House MD Fanfiction

Defensive Strategies (pt.1)

Hilson, sexuality crisis, kisses,
By: milkshake butterfly

"I need a sign," Wilson told House, settling in across the booth from him.

"What, like a 'voice from above' kind of sign, or a 'tasteful font and maybe some graphics' kind of sign?" House asked, barely glancing up from the basket of fries that had arrived while Wilson had been in the bathroom. 

"Either would be nice," Wilson replied, stealing a fry. House gave him a flat look. "But I was thinking more the second one, I admit," he finished, after pausing to chew and swallow. Their drinks had arrived too, sodas for both of them. Wilson had decided he wasn't yet at the stage of post-divorce where drinking was all that great a plan, though he figured it was probably a bad sign that he'd been through this often enough to know that from first-hand experience.

House, on the other hand, might drink at home but only did so in public when things were seriously screwed-up, though Wilson had never been completely certain if that was because of control and safety issues, or just because House avoided being in public as much as possible to begin with. Agreeing to go out with Wilson would have been a sign of something; the fact that he'd been the one to suggest they go out somewhere positively screamed that something. Wilson just wasn't entirely sure what that something was, or maybe he didn't want to be; if Wilson was in such obvious pain that the man who was so introverted he wouldn't even talk to patients if he could help it was trying to get him out among the happy shining crowd, he didn't think he wanted to know.

Still, he did have to admit that working their way through a different local restaurant every night did beat sitting at home in his new and still too-bare apartment, brooding over past mistakes. Even if sitting at home was safer, in some ways.

"So," House said, after a meditative fry-consumption pause of his own, "what would this sign say?"

"I don't know," Wilson said, leaning back in the booth. The vinyl creaked distractingly; it was too new to be totally broken in, but not new enough to be completely resilient. "Maybe, 'Not Interested,' or, 'Look Elsewhere,' or maybe just, 'Stop, Please, It's Flattering But I'm Not Ready To Date Again Now, If Ever.'"

"You're gonna need a big sign for that last one," House pointed out, licking ketchup off his fingers, and it took Wilson a second to remember to reply.

"I could write it on a sandwich board and just wear that. Then I could list other things, too, like the fact I'm oh for three in the marriage sweepstakes." He swooped in and stole another fry when this last statement caused House to pause for a second, a look halfway between surprised and thoughtful on his face.

"That'd probably actually encourage a few of the more terminally codependent types," House pointed out, after a second. 

Wilson bit down on an urge to tell him that House would know, after all, and said instead, "Well, there's still the fact that not a lot of people will hit on a guy who's wearing a sandwich board."

"They would if that was really all you were wearing," House pointed out, with a dramatically overdone leer. Wilson rolled his eyes.

"You can always be relied upon to lower the tone of the conversation."

"Part of my charm," House insisted loftily. He paused for a second. "If it's really bothering you, we could stop doing this."

"No," Wilson replied, and if it didn't come out as vehement as it wanted to, he knew he'd still spoken too fast. House tilted his head, his eyes widening slightly as he studied Wilson in that particularly diagnostic way of his, french-fry held momentarily forgotten in his fingers. Wilson resisted an urge to shift uncomfortably--that look always made him itchy between his shoulder blades, somehow--and continued on, "You were right, I do need to get out. I just wish...." He paused and gestured slightly with one hand towards the bar, where a small cluster of girls was seated. They kept sneaking little looks at him and then giggling together. "You'd think I'd be used to it, but I'm not."