House MD Fanfiction

Apology

Hilson, smut, 16,200 words
By: ralaegidius

The same day that Wilson told him that Tritter had towed his car, House had stopped his bike in front of the bus stop.  It was intended to be an offer of succor.  Get on.  You can move back in with me until all this blows over.

    But the resentment in Wilson's face was enough to stop him from actually speaking, and the two men just gazed at each other for a long moment.  More than just anger in Wilson's eyes was sadness -- suffering -- that usually made House feel a stab of irritation.  Wilson was so passive-aggressive and it drove him crazy sometimes.

    This wasn't, however, the aggrieved angst of someone angry because House hadn't done the dishes, or cleaned the bathroom sink.  He knew Wilson was living in a hotel, and that there hadn't been any new women on his radar since Grace.  In fact, Wilson was being bizarrely chaste, almost Spartan, as if intentionally isolating himself.

    It was House that had done this to him, House knew.  What he didn't know was how.  He could see it in the way Wilson looked at him now from the bus stop bench, had seen it in the body language during their conversation in the staff lounge.  Even before Tritter had come along, Wilson had been suffering because of him, and it wasn't something minor that was going to resolve itself quietly the way their fights usually did.  This one was going to change them, and House was terrified that he might lose his closest friend and never know why.

****

    He confronted Wilson the next day in the younger man's own office, not bothering to knock before entering.  It was almost ten o'clock, and the only thing House might have interrupted was some awkward couch sex.  Lately, however, even that was unlikely.  Wilson was alone at his desk, working on the referrals he was forced to do now that he could no longer prescribe medication to his own patients.  Wilson glanced up as he entered, but then ignored him.

    "You're going to miss the bus," House said.

    "There'll be another one," Wilson said mildly.  There was a hardness in the tone that only House could hear.

    "Last bus runs at 10:15," House replied, shifting his weight as much as he dared to relieve the burning pain in his shoulder.  Wilson was probably right that it was a somatic manifestation of guilt, but that didn't make it stop hurting.  "But I'm guessing you haven't been taking work home, since home is a hotel room.  Patient confidentiality and all that."

    Wilson slapped his pen down on the blotter and rubbed one hand over his face.

    "What do you want, House?"

    "Why are you protecting me?"

    Wilson stared at him.  "Why do you care?" he asked, an edge in his voice.

    "It doesn't fit," House said, and Wilson's face contorted briefly with disgust. "I haven't done anything to earn it.  Letting someone walk all over you isn't noble.  It's self-destruction.  And one thing I know about you -- you do have a spine.  Just not about this.  Why?"

    "You think lying to the cops is spineless?" Wilson wondered.

    "You keep bailing me out, literally and figuratively.  That's spineless."

    "Are you actually telling me to stop protecting you?"

    "As if that would work!" House exclaimed.  "Jesus Christ, Wilson, I forged your name on scripts.  I keep saying I'm not an addict and we all know nobody believes that.  And yet, and yet, you've lost your car, your prescription privileges, your money, rather than simply tell the truth to that asshole detective."