House MD Fanfiction

When House Met Wilson

House/Wilson, friends, 971 words
By: rageprufrock

House tells Cameron he met Wilson at a Doctors Without Borders interest meeting. He was there to steal the food—his own conference being two floors overhead in the same hotel—and Wilson was there to gather into his chest great heaps of pamphlets, wander around bright-eyed about saving babies with distended stomachs in the war zones of Sudan and Somalia.

He tells Cameron this was their first conversation:

"I'm feeling a little nervous, actually," Wilson admits to House, suddenly and without provocation. If Wilson noticed House leaning away in horror, he didn't say. "All of the other doctors here look so much more qualified than I am for this sort of thing."

House snorts. "What's your area?"

"Pediatric oncology," Wilson admits, and there's a chagrined look on his face.

"Oh God," House mutters. "Look, your heart bleeds enough to get you into the good seats on Flight Save My Dying African Baby."

Wilson stares at him for a moment in what House thinks is mute horror until he says, out loud and unrepentantly:

"When you say good seats, do you mean business, or first class?"

*

House tells Foreman he met Wilson in a strip club, three days after Wilson's first wedding, stuffing twenties into the thong of a dancer he's not entirely sure was a woman. Wilson, because he's not House, was leaning back away from the catwalk, sipping a drink and letting the naked breasts come to him, hanging heavy and with dark, round areolas inches from his lips, wet with alcohol and slick from his tongue.

"Anyway, the point is, later I got Wilson drunk and we took a stripper home and banged her," House finishes easily, eyes huge with innocence.

"Oh my God," Foreman says, horrified.

"I know," House commiserates before brightening. "Hey, you wanna talk about Wilson's penis?"

*

House tells Chase he met Wilson at a Pottery Barn while buying a vase.

"Vah-ze," House emphasizes.

The look on Chase's face is enough to carry him through the worst parts of the day, Cuddy's nagging about paperwork, Cameron's thoughtful staring, and Wilson's pissy mood inclusive.

*

Eventually, they compare stories, and the looks of mirrored betrayal and irritation on their bright, fresh faces is as big a kick as telling them the lie in the first place.

*

There are, of the entire staff at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, maybe a handful of people who remember what it was like before House and before Wilson—one of whom is Cuddy, who sidesteps the question anytime anybody asks. "I have a rule about House—when I am not thinking about him, I am capable of achieving my zen place. When I am thinking about him, I have no zen place, and you have more clinic hours," she says.

The stories that are out there are mostly baseless, largely apocryphal, and very popular.

House has, over the years, heard that he and Wilson met during a thirty-car pileup on the turnpike, where he was impressed by a young doctor heroically rescuing passengers from their flaming vehicles. Sometimes, he and Wilson meet while waiting to meet with Cuddy on their first day at hospital, although anybody who does their research will know this is obviously wrong. The rarest and most delicious stories always involve sex—theories which House is in no rush to disabuse anybody of.

"You should seriously consider submitting ideas to the people at General Hospital," Wilson tells him amiably.

"I could make some good side money," House says thoughtfully.

"Because you're paid a pittance as it is," Wilson laughs.

"My job comes with unique challenges," House continues blithely. "I'm not properly compensated for my work."

As if on cue, the binder clip Chase has been gnawing on snaps shut on his lip and he hisses and shrieks like a cat as he detaches the office supply and Cameron flutters around him in maternal worry. Foreman rolls his eyes and paws around the conference table for a pen, the other hand on the Thursday New York Times crossword.

When House turns back to Wilson, his friend is still staring through the glass divider with a thoughtful smile on his face. He says:

"Where'd we go wrong with them?"

"I blame you," House says cheerfully. "You hugged them too much and now they're gay."

Wilson laughs. "All of them? Even Cameron?"

"Especially Cameron," House emphasizes.

Wilson looks at him thoughtfully and says, "Are you ever going to tell anybody the truth?"

"About Cameron?" House says, purposefully scandalized.

"About how we met," Wilson rejoins, rolling his eyes.

House shrugs and plays with his cane, tapping the base of it against the side of his shoe to hear the wood thock against his New Balances, dark blue with gray strips, courtesy of Wilson's last trip to the mall, replacing his favorite vase from Pottery Barn.

"It's not really that interesting," House finally says.

Wilson nods. "Better to let it remain shrouded in mystery," he muses, and House grins.

The second half of everybody lies is that nobody wants to believe the truth:

The first time House met Wilson, they were in that strip club, and Wilson was gone by morning, leaving House and the hooker three hundred dollars, half of which House had felt momentarily like keeping, since he'd done his fair share of cocksucking that night, too. The second time, in Pottery Barn, Wilson barely noticed him, tagging faithfully along with the wife he'd cheated on not two months ago as she picked out flatware. He'd bumped into House, said, "Sorry," and carried on without a second thought.

The third time, the time that stuck, House said:

"It depends. Are you planning on saving just starving babies, or malaria babies, because you get bonus points for one over the other."

"If I do both, do they let me fly the plane?" Wilson laughed.