Wilson woke abruptly to the sound of pills scattering across the floor in another room, and nearly rolled off the couch. He sat up, groggy with the vestiges of alcohol-induced sleep, and peered over his shoulder toward the darkened hallway that led to House's bedroom. "House? You awake?" He would have asked if House were okay, but that question never led to any useful sort of information. "House?" Wilson disentangled himself from his blanket and tottered upright, still at least three-quarters drunk. A muffled, indeterminate sound from the end of the hallway gave him pause, and then he hurried forward, all House-born caution gone. "I'm coming!"

There was vicodin strewn all over the place; some of the little white capsules were still rolling and spinning out in the hallway. Wilson thought at first that House had done a spectacular job of dropping the open bottle, but when he bent to recover the amber container, he felt a crack running all up one side with a v-shaped chunk missing from the brim. House must have thrown the bottle at the wall near the door with all his strength, where it burst.

Wilson scooped up three of the nearest pills and strode forward to find House bent over his scarred thigh, rocking slightly and gritting his teeth against the whimpers that threatened to force their way out. He had managed to at least stuff a pillow under his knee, but from the looks of things, it wasn't helping much.

"Hey." Wilson approached carefully, as he might an injured stray. When the spasms got that bad, House often had trouble controlling his temper. And who could blame him? "Give me a number."

All House could manage to do was open his mouth to respond, and then he bit back a cry and sank lower over his leg. A nine, then, at least.

"How many pills did you already – "

"They're not working!" House bit his lip after that and moaned in the back of his throat, shaking with the effort to remain the silent, unflappable House that no one could stand, let alone pity. It was impossible for him to do so in this state.

"Okay," Wilson said. He kept his voice soft in an effort to soothe. He couldn't afford to get House any more worked up or the tension alone would escalate the spasm. As he slipped the three vicodin into his pocket for safekeeping, he asked, "How long?"

"Half…nnnnnng…half hour. Wilson…"

"I know." Wilson stepped close enough in the murky room to get a look at the sweat beaded across House's brow and the way the tendons stood out in sharp relief against his neck and arms. He laid his fingers tentatively on House's carotid and his eyebrows shot up. "House, you're over one-sixty. Where's the morphine?"

House merely shook his head, tightened his vice-like grip on his leg, and rocked a little harder.

"I know you have some here. I'm not gonna lecture – "

"It won't stop the spasm," House ground out. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away.

Wilson shook his head, admittedly surprised by this refusal. It had been years since he'd actually been around to witness one of these moments, and he had thought that House would jump at the chance to get a stronger drug. Wilson had underestimated him, as well as the pain levels he must have been in on the few occasions when Wilson had caved and given him a syringe of morphine or dilaudid. It made Wilson immeasurably more sympathetic in light of evidence that House was trying not to develop a dependency on something stronger than the vicodin. He was trying, which Wilson lauded him for, but right now, he really needed it. "I know it won't stop the spasm, but it'll help with the pa – "

"It won't stop the spasm!"

Wilson jumped back a step on reflex but immediately moved back in when House gave up on trying to be quiet. "Okay. Do you have any muscle relaxants here?" At the violent shake of House's head, Wilson grew uncomfortable. He was used to helping people, but only for the space of time it took to deliver a diagnosis or administer medication. He didn't like seeing people in pain, and he didn't know how to handle being helpless to stop it. "Okay. Tell me what I can do."

"Just go away," House moaned, his fingers digging furiously into the fibers of the offending muscles, desperate to reduce the agony. "You can't do anything."

"I can't just leave." The words were out before Wilson could think better of them, and he ducked as House flung the nearest thing that came to hand. It was just a pillow, but the intent was clear. Fucking leave!

Wilson chose to ignore the intent and approached the bedside again. He was certain that House would throw something else as soon as he could lay his hands on something, or else that he would lash out with his fists and maybe one leg, but he didn't. As soon as Wilson was close enough, House sort of leaned into him, like a cold child seeking the warmth while fearing to be struck for wanting it. Wilson tensed at first because he couldn't believe that his cantankerous best friend would initiate this sort of needy contact; he must have mistaken House's movement. But when House turned his face into Wilson's belly and fought not to sob openly, Wilson's arms came up of their own accord to keep him there.

The next thing Wilson knew, House's left hand was fisted in his shirt and he had to make rapid use of his compromised coordination to avoid crushing House as he plopped down beside him on the bed. "Oomph. Okay, hey." Wilson resituated himself and managed to get one arm wrapped halfway around House's shoulders while he rested his other hand over the whitened knuckles that had claimed his shirt. "Okay. It's okay."

House made a non-intelligible retort to that which only Wilson's shirt could fully comprehend. Of course it wasn't okay right now, but it would be eventually, and Wilson didn't know what else to say. He had only seen House cry like this a handful of times, and all of them had come hot on the heels of the infarction and the debridement surgery. He kept on mumbling empty platitudes and half-truths at the top of House's head, cringing each time House held his breath to ride out a fresh wave of agony brought on by his traitorous thigh. Without thinking, Wilson placed a chaste kiss into House's hair. It seemed natural to do so – he cared for House whether he liked to admit it in public or not, and to see him suffer this much was tearing off little pieces of Wilson too. Besides, House's head was conveniently located just below Wilson's chin, and his hair smelled clean and inviting, as hair should.

House stiffened but did not react otherwise, and Wilson breathed a silent sigh of relief. That faux pas would go into the abyss along with the fact that House was crying into Wilson's shirt hard enough that he felt the wetness through the cotton. Neither of them would say anything about either act for fear of inviting retaliatory disclosure. It was emotional blackmail at its finest.

And then Wilson felt House shift against him, scraping stubble across his neck as he lifted his head a bit. Something warm and slightly damp pressed against the hollow of Wilson's throat. It took Wilson a second to identify that something as House's lips. The whole of Wilson's brain fizzled out in shock and all he could think to do at that point was duck his head down. He was actually stunned when he allowed House's tongue to delve into his mouth, and he was kissing back before his mind had fully processed the idea that House had kissed him to begin with. His only coherent notion was that whiskers tickled a bit while adding an unusually erotic element to the fact that he was making out with his best friend.

They pulled apart as House bent his head and gasped, his body strung with tension as another spasm sent him into a fit of tremors, but as soon as it passed, he plastered his mouth back over Wilson's. The raw desperation turned Wilson on like little else, and to his horror, he felt himself hardening against the fly of his pants. He pulled back but House followed, so he tried to stand instead. "House – "

"Don't. 's'okay," House slurred, his voice off pitch and shaky. He grabbed the back of Wilson's neck and dragged him in again, and what the hell. Wilson hadn't slept with anyone since the pity sex wore off the second month after the bus crash. If House wanted a distraction, it couldn't hurt. Much.

Wilson could tell each time a spasm hit because House would freeze for a moment and then go at Wilson with renewed vigor, smothering a series of grunts and whimpers against Wilson's teeth while Wilson tried to keep up a suitably distracting rhythm without House accidentally biting off his tongue as he clenched his jaw. At one point, Wilson tasted copper in House's mouth; he figured that House had mangled his lip during his last bout with his leg. A few seconds later, their kisses turned salty and Wilson brushed his thumbs over House's cheeks, unable to stand the thought that pain had brought his stubborn, proud friend to tears. It left Wilson more determined than ever to find a way to make House feel good, or at least better.

After several minutes of necking that alternated between frantic and pained, House grappled Wilson up onto the bed. Wilson climbed gingerly over him and settled on his stomach on House's left side, his torso bent and stretched out over House's ribcage. Then he resumed his previous activities. He winced each time House's breath caught, or when he whimpered and panted raggedly through another spasm, but he couldn't prevent the wave of arousal that flooded through him as House intensified the motions of his tongue and tangled his fingers in Wilson's hair to hold his head firmly in place in spite of the torture his thigh inflicted on him every fifteen or twenty seconds. Wilson was letting forth tiny grunts of his own, his tongue warring with House's until it gained entry, and then he savored the flavor of House's mouth, his saliva, the backs of his teeth. He tilted his head and ran the tip of his tongue along House's gums, then left off and nibbled House's lower lip, pulling and sucking as if it belonged to Wilson and he wanted it back.

He had no idea how long House intended to let this go on, so Wilson put forth a mighty effort to hold himself to a slow session. This was only a distraction – something to take House's mind off the pain. When Wilson began to fight the urge to undulate his hips, House's hand found its way to his buttocks and squeezed to let him know that he was okay with a little frottage. The rhythm remained broken, however; Wilson didn't want his libido to hurl him too far too fast. Every few seconds, he rubbed himself lightly against House's left hip just to provide a bit of friction, to start a slow burn in his belly and relieve the building pressure at the base of his spine so that he could keep himself in check.

At House's insistence, Wilson raised himself on his right elbow and planted his left palm against the mattress on House's other side to prop himself up. The better angle allowed him to run his tongue all across House's jaw and over behind his ear, where he doted on one particular spot that made House arch his neck and seem to forget that his leg was trying to reduce him to a quivering mess. Though Wilson's right arm bore the brunt of his weight, he was able to thread his fingers through House's hair and play with the locks while he worked his mouth from above.

While he used his tongue to rim the shell of House's ear, Wilson felt House's hands unbutton his dress shirt, and then House yanked both that and the thin undershirt out of Wilson's waistband. Wilson had attempted to hold back until that point because he had assumed that House was not entirely in his right mind – that he would call it off the moment the pain afforded him time enough to think straight – not to mention that they were both a little tipsy – but to hell with propriety. If House wanted to substitute sex for morphine, Wilson was more than happy to oblige him with as much sex as he could handle. He'd put himself on tap if it would save House's liver from the constant use of painkillers and opiates.

House's hands slid up under Wilson's shirt and coasted along the planes of his back. A moan escaped Wilson as House pressed against his lumbar group to draw them closer, and Wilson shimmied a bit higher on House's body. He slung his leg over House's good one to nestle between House's thighs, and when he felt the press of another hard member in the crook of his hip, Wilson gave up all pretense of resistance. He rolled his hips sharply down against his best friend and swallowed the ecstatic gasp and groan that whooshed from House's lungs. The hands resting atop Wilson's tailbone clawed in against him, blunt fingernails forcing him down until his lower body collapsed against House's torso. He felt House shudder and then buck up against him, and Wilson threw his head back, breaking the kiss. House reared up again and arched his neck into the pillow as the most delicious moan snaked from his airway to accost the room.

That was when it hit Wilson. House was deliberately trying to confuse his body into mixing pain up with pleasure, to cross the pathways so that the unendurable agony would morph into something he could bear. It was such an undeniably House-ish thing to do that Wilson lowered his face to House's shoulder and laughed, breathless though he was.

House seemed beyond caring what Wilson thought right now, and as soon as he realized that Wilson's attention had wandered, he grasped Wilson roughly by the ears and dragged his face up for another hot, openmouthed kiss. Both of them ran out of air halfway through and took up gasping at every available interval just to keep from passing out, but House refused to relent. Wilson allowed himself to be plundered without complaint because really – House was pretty good at this. Wilson was man enough to admit that he enjoyed the stubble grazing his lips and jaw, the way it chafed just a bit too much to add a texture to the hungry press of their lips that no woman could have offered him.

House's plan must have finally started to work because he was whimpering less with pain than with abandon now. Wilson ate it up with every impact of their lips, every swirl of his tongue in House's mouth. His arousal increased with each slow, practiced roll of his hips, exhilarated by the way House's pelvis rose to meet him, how their groins rubbed over each others' thighs, their trapped erections throbbing within the confines of their clothes.

An annoying little voice in the back of Wilson's head seemed intent on placating him by whispering that it wasn't technically sex if they both kept their clothes on. He wanted to throttle that little voice because he didn't care whether they could call it sex or not; he wanted House writhing beneath him, and he didn't care how they came to it. As Wilson pulled out of another duel and licked his swollen lips, House latched his mouth onto Wilson's throat, his tongue dancing over Wilson's adam's apple while he suckled at the tender skin. Wilson sighed, his drowsy eyes slipping closed, and then he muttered, "To hell with it," and ripped his shirt over his head.

Wilson divested House of his shirt as well and then sat up on his knees to fumble his suit pants open. Once he was unzipped, he reached for the waistband of House's sleep pants, paused just to be absolutely certain that House wasn't about to object, and then he hauled them roughly down past House's hips, stretching the elastic over his straining member while House struggled to lift his hips enough to be helpful. Wilson dragged his boxers off too, skimming carefully over the scar to avoid aggravating the twitching muscle group, and worked them all the way off. He threw them over the edge of the bed along with the flannel pajama bottoms, and then he flopped over to kick his suit pants off. They fell into the netherworld of House's bedroom floor, and Wilson scrambled to resume his previous position.

House spread his legs wider so that Wilson could settle fully between them this time, and Wilson climbed over House on hands and knees before lowering himself down with special care for the locations of their fun parts. It was awkward at first but House shoved at him until he was comfortable, and then Wilson wiggled around a bit so that he was too. Their chests compressed the air between them and Wilson gazed down at House's face. He had never imagined seeing it at this angle before, open and filled with some sort of longing that Wilson guessed no one ever saw nowadays. His heart swelled with knowing that he was privy to it, and then he dived down to engulf House's mouth.

They spent several minutes just lying there, passing the time with the attentions of their lips and tongues, neither one of them fully committed to moving the encounter toward its inevitable conclusion. Wilson ended up taking the initiative; he settled his elbows on either side of House's rib cage, lifted his upper body a few inches, and then canted his hips in a lazy thrust. His penis slid against House's, both of them slick with sweat and Cowper's fluid, and Wilson could feel the ripples of House's abdominal muscles flexing against his length. House's pelvis jerked as Wilson moved, and then he bucked, unable to control himself as Wilson drew back and thrust again.

House gasped and grabbed at Wilson's arms to anchor himself. "Oh – mmmm…"

Wilson looked down to see total shock on House's face, as if he couldn't believe that he was naked in bed with Wilson, and that it could feel this amazing. He rolled his hips three times in rapid succession, teasing House with friction, and grinned to see House's eyes roll up as his mouth fell open.

House purred, "Wilson…shit. Ohmygod." House's spine curved up until their abdomens touched again, and then he hissed and shoved his cock hard up against Wilson's.

Wilson's eyes bugged and he curled forward as a plethora of wonderful sensations assaulted his nervous system. He couldn't stop himself from thrusting back, and in no time, they had worked up to a steady tempo. House's hands ended up glued to Wilson's ass, and he used them to add force to Wilson's movements, until Wilson swore that they had worked up a froth between them with the intensity of their motions. He buried his face into House's shoulder and panted wordless sounds of pleasure each time their cocks strummed one another, his abdominal muscles shivering in protest of such a vigorous workout. The space between them became hot and silken, filled with the smooth passage of their cocks cushioned on the sweaty skin of their stomachs.

Wilson's efforts sped up until he felt his balls slapping against House's body with each thrust. House had arched below him, all but lifting his hips entirely off the bed in an instinctive effort to increase the pressure pistoning back and forth against his penis. Wilson captured his mouth in a sloppy kiss and then had to break off because he couldn't think anymore; all he could do was move – hurtle toward the edge and hope that the fall didn't kill him.

He hardly noticed that House's hands had moved until he felt arms encircle his waist. Then he felt House's thighs lift to squeeze his hips as his motions grew erratic. Wilson knew what was coming and he wanted to savor the moment when House wrecked himself against Wilson's body. He breathed deep and kept his own hips as still as possible considering the man thrashing desperately about beneath him as if he intended to shatter as he came.

Wilson threaded his hand between their bodies until he found House's cock, which he grasped tightly. House's entire body convulsed in pleasure and he pumped into the sheath provided by Wilson's fist, his fingers gouging Wilson's back as he bared his neck and bit his already bloodied lip, bent backwards as far as he could go with Wilson's weight on top of him. Then he went rigid for a second, the cords on his neck standing out in the throes of bliss, and Wilson felt himself tip over the edge at the same time, just from seeing that look on House's face.

They emptied themselves in a half-dozen hot bursts, moving in a frantic yet tandem rhythm even in the midst of orgasm. Wilson came down first, his arms turning to jelly under his weight while House continued to thrust up against him, wheezing from the effort. Finally he shuddered and went limp, and Wilson released the death grip he had on House's dick. He shifted off and flopped over, rolling onto the other half of the bed to recover his senses.

They both fought to catch their breath in the darkness, and then Wilson turned his head to catch a glimpse of House lying in profile beside him, his chest heaving as he gulped in fresh air to cool his lungs. "So…did it help your leg?"

He heard rather than saw House swallow. "If I say no, will you try again?"

"Maybe."

A pause ensued. "Then, no. Not one bit."