FicWad

"You made me sleep late, House," Wilson said, reaching over House's body to examine the bedside clock. The alarm button was set to off.

"I'm not the one who kept you up explaining how the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the First World War caused the modern conflict in the Middle East." House stretched his arms out; his elbows cracked. "Oh, wait, that was me. God, I need a shower after all that talk of sand dunes."

"Indirectly caused, and only in part," Wilson said as House limped toward the bathroom. "I'll make coffee, then I have to get home. She's already going to kill me."

House turned and grinned. "She was going to kill you last night, too," he said. "Yet here you are."

"Shut up. I hate you." Wilson grumbled as he grabbed his wrinkled pants from the spot where they had landed the night before. He shook them out as best he could and pulled them over his legs.

"I hate you, too." The splash and rush of water from the shower and the half-closed door muffled House's response.


Four weeks had passed since they went from being friends to being lovers; taking leave was still the hardest part for Wilson. House looked up from the Annals of Internal Medicine and took another sip of coffee.

Wilson liked to pretend that this was his only life. He finished washing the dishes, brought in the paper, and took House's trash to the curb. House wasn't buying it.

"What can I do to make you leave already?" House asked. "I can do my own damned chores."

"We're almost out of milk," Wilson said. He smiled, to make light of the slip, but he knew he had reached uncharted territory.

"Here's a novel idea, I'll go to the market," House said. "Seriously, I managed not to starve to death before we started sleeping together." He got up and walked toward the door, gesturing with his head. "Get out, OK?"

Wilson knew he was right. He'd stalled too long. He stopped long enough to kiss House lightly on the lips. "You are truly annoying."

"Flatterer," House said. "You're buttoned up all wrong."

"That's a new one." Wilson grinned.

"I mean it, your shirt," House said, more gently than usual as he pointed at Wilson's chest. "I think you're devolving."

Wilson looked down at the shirt's top button slipped through second hole; he hadn't noticed before. He blushed a bit at the mistake as he realized that he kind of liked being so distracted that he didn't care how he looked. He finished adjusting his buttons, tucked in his shirt and looked at House.

"Better," House said. "Now go, before your lungs turn back into gills."

Wilson wouldn't leave without just one more goodbye kiss, but it was shorter than he intended, and sharper. House never took as much as Wilson offered and almost never gave as much as Wilson wanted.

But for both of them, for now, it was enough.