House MD Oneshots + Imagines

The Other Man (Gregory House x James Wilson) (NSFW)

James Wilson is a good person.

James Wilson is a flawed person.

James Wilson is a terrible, cheating bastard.

The three narratives crash and burn into a mess of jumbled thoughts in the mind of Gregory House as he looks at the younger man, who is standing at his doorstep in a button up shirt and slacks with a bouquet of fresh cut flowers in his strong hands. It's the fourth bouquet he's given Greg this week, and the diagnostician takes it silently in one hand before using the other to grab his cane and walk inside. The oncologist follows close behind and closes the door, locking it shut and locking the rest of their chaotic world away in the process.

"Purple petunias symbolize fantasy, charm, and mystery..." James trails off with a sort of juvenile blush as he removes his coat and hangs it on the door. He then pop the top two buttons open on his shirt, slides off his shoes, and unbuckles his belt. "Then the forget-me-nots, well, I think those are obvious. Do you like them?"

House just scoffs.

"Ah, yes, they'll go perfectly with the dead ones from last week that are sitting in my windowsill."

Greg rolls his eyes and walks to his room with James still following him. The other man is cute and seems totally innocent on the surface, almost like a puppy, but that's how he gets you- how he got Greg . It's embarrassing just how hard he's fallen for someone who can't even commit to him outside of their friendship, for someone who spends their time bouncing between relationships and sees him as a mere escape. The worst part is that he knows James isn't a bad person- no, he's a great person who makes bad choices, who gets into relationships he wants so desperately to work that instead of leaving when things go bad he seeks solace in Greg.

Whatever they have isn't something they talk about, because if they were to talk, they would risk things going back to the way they were before James made his move- at some point in the middle of a break up back in the nineties, and Greg is terrified of going backwards- even if what they have right now is far from perfect.

He takes the old flower vase out of his windowsill, gazes upon the dead blue roses from last week's late night rendezvous, and sets the new bouquet on his nightstand before carrying the vase full of dried up flowers to the kitchen to throw them out. He dumps the light brown water down the sink and cleans the vase out with Wilson still standing behind him, waiting, expectant. He's not getting what he came for immediately and it's making him nervous; House can sense it, and he decides to continue acting nonchalant about not immediately dragging Wilson into bed with him like he tends to. He fills the freshly cleaned vase with fresh tap water and hobbles back to the room about halfway before Wilson is helping him the rest of the way. When they get there, he puts the bouquet of petunias and forget-me-nots into the vase and sets them in the windowsill. In another week or two, he expects he'll be replacing these with something that's just as much of a reminder of what they could be if they were fucking normal .

"I missed you... Being by your side," Wilson murmurs as he stands behind House and wraps his arms around him.

"Yeah, guess you need that change from your old routine with your wife, don't you?" Greg spits. It always starts like this; with him being bitter and angry about the entire situation. And it always ends the same way, too; with James quickly talking him out of whatever negative feelings he might have. "You missed me because you were bored."

"Are you really trying to guilt trip me right now?" Wilson asks incredulously, but he laughs, because he knows that whatever this is won't actually escalate into anything that's going to ruin their night. "She does it, too, you know."

"I don't give a shit about her," House says, and it's true. He doesn't give a shit about Julie Wilson- she's attractive, but she's boring, she cheats just like Wilson does, and she drinks so much sometimes that Wilson has come to his apartment with cuts and bruises in the middle of the night that he won't even talk about. House isn't stupid- Julie is just as bad if not worse than Wilson when it comes to their relationship, so he doesn't give a shit about her in all of this. In fact, he doesn't feel guilty at all that Wilson is cheating on her with him; he just feels selfish. Selfish, selfish , selfish , Gregory House would burn down Julie and take the world with her if it meant that he could have James Wilson to himself. But he won't, because for whatever reason, Wilson just doesn't seem to want anything committed with him. That's fine, he tells himself- at least he gets to have the oncologist in one way or another. "Never have, never will. She's boring. I just don't get why you won't leave her."