Author's note:

I wrote this story a while ago. It was inspired by the many House/Wilson vids on youtube and my misconception of the 224 scene in which "House punches Wilson". As I live in Europe, I saw the scene long before I watched the episode, and I thought the blow was real. As a result, the story contains violence as well as angst, anger, love and m/m sex.

Characters are, obviously, not mine.

()()()

Fuck you, House

The hotel receptionist is unsurprised to see him. "Good night, Dr. Wilson," she says quietly as she hands him his keycard. She knows who he is and what he does for a living; he informed her about both his name and his profession the first time they met: a guest might become unwell, he had reckoned, and perhaps he could be of help.

He musters a smile and returns the receptionist's wish.

He knows exactly what the room will look like even before he opens the door. Over the course of years, he has seen virtually all rooms of the hotel, but number 25 is his regular. It's a good room. The hotel likes to have him as a regular guest, apparently.

He puts his suitcase down and washes his hands in the bathroom. Then he sits on the bed and rubs his temples against the upcoming headache. It's an anger headache and it isn't unexpected, but he is startled, yet again, at the realization that this is actually a rather new phenomenon to him. He used to enter hotel rooms feeling a mixture of relief, resignation, and of course, guilt. Until six months ago. Until he moved in with House on what was meant to be a permanent basis.

The headache throbs. He blinks at the wall and swears. "Fuck you, House!"

God, he is angry.

Being angry with House as such is nothing new, of course. It is, in fact, a feeling well known to anyone who ever so much as parted glances with the man. The magnitude of his rage is still unfamiliar to James however, even though this has been the fifth fight in six months.

He can't recall its exact cause, but he's certain House started it. House is always the one to start.

He feels his jaw. He doesn't need to look in the mirror to know that the bruise is darkening rapidly. He thinks about House's split lip.

"Fuck you, House."

()()()

The first time it happened, he instantly packed his suitcase and when he spat at House that he'd come back to collect the rest of his belongings tomorrow, he meant every word of it. As did House when he snarled, "Oh yes, please do!"

They both went to work the next day. James entered the hospital at a quarter to eight; House arrived at half past ten (no need on either side to change routine over this). Their appearances upset Cuddy and House's lackeys to various degrees.

Cameron was the first to address the subject. She came up to him in the hallway outside his office, a little out of breath.

"Dr. Wilson. James…."

He waited for her to continue.

"Do you think it was a wise decision to move in with House?" She blinked. "I mean, it's obvious that it doesn't do much for the happiness of either of you."

It was none of her business, of course, and he knew that his wellbeing wasn't of any true concern to her, but he took pity. To be confronted with proof of House's violence—the physical part of it—was hard on her. She'd grown accustomed to rationalizing the flaws of the man she admired so much—she practiced it daily, with a certain ingenuity and grace—but physical abuse wasn't easily explained away.

He told her he was planning to move out that very evening. At eleven a.m., it was the truth.

At noon, Foreman gave his considered opinion that it had been extremely stupid of Wilson to move into House's apartment. "You're going to kill each other some day," he said with apparent confidence in his prognosis.

Chase avoided saying anything at all about the state of House and Wilson's faces—at least to James. That was no surprise. Chase was an opportunist; he had medically unrelated opinions only if he could benefit from them.

Cuddy wanted James and House in her office at two, and she wasn't amused.

"Are you out of your minds?" she asked. Rhetorically, of course. "If this ever happens again, one of you is getting sacked."

James silently replaced 'one of you' by 'Wilson'.

Cuddy took a breath and declared, still miffed, that "patients in this hospital are entitled to be examined by doctors who bear some resemblance to actual doctors; and no likeness to soldiers having recently returned from battle."

House pointedly tapped his cane on the floor. "Glad to hear that you finally saw reason on that one. And thank you very much for relieving me from clinic duty."

Cuddy shot him a glare. "Go," she said, waving her hand at the both of them. "And for God's sakes, don't multiply."

"We need to know more about domestic violence," House stated outside Cuddy's office. "How to inflict pain without leaving marks visible to third parties."

"Indeed, we do," James agreed. "Next time, before we attack each other, we really need to take a couple of seconds to contemplate where best to hit."

There was a beat. And eye contact. And a tightening feeling in James's chest. He was the first to look away.

"See you tonight, Wilson," House said. "Don't forget to bring your luggage from the hotel."

His voice was steady, but there was a hint of something revealing to James that House knew he could predict his friend's course of action with great accuracy, but also that he desperately wanted him to come home.

He stared after House's retreating figure. A damaged man, in more than one sense. Crippled. Sad. Cynical. The fucked up love of James's fucked up life, ready and willing to take on the next round of mutual destruction.

The pain in his chest returned. It spread to his limbs. He felt sick, like he was struck with a severe cold.

Withdrawal syndrome had already set in, and he knew he needed another shot.

He knew he needed to go home.

()()()

His stinging eyes tell him that sorrow is lurking, but he blinks a few times and clenches his teeth. It's too soon for sadness; he still needs to be angry.

"Fuck you, House."

He repeats it, louder this time.

He starts to pace. He has never been a hotel room pacer, until six months ago.

He suspects the hotel personnel noticed some significant changes setting in at the time. A shortening of the intervals between visits, a sharp decrease in the duration of his stays. The bruises, the scratches, the occasional limping. (It turned out that practice doesn't make perfect, but although patients may look a little puzzled at the occasionally dented appearances of their doctors, most of them seem to think that a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved, so there hasn't been a reason for Cuddy to fire Wilson.)

The sudden ceasing of telephone conversations in the lobby or the dining room may have surprised the hotel staff as well. Most used to involve discussions on how to handle yet another divorce, and about a possible reconciliation with the current Mrs. Wilson. (House never failed to mention that—and his estimates of James being able to successfully perform marital resuscitation were always ludicrously high. James assumes the only reason House chose this conduct was that he knew the chances of a Wilson-Wilson appeasement to be close to zero.)

He reckons that rage looks different on him than resignation does. It sure as hell feels different.

He lies down on the bed. His heart is racing; he is sweating and breathing heavy.

He unbuckles his belt, unzips his pants. He slides his hand inside his briefs. He is hard.

"Fuck you, House."

He starts to stroke with angry strokes.

He is barging into the apartment, dragging and pushing House towards the bedroom, stripping him of his clothes, forcing him onto his stomach, entering him, and fucking him through the mattress. Pouring everything that binds him to House—rage, passion, love—into Gregg's ass.

"Fuck… you… House."

The final strokes are emphasized by words. His back muscles relax and he feels the hotel bed catch him. He opens his eyes. His heart rate is slowing, and so is his breathing. He waits for the post-ejaculation bliss to have completely subsided before he rises to change his sperm stained shirt for a clean one.

He's calmer now. Most of his anger is gone, and he knows that longing and sorrow are about to claim him.

He also knows that some of the rage will return, and that he'll use it to show House that James Wilson is not to be toyed with.

Tomorrow, when he is going home.

Again.