down at his own lap for a long minute, and House wonders silently—for about the thousandth time—whether this is worth it. Maybe they lay bare their love here and it changes nothing, and they never speak of it again. Maybe it turns into something that crashes and burns. Or maybe it works brilliantly and forever. He’s at peace with any option. It’s Wilson who might not be. “But...it’s different now?” Wilson says, like he hadn’t meant it to be a question. Does the book change things? Do words shift the balance enough to make this work?

House can’t answer that for him. Instead, he asks, “Can you live with it?”

“Live with what?”

“Knowing I’ll never feel things the same way you do. Knowing that’s exactly what you need.”

Now Wilson turns, his knees folding towards House, looking at him intently. “Live with it? With you loving me to the fullest extent you possibly can? What a horrible burden to bear, House. Jesus.” House rolls his eyes, though he feels a bit caught out right now. “You might be right, okay? I might’ve tried to fix you, if I were a couple divorces shorter—if not for Amber and her weird psychology books. I might—” He breaks off to breathe hard, emphatic, shoving his hair back from his face. House drinks in every detail. His shadow in the falling evening. His eyes lit with something between anger and adoration. Goddamn A-words. “I might fuck this up. Badly. But if I did, you would tell me, and you wouldn’t hold back. And we would fight and it would be bloody and it would hurt for a long time and, and—we’d never get away from each other anyway.”

Ah. Intensification through adversity. Said point, yet to be found. “I’ll keep chasing you,” Wilson continues, “and you’ll stay just out of reach, like something out of a fable—and you’re asking me if I can live with that?” House’s breath feels caught in his throat. Oh. “I can die happy with that. And I think that’s more important, don’t you?”

“Christ,” House says. “Wilson.”

Wilson breaks into laughter again. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your eyes this wide. Are you alive?”

“Fuck you.”

“Are you in, or aren’t you?”

“I’ve been in, you asshole, I’ve been waiting for you.” Wilson beams down at him, then, smug and shy at the same time somehow.

“Okay. So—okay.”

“Okay,” House says.

“What do I—do I kiss you now? Or do you make me wait? Or is this the kind of thing where we kiss each other at all?”

“What sort of a question is that?”

“It could be anything,” Wilson says, then laughs, once, sharp and a bit scared. “Anything you want it to.”

“You—do you really think I’ll put up with the full force of your limerent nonsense without getting anything sexual out of the deal?! Because—”

“Oh, shut up,” Wilson breathes, and kisses him then. Oh. House adds this to the catalog of everything he knows about Wilson. So much information all in one go, on one living room floor, with the last rays of the sun throwing shadows, surrounding them in a reverent kind of hush. Cozy. On the record that’s playing, horns come in, and House tastes apple juice on Wilson’s tongue because he brought groceries. Imagine that.

Wilson is brimming over with passion and House thinks about all the bullet points in Dorothy Tannov’s fucking book and understands she’d stripped it bare. Distilled it for print, made it a bony wireframe of a thing, and you’d have to, because seeing a person really full of limerence, as it were, is like being bowled over by an angel in a golden retriever’s body, or something like that. Or at least it’s like that when it’s Wilson, who’s kind of vibrating out of his skin, shining adoration out of his eyes in House’s direction. “Don’t stop now, I need more data,” House says, and Wilson lets out a shaky “Okay” and complies. House thinks he’d do anything House told him to right now. Shame House can’t think of anything to say, between sips of air, between someone else’s lips.

He lets Wilson kiss him until Wilson’s calm again, and then some more until neither of them are calm anymore, and Wilson’s foot bumps against something in the dark and House realizes night has fallen. He jabs his fingers into the soft plane of Wilson’s waist and hears him yelp. “Get me off this floor,” House bitches, and Wilson nearly falls over himself getting up to turn a light on, dizzy. When the lamp comes on, his shirt is all rumpled and displaced—had House been clutching at him that hard?—and his lips are plump and flushed like stone fruit, almost sheepish with it.

“Mm,” Wilson utters intelligently, looking at House, who now realizes he likely doesn’t look much better. “You’re just, oh—House.” And then he stumbles back over and pulls House up off the floor with a hand, ambushing him in a tight squeeze until House shoves at him with a sound of annoyance. Not that hard, though. “What, no hugging, after all that?” Wilson laughs, letting him go. Not that far, though.

“I need to be on a mattress and then we can talk about ‘hugging,’” House answers. Wilson lets out a breathy Oh and hustles toward the hall, prancing, antsy, like he can’t figure out the polite distance he’s meant to keep, whether he’s too far ahead, too presumptuous—it’s cute, House thinks, then curls his lip at himself for thinking that.

Wilson is messy as an overgrown puppy. House actually hears him whine into open air the second House’s clothes start to come off and then he’s all hands, his mouth smearing against House’s collarbone. Hurricane Jimmy. House gets one hand in Wilson’s stupid silky hair and the other on his ass, pulling their hips together in an inelegant grind to distract himself from a twinge in his leg. He can’t afford Vicodin right this second, unwilling to be dulled for this, even a little, even if it hurts.

“How do you, I mean what do you, do you want me to ride you or shall I—”

“Get that—” House hooks the good leg behind one of Wilson’s, grinding with more intent this time, tectonically— “in me. Stat.”

“Yeah, I, yeah, okay!” Wilson exclaims, and House lets his head fall back, inhaling desperately. He just might die, he thinks, as Wilson paws at the nightstand, furnishing lube.

And then Wilson pauses, his jaw digging into the soft space right beside House’s half-hard dick (it’s getting there, just, Vicodin), and his fingers sloppily lube-slickened on the back of House’s thigh, and says, “House—I think maybe this makes me gay,” and—god. The audacity. House bleeds laughter, then falls to gasping as Wilson’s fingers seek him out and circle.

“Yeah, I’d say—say that maybe it does, Jimmy,” he pants, ending on a hiss as the bastard takes House into his mouth still smiling. Cruel joke, love, such as it is. House is worked open, and while Wilson does remember to clumsily suck sometimes the biggest contribution of having his face down there is just holding House in his mouth and drooling and looking up all yearningly as if he and House aren’t presently in each other at the same time.

“I’ll get better,” Wilson rasps once House is kicking at him almost violently, insisting that they speed this along now, before pain rampages in to steal the show. “I’ll get so good, I’ll—”

“Just shut up and fuck me, you’re good for that, aren’t you—”

“Ohh, yeah, I’m good for that,” Wilson husks, not so much confident as darkly determined, none-too-gentle as he works his hips, and it stings a bit but by the time he’s fully seated House has forgotten about it. Taken. Utterly, entirely captivated by Wilson above him, sweat-sheened and flushed to the collarbones, a string of drool still hanging off his bottom lip like the overgrown dog he is, House has to think of dogs or he’ll think of kaleidoscopes and cathedral windows and he won’t last. “Mm—hang onto me, baby—”

“Don’t call me that—”

“—you’ll get used to it. Just—there you go—” Wilson pistons back and rocks forward and now House is thinking of horsepower, electrical fires, combustion in all forms. “Guh, you make me fucking—crazy, House—”

“Shut up or I’ll come—” Wilson lets out a desperate sound and kisses him, or more like smudges his mouth against House’s in a bid to be kissed, and House snarls in aggravation and takes him by the hair and does it properly. In his mind, ocean waves crash against a shore, reforming it bit by bit, and geological eras pass and there’s only this, whole species dying out and crystallizing in the strata, forces compressing waste into gemstone, and from a person’s perspective it’s all so slow and awful but if you’re the earth you might as well be turning over in your sleep. Time is just a matter of perspective.

Wilson has his face tucked in the crook of House’s neck as he comes and House thinks it’s the first time he’s felt tenderly towards anyone in a very long time. Getting House there is its own challenge, the pain starting to creep in, but he takes a Vicodin and Wilson slicks up his palm and is exceptionally patient and takes direction well and accepts it when House tells him to leave it. House is fine where he is, just wants to bask in it, fall asleep in it. Wilson’s doting afterwards, even clingy, but there’s still the James Wilson who sees House more clearly than anyone, who seems to only hold him to an ideal standard as a way of giving something to push against—still Wilson. Still them.

Most couples in the early stages worry about the shine fading, wearing off, but as Wilson drifts off against his side House thinks that there’s no shine to wear off at this point. Not off him and not off Wilson. Maybe ten years ago, maybe even five. Now, though, there’s enough wear and tear between them that it feels like a distant concern. It’s all erosion. Where they press against each other, they’re already worn rough and chipped away.

It’s a paradox. He’s been on this earth about half a century and has felt his age in countless ways but right about now, staring at his ceiling and thinking of stained glass and etched limestone, he feels in step with all those crazy kids for whom love is a new bright thing, a certainty. Feels, with absolute, irrational conviction that you can have it all. You really can, if only you’re brave enough to try.