This is the last chapter of this fic. I don't want to make any special footnotes down there, just keep it in mind that there will be one Hindi phrase with the clearest meaning, so it doesn't really need to be translated ;) Hope you enjoyed it all the way through as much as I did! Thanks to all of you.

The walls of the Dean of the Medicine's sanctum are like cinnamon cappuccino. The cedar writing table is like Chocolateburg, Switzerland. The scattered lot of pens, pencils and erasers are like spaghetti alla puttanesca. House is, like, hungry. Cuddy seems to be the only thinkable thing in the room he wouldn't consider edible, flesh notwithstanding. Oh, right. And there is also Wilson standing to his left in a mute participation. House swallows. Well, what else is new?

"Dr. House. Dr. Wilson." Cuddy acknowledges her acquaintance with her employees' names, somewhat expecting that these Dr's will make it sound distant and icy. She doesn't look like she's going to fret and fume, though. "Any hope you have a rational reason for your inappropriate behavior?"

House takes the floor.

"Well, there I was, sauntering along the hospital corridors with nothing whatsoever to fill my time with, and upon coming across Wilson in the middle of the hall, we've instantly decided to have a wild animal sex right there."

Wilson looks up at him with his rounded eyes and manages in a weak voice:

"An excellent way to put it."

"Thank you, honey! How sweet of you to say so." Simply beaming with mirth, House enjoys himself and is likely to be having a treat of life.

Cuddy gifts him a glaring glance. After getting her cake of satisfaction out of scowling the diagnostician through, she flips a few folders that lie disorderly on her desk and chooses the black one. She stands up and, not even looking straight at House, stows it hastily into his hands and says, still in an angry voice:

"New case. Off you go now. The conversation is meant for sane people."

House puts on an expression of someone who doesn't care what's going on around the place, like that of a marmoset which has found a banana peel and busied itself with fiddling around its parts. He turns and walks out, letting the door thump loudly behind his back.

"You seem to get off relatively unscathed."

"Rather."

"Has Cuddy said anything of interest?"

"Depends on what you mean by it. She was quite liberal with epithets."

"Are we irresponsible self-important jerks?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much the gist."

Scratching the back of his head in a somewhat unaccustomed fashion, Wilson sits down on the couch and tries not to look straight at his friend, who, on the contrary, is on the point of burning a hole in the oncologist with his penetrating stare.

"Hey, take a dekko." House nods in the direction of the table-edge where he's stationed the promised portion of the bet. Wilson takes a dekko, his face momentarily acquiring an involuntary crimson color and averts his eyes. Money makes him feel like… well, a whore. Would you be surprised. Not a particularly lovely feeling, you know. Looking like a threatened creature that is quite at bay with no ships and schooners to sail away from the grisly haven, Wilson pretends to get interested in his chalk white ceiling.

House sighs, watching Wilson fidgeting around his place as though he was asked to square a circle. Or circle the square. Depends on one's geometric preferences.

"Okay. Since you're not taking any advantage of your current, yet five-and-a-half-day-long auspicious situation, I'm going to help you out myself." He gets a firmer grip on his cane and puts himself straight. "Your unwilling to have me around here is almost palpable. I'm going to grab some snack."

He lingers by the door, turning back and sending his friend a well-thought anxious look. "In case you want to tell me something, you can tell Chase." He thinks for a moment. "In case you want to do something," adds House in a mystical tone. "Don't do it to Chase."

As soon as House is gone and the door is safely closed behind his back, Wilson winds up sitting in a peaceful and pleasant silence – a valuable delight now that he is almost always surrounded by House. Taking a furtive look at his table, he notices three banknotes and twitches at the ugly feeling. Second later, he already knows what to do with them.

"I see. You won't take your money. But, come to think of it… You put it under my ball?" House laughs, his expression smug and lofty. "Wilson! My other ball!.. Now I kind of feel that I can kiss you gratis."

House is impossible, thinks Wilson to himself, his face downcast, eyes attached to a list of dishes of the menu in the German restaurant. He doesn't understand anything. He knows that neither does House. But House thinks it's fun. The game is to choose something, without resorting to the Kellner's help.

Griessklosschensuppe, he mutters with his brow furrowed and his tongue tangled. Sure, he can guess what suppe is, but what's going to wallow in it? Griess? Grizzly bears? The next thing his eyes fall on is Leberknodelsuppe. He marks in his mind the words "berk" and "node". A soup with a node of berks floating in it? Blow your brain out.

Remembering that House was talking to him, Wilson looks up and says:

"I don't recall I've ever seen you this happy. One may wonder how the most petty things can bring a person to cloud nine."

"Are we in heaven or have you really washed all the dishes?" asks Wilson, gawking at the heap of shiny clean plates and mugs which are trimmed neatly on the drying rack.

"I do what I promised you to do." House answers simply and without any underlying messages, which makes it all strange alright. Wilson raises his eyebrow in question.

"No," he replies in a drawling voice and checks House from head to toe, making sure that everything is in place and there's nothing exceptionally wrong with his old friend. "You only do what you want to do, which brings us to the point… why do you want to do it?"

This sends a nervous vibe around the sitting room. House looks at Wilson and Wilson looks at House. Both are silent and uncomfortable. You've got to say something. Nolens volens. Not necesserily sensible, but at least by means of the English language.

"Maybe this is my new way of screwing with you," comes up House with the weirdest answer he can think of. He tries to blaze a trail through the shoal of thoughts that has gotten stuck in one of the weedy mazes of his brain. To no avail. House conjures his mordant impassivity as a backup reinforcement.

For a brief moment Wilson is at a loss for a remark.

"God, you are that messed up." He says finally, his head a bit askew.

"Yeah, they broke the mold when they made me."

"I wouldn't be opposed to get to know those "they" and advise them to reconsider their patterns."

Imagine two people that are tightly clad in spacesuits, one of whom is gravitationally unstable and drifting in the air without being able to stand still on the firm ground.

Wilson's eyes canvass the sitting room in search of an object that could become a discussion point and, no loot procured, his gaze halts right on House. The man gives him a quizzical smile.

"Kiss me already, Wilson, will you?" The prompting question hangs frozen in the spaceport of the room.

"Will you kiss me back?"

"Will you care if I kiss you back?"

"Will you care if I care if you kiss me back?"

House lingers on these words.

"What?" he says in confusion.

"Nothing," retorts Wilson. "Stop it, will you?"

"Stop what exactly?" House inquires, the tone of his voice amused and joyful.

"This." Wilson makes a vague gesture with his hand, moving it aimlessly in the air.

"Yeah," House looks at him mockingly. "Plain as a pikestaff. Second best explanation, though."

Wilson frowns, sensing a trick implied out there.

"What would be the first best?"

House takes a short limp forward and kisses him. For quite a minute Wilson remains torpid, but House knows him well enough to realize that it is nothing more than a mulish stubbornness. Slowly, for not scaring the will-o'-the-wisp away, he slides his caneless hand into Wilson's hair, his fingers grabbing a few fascicles to pull the man's head back. House breaks off the kiss and takes a swift breath intake before resuming his doings while he says quickly:

"And who's impolite now?"

Wilson's pupils are dilated, eyes flickering, and he doesn't want to respond. In both meanings. House whispers on:

"Giving it back has never hurt anybody so far."

"Well, if so…"

"Mai tumse pyar karta hoon."

"Me too."

"Do you even know what I said?"

"If you haven't condemned me to hell, then it's totally alright."

"Your answer hit the bull's eye, anyway."

"There you have it."

"Now the idea of making love on Cuddy's office desk doesn't seem that improbable, huh?"

"In for a penny, in for a pound!"

END