remix_redux | Fic: Around the World and Back Again (Grace Jones’ Polar Opposite Remix) [House; House/Wilson; NC-17 (Reply)

Title: Around the World and Back Again (Grace Jones’ Polar Opposite Remix)

Author:

Summary: “Why are you hauling your butt halfway across the globe for a three-day conference you’re not even speaking at?”

Fandom: House

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17

Original Story: Singapore by

thedeadparrot

Notes: Thank you to

daisylily for the beta and

nightdog_barks for telling me to shut up and keep writing. Neither this nor the original story has anything at all to do with the Singapore trip in Episode 3-18. I am highly annoyed with TPTB.

thedeadparrot thought of it first – they couldn’t pick somewhere else?

They’re in the cafeteria when it happens. Wilson looks up from his lunch – and it really does take him an extraordinarily long time to prepare his lunch before he eats it every day. It’s only a sandwich, for Christ’s sake; how much fussing could it need? House is half-done with his whole meal, and Wilson still hasn’t even breathed in the fumes of his first bite. It’s why House steals Wilson’s food. Leave it up to Wilson and they’d still be sitting there come dinnertime.

But anyway, Wilson looks up, tiny salt packet dribbling grains that glint in the light, and his expression is wry, and he’s countering some point House barely remembers making, and it’s then. House decides.

He’s going to go on the longest booty call of his life.

“Why Singapore?” he asks loudly.

“What?” Wilson replies with his mouth hanging open. Sometimes he leans into the turns with House, and sometimes he flips off the bike. House steals his sandwich and takes a huge bite, and Wilson’s salt suddenly breaks free and splashes on his plate like snowflakes on a winter pond.

Wilson manages to throw a pinch of salt over his shoulder and grab his sandwich back at the same time. “Mine,” he snaps, almost growls, and the giddy feeling in House’s esophagus is the sweet icing on the cake, the last unneeded test confirming the diagnosis they’ve already started treatment for.

“Why are you hauling your butt halfway across the globe for a three-day conference you’re not even speaking at?”

Wilson glares and turns the sandwich around, chomps off a corner cleanly. “My re-certification’s coming up; I need the CME credits. And Singapore is where the International Congress on Myeloproliferative Diseases and Myelodysplastic Syndromes is taking place this year.”

“Because you’re so into hematology.”

“My department has –”

“Not your department, you. Patel’s your top blood disorder expert – she’s almost fetishistic about it – but you’re not sending her.” House musters all of his considerable store of skepticism and then crams the whole of it into one elevated eyebrow. “There are hundreds of classes you could take in New York or Philadelphia, and thousands you could take online, on subjects nearer and dearer to your tumor-loving heart. But you choose to go to Singapore. Why?”

Wilson shrugs and keeps chewing. A bit of sandwich tries to escape but Wilson re-captures it with the tip of his tongue. House shifts in his seat and shakes his leg, although it wasn’t his leg that twitched at that sight.

“Networking,” Wilson finally says, and House has to hold back from shuddering. “Always good to make new contacts, be seen, and get a new perspective on what’s happening out there. And there are some extra funds available in Oncology’s travel budget, so why not?”

“Your department has a travel budget?”

Wilson sighs and grabs a chip. “Yes, House.”

“Does my department have a travel budget?”

“Yes, House.” The chip goes in the forlorn mouth, and the sweetly despairing eyes sweep downward.

“Why didn’t I know I had a travel budget?” It’s all a bluff, of course; House knows his department budget to the penny, not that he pays it any mind when there’s something he really wants.

“Because you don’t pay attention to these things,” Wilson replies, in his indulgently exasperated manner, and that’s the payoff House was looking for. It’s the expression that says that House is a naughty boy but Wilson loves him anyway. Platonically, of course.

Wilson continues, “I do your annual budgets and your monthly recaps, and my assistant does your expense reporting.”

“So, how’m I doing on travel this year? No, wait. I don’t give a damn about this accounting crap, as you well know, but I seem to have heard something about use it or lose it. If I didn’t know I had a travel budget, and therefore wasn’t using it, how come Cuddy hasn’t snatched the money back?”

The cookie on Wilson’s tray looks decidedly uneven; House breaks off three ragged chunks to make it more symmetrical. That the pieces end up in House’s mouth is beside the point.

“Because,” Wilson is saying, “A, Cameron, Chase, and Foreman actually do travel, and B, I get Genevieve to re-class your expenses from other categories, so it all evens out. What are you charging to Office Supplies, anyway?”

House looks away, across the cafeteria, and smirks. “That’s a subject I think you want plausible deniability on. So let’s discuss Travel instead – any funds left there for Diagnostics?”

“Some.” There is no curiosity in Wilson’s voice at all, and suddenly House is pissed.

“You’ve talked me into it, then.”

“Talked you into what… reviewing your budget?”

“May the saints forfend. Singapore, baby. Needle Vardiman on his bone marrow histopathology diagnostic theories, brush up on my Mandarin, grab some soon kway and mee siam at a food court, and get CME credits to boot. What’s not to love?”

Screw symmetry; House crams Wilson’s entire cookie into his mouth, crumbs flying. He thinks of the voracious appetite of the blue-furred googly-eyed beast from Sesame Street, and wonders if it’d be any good at fellatio. Enthusiasm, yes, but no technique, he decides. And of course the damn thing doesn’t have lips, so that’d be a definite problem. This leads him inevitably to check out Wilson’s mouth, and he catches the tail end of a smile Wilson is trying to smother.

House has been suckered into grabbing what Wilson wants him to take. He ought to be insulted; he really should rail. But House has his own motive, his own goal, and he can, just this once, cede the ego battle to win the libido war.

JFK is crowded, and the security line is ridiculous. Wilson nags for the twentieth time that House ought to accept a wheelchair, and House is seconds away from whacking him on the shin when he realizes he doesn’t want to call attention to his cane’s weaponry potential. So he just grunts and glares and hikes his backpack higher on his shoulder.

It’s a fourteen-hour flight to Japan and a six-hour flight after that, and House is trying not to think of what it’ll do to his leg. He’s double-dosed on Vicodin, and Wilson has morphine in his bag – and won’t that be fun to explain to the security personnel – but he’s still not relishing the thought. You better not have a pencil dick, House thinks, but then Wilson looks at him, eyes soft and solicitous, and jabs House hard in the back to make him move up in line. House has to cover his smile under a cough.

Wilson sleeps almost all the way to Tokyo, and House resents him for it, until he notices the way Wilson’s eyelashes drape across his skin. They’re eyelashes, little tiny things, and there’s no way they can possibly drape, but they do. House watches the terrible movie, and the terrible “original” programming, and the next terrible movie, and paces relentlessly, and bitches at the flight attendants, and tries not to think about it. He jacks off in the tiny bathroom, dick strangling in rough tissues there to catch his come, and imagines falling into the ocean.

In Narita Airport, Wilson sleeps again, and House almost resents him for it, until he notices the way Wilson’s form is twisted. His back’s going to twinge and ache when he wakes up. House is filled with a smug satisfaction – that’s what Wilson gets for not entertaining House.

Wilson sleeps again on the plane to Singapore. House is tempted to bother Wilson, and then tempted to molest Wilson, but ultimately he surrenders to the warmth and the drone and the weight of his eyelids, and tucks his head into Wilson’s shoulder for sleep.

When he wakes, Wilson makes a perfectly delivered crack about midget circus and lesbian porn. House is delighted to play along and demands to know why Wilson didn’t inform him.

“Sorry,” Wilson says, but he’s not even bothering to make his voice sound sorry.

House leans back in his seat. They’re almost there, and it’ll be bliss to get off the damn plane, stretch his legs, and breathe real air.

For the moment, he’s only thinking about getting there, instead of getting some.

“Where do the pimps hang out in this city?” House asks in Mandarin.

In the rear-view mirror, he can see the cab driver’s eyes flick. “Are you buying or selling?”

House looks over to his left. Wilson’s eyes are closed again – Christ, the woman with sleeping sickness didn’t conk out this much – and with the light sheen of sweat and the gentle street lights flickering across his face, his features are unimaginably soft. Even the five o’clock shadow can’t keep him from looking like a schoolboy. It’s freaky.

Still looking at Wilson, House says to the driver, “I’d never sell my little brother.” He can hear the wheels in the man’s head turn, attempting to gauge family resemblance – Caucasians, or maybe just fares, all look alike – and wondering whether the foreigner knows that phrase means “penis.”

“But the eight inches of his little brother I can rent out for the right price.”

When the driver laughs, a deep, rumbling sound, Wilson’s eyes open and he glares a little. House smirks, thinking of the amusing faces Wilson would make if he understood this conversation.

House switches topics to the best food stalls near their hotel. Cuisine being Singapore’s national pastime, the driver expounds for the next twenty minutes, and walks them to the hotel check-in desk just to finish up a thought. House thanks him for the advice, and tips generously, although out of Wilson’s sight, because he doesn’t want the man to get any ideas.

House’s stomach doesn’t start to knot until his bag has banged into the cream-colored bedskirt, leaving a bluish-black smudge. He’s caught for a moment on the puzzle of what the hell the baggage handlers dipped his suitcase into, but his guts will not be distracted. They’re coiling and tightening, feeling an awful lot like his right thigh, and he wishes they would cut it the hell out.

Jump right in, a voice in his head says. It’s what you came for, and this is time to do it, because after all that sleep Wilson’s bound to be awake. He’ll probably stay up all night just watching bad television. Go, go, go!

Well, Wilson may be awake, but House can barely keep his eyes open. It’s an excuse, but it’s true, so he tells the voice in his head and the knot in his stomach to shut the fuck up and let him get some sleep.

He dreams about Wilson in a prairie skirt. It’s not that sexy.

The knock at the door startles him out of sleep, which is good because he really has to piss. He realizes on the way to the door that he slept in his clothes. He starts thinking excitedly that maybe he’s still dreaming and it’s mid-80s Grace Jones at the door.

It’s not.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says to Wilson, sneering a little because the prairie skirt has just flashed through his brain again.

Wilson rolls his eyes. “You know, I’m sure you have a hot date with a hooker this early in the morning, but I recommend waiting until we’re done with breakfast. Sex on an empty stomach is never fun.”

“Well, you would know,” House says, and considers adding that to his woefully short list of excuses why he didn’t go for what he wanted last night. He’s got to make that list longer if it’s going to overflow into tonight as well.

After pissing, he splashes water on his face, refreshes his deodorant, and follows Wilson to breakfast like a good boy.

When they get there, the spread is a multi-cultural buffet – dumplings, scrambled eggs, rice, croissants, soup. House is suddenly starving and grabs a lot of everything.

When Wilson raises an eyebrow, he shrugs and says, “I’m a growing boy.” His stomach is growling so loud that he almost misses out on hearing Wilson’s laughter. It goes on his other list, the list of grudges against his torso.

Greg House has never trusted his torso. His head, his arms, his legs: they all work right for him. (Well, the one leg doesn’t any more, but he’s not going to let it screw up his metaphor the way it tries to screw up his life.) They’re all reliably strong and sturdy and responsive.

His heart, his guts, and his dick, on the other hand, are traitorous bitches. Can never turn his back on them because they’ll sell him out on less than a moment’s notice.

He trusts what he thinks and what he does. What he feels… is going to kill him some day.

The rest of the morning is boring, boring, boring, with only a couple of spots of dullness to break things up. House solves world hunger and cures cancer during this time, but he doesn’t tell anyone because the farm subsidy lobby would never let it happen and he doesn’t want Wilson to lose his job.

A few people try to bother him during breakfast and coffee breaks – networking, he hates that word – but he blows them off. He’s not here to talk to them.

When he shoots down an invitation for lunch, too, Wilson calls him on it. “What? They seemed nice.”

House glares at his stupidity. When has House ever gone for nice? “They seemed boring.”

“You hang out with me,” Wilson argues. “I’m boring.”

House snorts at this ridiculousness. “You can pretend to be, maybe. That’s one of your stupid compulsions, to be normal, to be like everyone else. You’d love it if you were boring. But you’re not, and you hate it.” He’s said the same thing before, not that Wilson has ever taken the advice behind the words and truly let go.

It occurs suddenly to House that maybe the thin veneer of banal respectability is part of what makes Wilson interesting. But there’s no way in hell he’s telling him that.

“You, on the other hand,” Wilson replies, “love being different. It makes you special. It makes you better than everyone else, because they’re all the same, and you’re different.”

It’s not like House hasn’t heard this from Wilson before. But it stings this time in a way it usually doesn’t. He snaps back before thinking. “Of course, you’re the one who has to examine everyone’s faults in order to make yourself feel better about your own. You can’t stand to see how screwed up you are, so you take it out on everyone else.”

Wilson looks defiant for a moment, but then gives up and changes the subject to lunch. It turns out Wilson’s got no money with him. House exchanged US dollars for Singapore dollars during one of Wilson’s airport naps, so he’ll have to pay.

“Don’t make it a habit,” Wilson teases. “People might start taking advantage of you.”

House pictures vividly, in a series of flashes, the ways he’d like Wilson to take advantage of him, and has to glare to hide what that does to him. “What happens in Singapore stays in Singapore,” he intones, and that’s what he hopes, at least, because he can’t allow himself to hope for anything different.

“My lips are sealed,” Wilson replies, and one of the earlier flashes pops back up. House tries not to smile.

After fending off a McDonald’s request from Wilson – seriously? for a man who can cook, Wilson doesn’t seem to have much taste – House leads them to the food stall the cabbie had suggested. It all looks good and smells great, but House has been craving mee siam (among other things) ever since he decided to come to Singapore.

Wilson actually digs into his food with a minimum of fuss, for once, and they eat quickly. House steals Wilson’s noodle – not a euphemism – and they talk about this and that. House wonders how his team is doing back in Jersey. They have a tendency to turn into the Keystone Kops without him, and he can’t quite figure out how to break them of that while still keeping them under his thumb when he is there.

The afternoon session brings the blissful release of sleep. He wakes to the sound of Wilson asking, “Dinner?”

House nods, distracted by the pain in his leg. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” He pops a Vicodin, ignoring the stunned looks from some of the other attendees.

They go back to the same food court, for soon kway and char siew rice this time. House ends up paying again.

“Not going to be a habit?” Wilson asks, stuffing a dumpling into his mouth.

This kind of teasing is what House likes best. Wilson giving it right back to him – and House nearly derails himself right there, but pulls back from the brink. “Oh, shut up,” he says.

Wilson talks about how being away from home gives them the chance to be different, and House almost chokes on his food. Are his intentions that obvious, or is Wilson doing that weird empathic mind-reading thing he does from time to time, where he gets the message but not the meaning?

House spins out some crap about finding oneself in the jungle, and Wilson laughs. Reading House’s mind, then, and subconsciously to boot. Wilson’s going to be the death of him.

Wilson leads the conversation on the way back to the hotel, telling him the latest gossip from the oncology world: hook-ups, back-stabbings, and who sucked what to get where. What a nice date this is, his heart sighs, and while he’s busy shutting that shit down – booty call! booty call! – his guts and his dick get into a pissing contest over who can be the most tense. You’d think the dick would win (it’s a pissing contest), but the stomach’s got some weird mojo and as he and Wilson get to their rooms, his torso is taut and aching and his penis has rolled over and is playing dead.

Then Wilson smiles at him, and it all evens out. “Come on in,” House says, nodding toward his door. “It’s been days since I’ve seen a soap.”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but…” Wilson wrinkles his nose and smirks.

Loser, House thinks affectionately. “Soap operas, ding-dong. There’s a ton of them on the Chinese channels. Something freaky bound to be going on.”

Wilson shakes his head and steps over to his own door. “I don’t know Mandarin, House, or Cantonese.”

That’s so not the point, of the soap operas or the invitation, and he’s not quite sure what Wilson is trying to pull. “You actually think that makes them any better?”

“Not really,” Wilson replies. “I’m just tired. Maybe later?”

“Fine,” House says, but inside he’s cursing. Tired, yes of course, it’s probably been all of two hours since Wilson slept last. Asshole, he thinks, but he doesn’t know if that’s aimed at the man standing in front of him or at himself.

He flees.

A few hours pass. House spends one of them watching TV sullenly, and one of them sleeping fitfully. He spends half of one in the shower, because Wilson was probably kidding with that soap crack, but maybe not.

Every part of his torso hates him, and his brain is on the fritz, but for some reason, his right thigh’s decided to leave him alone. It seems like that shouldn’t be the catalyst, but it is. He dresses more carefully, with more purpose, than he has in years, but squishes down the little breathy whisper of date.

There’s lube in his luggage, and he thinks about taking it with him, but he doesn’t.

When Wilson doesn’t answer his door immediately, the rumblings of rebellion begin. House knocks harder; he’s got to get in there, get started, quell this before it overwhelms him.

“Took you long enough,” he says when Wilson shows, before shoving the man against the wall and kissing him.

A moment of uncertainty, and then he realizes Wilson is pulling him closer, kissing him back. Relief sweet and heady courses through him, and he has to pull back to clear the spots from his vision.

He blinks and that’s Wilson in front of him, slumped against the wall, disheveled, face covered in stubble-burn, eyes glazed, mouth hanging open and panting. It’s the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen, and House did that, he made Wilson look that way. Pride and lust and the challenge of finding out what else he could do, how much more beauty he could bring into the world, spur him on.

Wilson’s bare dick is hot in House’s hand, and it’s perfect. Wilson breathes something – “shit,” maybe – and the voice tings against House the tuning fork, vibrations in harmony. He’s a sentimentalist, a sap, call him what you will, but he’s getting the damn booty he came calling over nine thousand miles for.

They’re kissing again; Wilson’s hands are on his hips. Wilson tightens his grip a little, and his head falls down onto House’s shoulder. Then a shudder and another, and two “fucks” from Wilson, and House has done it, done what he came for, and he’s glad he didn’t fantasize about it (too much) because it was just way, way better without spoilers.

Triumphantly, he regards Wilson. Disheveled and aroused Wilson was gorgeous, but this version is simply mesmerizing. He watches as Wilson opens his mouth to speak.

“What was that about?”

What the hell? What the hell? What the fuck does Wilson think it was about?

“Fuck you,” House says, and grabs at his cane, ready to leave.

Wilson gets to it first and tosses it off to the side. Fine. Be that way. Fuck him; House is going anyway.

“House,” Wilson says.

House ignores him and keeps limping toward the door. His thigh hurts but not nearly as much as his pride.

“House,” Wilson says again, louder this time.

House slows down, just a bit.

“House!” Wilson says, with enough force in it that House reluctantly stops. He has to remember that this is his friend, and although said friend is generally a pushover, certain accommodations are sometimes necessary – where the hell did his tongue go? Oh, there it is; it’s in Wilson’s mouth again.

He should leave; that was a great snit he was working up to. But Wilson has other ideas, and those ideas seem to involve House being mostly naked, so okay. Compromise is a cornerstone of friendship. Give something to get something, and right now it looks like House is going to get something hot and possibly wet and –

Just then the light catches Wilson’s down-turned face in a certain way. Hair and eyes and lashes and cheekbones and shadows and stubble and the corner of his mouth. House’s heart pulses, and it short-circuits that glibness his brain’s been throwing out.

This is real; it’s serious; and House is so, so screwed, because there’s no way this is not going to hurt at some point.

He lets Wilson take the lead, hands everything over. Wilson pushes him down, leans on top of him, and kisses him, slow and steady. It feels beautiful, that word in particular. House is screwed.

Wilson slides down House’s body, his lips drifting over bare skin, as House watches. He bites at House’s hips, which rebel (typical torso) and buck up of their own accord. Then his lips are around House’s erection, and Wilson’s sucking like maybe he has some experience. House is ferociously jealous of anyone Wilson has done this to, and anyone Wilson ever even thought of doing it to. His breath hitches at that thought. He is screwed.

Then it’s up and down and heavenly gliding friction, and House becomes convinced that this will never happen again. Anxiety spirals up in twin with the pleasure, and it’s all over far too soon for his liking.

He mutters, “Shit,” as a commentary and lament, and his eyes close. When Wilson slips away, House takes a moment to rest and then pulls up his boxers, kicking his jeans away, and finds his t-shirt. That’s as far as he can get, because he’s exhausted.

Wilson comes back as House is pulling down the covers. “Not talking about it,” House says. His eyes can barely stay open; he slips into the bed and is out like a light.

When he wakes up, it takes him a minute to figure out why he’s so warm. Another body in the bed, that’s right. He’d gotten used to the cold.

That’s not a metaphor, or maybe it is, but he’s not ready to face this. His anatomical heart can’t take it. His figurative heart, sweetly sighing and skipping through fields of poppies last night, is apparently still asleep, because all he has inside him is dread.

Time to go.

Both feet on the floor, jeans pulled up, and he’s flexing his thighs in preparation for the push (great leap) off the bed, when Wilson says, “Mmmm?” Crap.

He glances over his shoulder, and Wilson is every bit as enticing as he was last night, yesterday, the day before. Crap. “This is the part where we have the girly talk about our feelings,” House says.

Wilson sits up and blinks at him. “I mostly want to know where that came from.”

Dread and desire are both thick. House scoffs. “Oh, come on. There is no way you are actually that thick.”

“Let’s assume I am,” Wilson answers.

House snorts again. He’s in pain, and he’s screwed, and where did this simple little intercontinental hook-up go so horribly, horribly wrong?

“You’re really going to make me say this out loud?” is what he says. “Are you really that much like me?”

“You’re in love with me,” Wilson says, and sighs.

Now that the words are out there, House instinctively wants to bat them away. He sneers, “You of all people should know better than to confuse sex and love.”

“Bullshit,” Wilson replies. “Why now?” He’s a relentless fuck for four in the morning, House’ll give him that.

“Why not now?” he replies. His heart seems to have hit the snooze bar, and his guts are strangling themselves in the covers. Why won’t Wilson just let him go? “Maybe it’s just the atmosphere. All that crass Asian commercialism. Such a breath of fresh air.”

Wilson laughs harshly. “That is why, isn’t it? So that you can write it off as a fluke if you need to. What happens in Singapore, stays in Singapore.”

Yeah, OK, his own words in his face. He can take that. House stands up and starts to move. “Are we done yet? I’m missing my next really awkward conversation about my sex life.”

“No,” Wilson snaps. “We haven’t talked about what’s going to happen now.”

Where is his damn cane? Wilson doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all. “Isn’t it obvious? We forget it ever happened. You can claim you were drunk, if you’d like.”

“So that’s it?”

“That’s it,” House replies, and he tries to make his voice ring with finality. “You can’t possibly think that there’s going to be more.”

“Why not?”

Dumb fuck has never learned when to shut up and let House stew in his misery. Time to employ the best defense, and the better part of valor be damned. “Because you’re you! It’s doomed from the start! Every relationship you’ve ever been in has failed spectacularly.”

Wilson flinches. “Like yours haven’t?”

“Yeah, great point. Now you’ve really convinced me.” House reaches into his pocket and pulls out his Vicodin. He tilts his head to make swallowing easier, and closes his eyes to make all this go away.

“I told myself I’d never really considered it, but I think I did, in the beginning.” Wilson pauses, and House’s breathing does too. He’d known hope could feel hot, could burn him, but he’d never realized it had spikes as well.

“But then Stacy happened, and then your leg, and then Stacy again. When you want something that much, and you know you’re never going to get it, sometimes it’s easier to pretend that you never wanted it in the first place.”

Oh god. House reopens his eyes slowly and looks at him. “Why didn’t you try, in the beginning?”

“I was married,” Wilson says, simply.

House has to snort. “Like that would have stopped you.”

Wilson frowns and looks away. “It did then. I think I realized that it wouldn’t be a fling. That it couldn’t be.” He shrugs. “I was scared. So I ignored it and stayed with Marisa.”

Hope is still hot within his chest, but the spikes have been retracted. “That doesn’t mean anything in the long run.”

“Yeah,” Wilson says. “I just thought you should know.” He starts walking toward the bathroom.

House grabs his arm as he walks past and searches his face. This is real; this is serious; there’s a chance it might actually work. “Are you scared now?” he asks.

Wilson looks him straight in the eye. “Terrified.”

He didn’t know it was the right answer until Wilson said it. Maybe House isn’t screwed. Or maybe he is, but just in the general sort of missing a chunk of his thigh and ninety-five percent of the people he meets are morons kind of way. He leans forward and kisses Wilson, who currently has bad breath but warm lips and a tongue that’s fairly indecent in its softness.

When Wilson pulls away, they’re both smiling, just a little. “Breakfast?” Wilson asks.

Mm, food and Wilson, such a happy thought. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “Whatever.” Meaning, whatever you want is what I want, but it wouldn’t do to say that just yet. Can’t let Wilson get complacent.

House makes it back to his room in a bit of a fog and falls onto the bed face first. He needs a few more hours of shut-eye, and then they’ll take this puppy out for a spin.

Breakfast is almost exactly like yesterday, like nothing’s changed, except House has to hide a smirk every other second. He curbs the impulse to climb on the table and gloat, because no one else in this room has Jimmy Wilson, or even his stuffier counterpart Dr. James E. Wilson, and House does. Ha!

The rest of the day is boring, but brighter somehow. His head, his heart, his stomach, and his dick are all at peace – well, his dick’s a little obstreperous, but not too bad, considering the circumstances. And when his thigh gives him some problems mid-afternoon, it only takes one Vicodin and a gentle covert massage by Wilson to get it to settle down. Jealousy by other parts of his body is quickly quashed.

After dinner, they watch TV: a Chinese soap that appears identical to Passions, and a couple of old Seinfeld reruns. House has never seen the end of the Puerto Rican Day episode, and he misses it this night, too, because he’s too busy mapping the contours of Wilson’s neck with his lips.

Then the television’s off and they’re naked together. Even with careful, pleasurable preparation and half the bottle of lube, Wilson pushing inside him, stutter-stop, is painful, no romanticizing that away. It’s been a long time since anything’s gone in his anus. He grits his teeth, breathes through his nose, bears down. Wilson gives an appreciative grunt and pushes again.

After a few minutes, it’s more pressure than pain and the movement starts to feel like sliding. A groove, they’re getting into a groove, and House is amazed at how Wilson inside him feels familiar. As he comes, he laughs – unheard under Wilson’s moans – because he realizes Wilson’s been inside him all along.

He sleeps like a rock, deeper and more restfully than he has in years.

House wakes to an amusingly familiar whine. “Fucking hairdryer,” he mutters when Wilson comes out of the bathroom already in his shirt and slacks.

“Sorry,” Wilson says, actually sounding like he is. He gives House a quick peck – such the good little husband – and keeps getting dressed.

Wilson putting on his tie is not nearly as interesting as Wilson taking off his tie, so House heads back to his own room. Shower, shave, packing – they head home tonight. Good thing; what with the exchange rate, top quality lube’s probably pretty expensive here.

Breakfast is quiet, just as House likes it. Before the morning session, he heads to the restroom. The walls are strangely thin, or maybe there’s a hole somewhere, because he can hear a conversation between two women in the ladies’ room. He realizes with a start that they’re talking about Wilson, wishing he’d gone to some event the night before, wondering if he’ll be staying over an extra night. No, no, no, House thinks, feeling intensely possessive. We can’t have that.

During closing speakers, Wilson falls asleep on House’s shoulder. His head’s heavy, and it’s awkward, but it gets the two of them just the kind of attention House wants. He lays his hand faux-casually on Wilson’s leg.

Wilson wakes up when the last talk is done and the room’s beginning to clear out. When another attendee walks by and raises a penciled-on eyebrow, House smiles smugly to fend her off. “Long night,” he says, by way of explanation, and he’s gratified when she moves away more quickly.

They go to the conference’s buffet lunch, the room crowded with hungry people. They get a few speculative looks, although not as many as House would like to see. Wilson asks if the attention bothers him, and he replies honestly, “It’s great. Now no one will hit on you, so you don’t have to fuck them.”

When Wilson opens his mouth to protest, House grabs him by the tie and kisses him. They happen to be in front of the drinks; a prime spot, and almost all eyes are on them. Good.

“Just making sure they got the message,” he says to a very stunned Wilson. He doesn’t tell him that the temptation to yell, “Go and proclaim the news!” is very, very strong.

They eat lunch in peace and then mosey up to House’s room. Wilson wants to discuss what they’re going to do for the rest of the day. House knows exactly what he wants them to do, and exactly how little clothing they’ll need, but Wilson wants to go out and see the city.

House sighs like it’s been twelve days instead of twelve hours since they last had sex, but truthfully he’s feeling indulgent. When they get home, he’s going to need time alone for some of his pastimes that Wilson doesn’t appreciate – although he is going to get Wilson to love the bike, oh yes – so he can be tolerant and let Wilson go off by himself today.

He calls to get them both approved for late check-out, and then naps the afternoon away.

When they meet up to catch a cab to the airport, he notices a change in Wilson. He hadn’t thought Wilson seemed particularly tense before, but now there’s a peace about him. Maybe Wilson was working on some torso trust issues, too.

They get all the way to Narita Airport in Japan before Wilson falls asleep. In an uncomfortable, less than sturdy plastic chair. Midway through a meal.

God. House is in love with a fucking narcoleptic. Wilson likes to bitch about the bike, but a Volvo’s not all that safe if you fall asleep at the goddamned wheel. House eats the rest of Wilson’s food in retaliation and then pulls out a book, fending off any and all encroachers with a glare.

Their flight to New York’s being called for boarding when Wilson finally wakes up. House whacks him lightly in the shin with his cane to get some blood flowing. “C’mon,” he says. “We’re going to be late.”

Wilson blinks a few times but gets up from the table. “I love you, you know,” he says, and House doesn’t want to admit how good that makes him feel, even as his heart starts smirking at him. Shut up.

“If you really loved me,” he responds with a leer, “you’d help me get into the Mile High Club.”

Wilson smiles and shakes his head. “It’s not as fun as it sounds. Airplane bathrooms are entirely too cramped.”

It’s clearly the voice of experience; House leers some more. “Why, Jimmy,” he says in his best fake-shocked voice, “you almost sound as if you’ve tried it before. Flight attendant?”

Wilson winces a little. “Flight attendant,” he confirms.

House can’t help but laugh. They’re going home, and he can’t wait to get there.