Title: The Doctor-Doctor Relationship
Author: hwshipper
A/N: Set in a rather extended late season 2. Spoilers through to 3.1 'Meaning'. Non-monogamous relationships. The explicit scenes are m/m. Story includes m/f relationship, but no m/f sex.
This fic would never have been written without my beta and cheerleader, srsly_yes, who has my undying and sincere gratitude. Written for house_bigbang with wonderful art by jiraiyasgirl (linked from my LiveJournal and AO3 sites).
The Doctor-Doctor Relationship
It was just typical, Wilson reflected later, that House asked about his date right after giving him the most mind-boggling blowjob. In fact possibly the best orgasm of his life, although that might have just been the immediate bodily reaction.
As he slumped down onto the sheets, House came wriggling up the bed next to him, planted a big wet sloppy kiss on Wilson's mouth, and said, "So, tell me about your date."
Wilson had not yet regained the power to speak and could only mumble, "Wha?"
House kissed him again. Wilson tasted various bodily fluids.
"Your date. With the bright young postdoc in the Sociology faculty. Tell me about it."
Wilson uttered some syllables that made little sense, which House apparently correctly interpreted as "Why now?", as he replied, "Because you're at your most vulnerable."
This was true. Realizing that House wasn't about to shut up, Wilson hoisted himself up a couple of inches on the pillow, opened his eyes and cleared his throat.
"Her name's Jean. She's thinking about doing a piece of research on sociology of medicine and gender, maybe looking at cancer patients. She contacted me because she wanted to look around an oncology department."
"And to her surprise, the head of oncology decided to give her a personal tour," House carried on. "She saw the department, watched you play with the cancer kids, made nice to the terminals, flirted with you, you flirted back, yada yada yada."
"If you know all this, why are you asking?" Wilson said peevishly.
"I know the word on the hospital grapevine. Half your staff heard that you ended up asking her to dinner the following night. Which would have been last night."
Wilson sighed. "She's intelligent, attractive, and single. And we hadn't finished talking about her possible project. Dinner was the obvious thing to suggest."
"And you just talked about cancer."
"No, we talked about lots of things!" Wilson realized he sounded defensive and changed to a bored monotone. "We got on very well. She seems very nice. No, we didn't have sex. Didn't even kiss. We're meeting again for drinks next week. Is that enough?"
House considered. "For the moment."
"So can I go to sleep now?"
"No," said House, with a glint in his eye. "It's my turn now."
Dinner with Jean had been great. Wilson couldn't remember when he'd enjoyed a nicer evening out with a woman.
They went to a little Italian restaurant not far from the hospital. She'd worn glasses at the hospital, but took them off when they got inside to reveal large hazel eyes; she explained she only needed the glasses for reading and writing. She slid them into a red velvet pouch and put them in her bag. She ordered lasagna verdi, and he watched her cutting it up carefully and popping small pieces in her mouth; he admired how she somehow managed to avoid getting any spinach between her neat white teeth. Her wavy brown hair pooled over her shoulders, and she had a habit of flipping it back when she smiled.
Wilson had spaghetti Bolognese, and promptly regretted it when he twirled spaghetti around his form with a little too much vigor, and got a spot of tomato sauce on his tie. One of his favorite ties, too. She'd laughed about it with him, then leaned across the table to dab at it with a damp napkin; he'd gotten a rather good view down her top. He hoped he hadn't looked too long.
They'd shared a bottle of dark red wine, and talked about sociology, medicine, and how the two disciplines related. She spoke with authority about her subject, obviously intelligent and knowledgeable; Wilson felt he would not like to disagree with her on a topic she knew anything about, and wondered what House would make of her.
She was warm, friendly and open for the most part, although a little reserved when it came to talking about herself.
"So, how come you ended up at Princeton?" Wilson asked, having learned she was a West Coast girl, from California.
She shrugged a little. "I've been in New York the last couple of years on a postdoc, felt I needed to get out of the city for a while."
He sensed there was more to it than that, and waited, but she obviously wasn't inclined to share any more.
As the level in the wine bottle went down, conversation shifted to music, TV, movies. She relaxed a bit more, and even mentioned an ex-boyfriend of hers at one point in passing, with just a touch of bitterness; Wilson recognized a raw recent-break-up straightaway, and adroitly steered discussion in another direction. Then they discovered a mutual love of Broadway musicals, and joined each other in a rousing chorus of Oklahoma! over dessert.
They left the restaurant late in the evening.
"I had a great time," he said as they paused at the curb and she waved for a cab. "Would you like to go for a drink sometime, next Friday perhaps?"
She hesitated a little, and Wilson mentally kicked himself for being too eager. But then she said, "Sure," and his heart swelled with pleasure.
As he headed home, he found himself humming I Could Have Danced All Night, and wondered again what House would make of her. He decided not to volunteer any information unless asked.
The morning after House had prised out details of his date with Jean, they were having breakfast in House's kitchen. Wilson was just placing a plate of steaming French toast in front of House when House said, "It'll never work out, you know."
Wilson glared and tried to take the plate away, but House had already planted a fork firmly in the pile of golden triangles. Wilson rolled his eyes, fetched his own plate, and sat down opposite House.
"And why do you say that, oh great one?" Wilson took a bite and steeled himself for the differential diagnosis.
"Three reasons."
Great. "Shall I fetch a whiteboard?"
"For one, she's just using you." House was lofty. "She needs you for research for her project. Which sounds dumb anyway."
"That's how we met. Nothing to stop her then falling for my charms," Wilson countered.
"When she doesn't need you anymore, she won't be nearly as attractive to you. Secondly, she must be at least fifteen years younger than you."
"No. You've never met her!" Wilson protested through a mouthful of French toast. "You've never even seen her!"
"If she's a postdoc fresh from a PhD she must be mid-twenties. You're forty, as good as."
"No, I'm not!" Wilson was genuinely indignant. "And it's her second postdoc, so I think that makes her late twenties. Maybe even early thirties."
House shrugged. "But thirdly, and most importantly, this is an insane experiment by you to prove to yourself that you can hold down some sort of proper relationship with a woman. After three crappy marriages and God knows how many pathetic affairs--including a patient, for Christ's sake."
The last observation was below-the-belt; Wilson narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything.
"This is shown," House continued his diagnosis, "by the fact you didn't try and sleep with Joan--"
"Jean!" Wilson knew perfectly well House was playing with him, but that didn't make it any less exasperating.
"--on the first date, or even kiss her, but are in fact taking things slowly, trying to do it right, step by step. You really want this to work."
Wilson was silent. House raised an astonished eyebrow. "You admit I'm right?"
"There's a grain of truth in that." Wilson sighed. "But now you've got your hooks into it, my relationship with her is doomed, isn't it? You'll go out and stalk her, find out lots of terrible things that mean she's really unsuitable for me, scare her with a few well-chosen anecdotes about my marriages, and that'll be the end of that."
"You don't need me around to screw up your relationship." House objected. "You're perfectly capable of doing that all by yourself."
Wilson put his fork down and looked at House. "You've never even given me the chance."
"I bet if I did, you'd screw things up perfectly well all by yourself. I'd lay money on it."
"All right then," Wilson said unexpectedly. "A hundred bucks says I don't screw things up this time. And you don't sabotage it."
House consumed some more French toast, frowning.
"House?" Wilson pressed him.
"You want to bet on a relationship succeeding. That has to be the most stupid bet ever."
"That's right." Wilson was enthusiastic now. "Give me the time and space to screw it up myself, and we'll see what happens."
"I can do that." House's tone was magnanimous.
"Promise?"
"What is this, the Boy Scouts?" House snapped, and rolled his eyes. "All right, I promise I will let you screw this relationship up all by yourself with no interference from me."
"Thanks." Wilson picked up his fork.
"Hey." House's voice was lighthearted but with a serious undertone. "We still get to do stuff, right?" He waggled a meaningful eyebrow.
Wilson grinned back. "After last night? You must be kidding."
Blue eyes gleaming, House leaned over and speared a piece of Wilson's French toast. He then stuck a finger in the maple syrup and sucked it off noisily.
House was not, of course, a man of his word. Both House and Wilson knew perfectly well that House would think nothing of breaking his promise if he thought the situation was merited, if Wilson annoyed him, or maybe even just on a whim.
But as it happened, House was going through a good patch with his leg, was in the mood to humor Wilson, and decided to keep his promise. At least for the moment.
There was however no reason not to investigate her. So long as he didn't then interfere, that was totally within the rules.
So over the next week House started his usual style of investigation into Jean, starting with some online research. He quickly found paragraphs about her on the Princeton internet and intranet sites; an impressive academic résumé, as one would expect.
He spent some time pondering her picture. She looked fairly ordinary; nice smile, shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes behind small dark-rimmed spectacles worn high on her nose. A slight resemblance to Bonnie and Julie, House observed with a touch of trepidation. Damn Wilson and his types.
He continued with the requisite look at her Princeton personnel file. Although she wasn't an employee of the hospital, there was a connection between the hospital and university computer systems, and House had his methods. These included Cuddy's mainframe password, which opened a lot of doors. He didn't find anything very notable within, although he had to admit Wilson's guess had been closer than his about her age; she was twenty-nine.
Meanwhile, Wilson met Jean for a drink as arranged, then took her to see a movie the following weekend. This pattern continued for another week or so, and House could not help but observe Wilson was conspicuously avoiding bringing her to the hospital.
"Do I not get to meet her?" House asked one evening at his apartment, affecting heartbreak.
"Not if I can help it." Wilson was terse. "And no stalking us from behind a bush and jumping out to say hi to her, alright? You're not interfering, remember?"
"I remember." House was cross. "I don't need to meet her anyway. I can tell you kissed her for the first time last night."
This was a complete shot in the dark but Wilson looked sufficiently unnerved for House to realize he was close to the mark. House was pleased; he did like to cultivate an impression of omniscience.
"Actually, it was two nights ago. And she kissed me," Wilson said, a trifle defensively. "And it's none of your business."
"What, I'm not interfering so I can't be curious?" House leaned forward, a mischievous look in his eye. "Was it like this?" He fastened his lips on Wilson's mouth and kissed him deeply. Wilson tried to speak, and it came out as Mmph.
"No tongues," he said breathlessly, when House pulled back an inch.
"Oh, so more like this?" House leaned forward again and this time touched his nose against Wilson's nose, then brushed his lips ever so gently against Wilson's lips, before kissing him very softly. Wilson closed his eyes and couldn't stop a slight moan.
Eventually he managed to say, "I'm not talking about this."
"Fine." House pressed his mouth onto Wilson's, and they didn't speak for quite a while after.
House continued his Jean investigation with an exploratory trip over to the Sociology faculty offices. It wasn't easy as he didn't want her to see him; the problem with being six foot two with a limp and a cane was that people tended to remember him. And then Wilson would find out that he'd been poking around.
He picked a time when according to the faculty online bulletin board she would be teaching a class, found her office and rummaged around. Essays, assignments in need of marking, boring teaching stuff. There was a notebook House flipped through to find scribbles about conversations with cancer patients; notes that looked like they'd been taken on her trip around the oncology ward. Nothing about Wilson as far as he could see; no doodled hearts with Dr. Wilson written inside.
He moved on, and found a cafeteria on the floor below. House wandered inside in search of a snack, only to get a shock when he saw her there. She was sitting at a table, with a small group of women, chatting away. It was lunchtime--time had passed quicker than he'd realized.
House retreated to the corridor and mused for a minute. The group looked like a regular crowd who might just meet for lunch and sit in the same place each day. And that place just happened to be a large corner booth, where someone might sit the other side of the partition and hear the conversation but not be seen.
Next day, a Friday, House was there for lunch. He arrived as early as possible to get the seat he wanted, and was immensely satisfied when the same group of women arrived one by one and sat in the same booth, just on the other side of the partition from where he was. The drawback was that he couldn't see them, only hear them, and he didn't know what Jean's voice sounded like.
He listened patiently to the conversation, waiting for a clue. It transpired that the group consisted of young female postdocs from various different departments, exchanging stories of stupid undergrads, tales of research woe, and the latest gossip from all corners of Princeton.
Finally his patience was rewarded when a voice said, "Hey, Jean, weren't you seeing Handsome Doctor James last night?"
The handsome was stressed like a title. House allowed himself a huge grin.
"Ooh, I haven't heard about this," said another voice, shrill and high. "Jean's got a boyfriend?"
"Yeah, and a doctor no less," the first voice confirmed. "And cute. He dropped by the office the other day and we all swooned at his feet. Big brown eyes and lovely hair and so nice, so charming--"
"Shut up, you guys," said a different voice, and House perked up his ears. So this was Jean. Low voice, serious tone, but with a hint of amusement.
"He sounds far too good to be true. There must be something wrong with him," said Shrill Voice. "Serial killer? Married?"
"Divorced three times," said the first voice, and there were some Ahs around the table.
"Serial cheater," Shrill Voice immediately judged. "Can't keep it in his pants."
"We don't know that." Jean came through, strong and clear. House smirked a little; she had a lot to learn.
"Oh come on Jean, there can't be many decent excuses for three divorces," said a new voice. "What's that saying,?--once could be a mistake, twice looks like carelessness, and I don't even know what three times would be. Definitely a sign of some grave character defect. Maybe he is a serial killer."
"Well, I'll let you know if I discover any evidence of that." Jean's voice was dry.
"So, how did it go last night, Jean?" the first voice returned to the original question. "You've had quite a few dates now, is it serious?"
Jean didn't reply, and House would have given a lot to be able to see the expressions and gestures round the table, as suddenly several voices whooped and hollered, and the first voice said triumphantly, "You slept with him! I knew it!"
"I am not discussing this with you guys," Jean protested, and although comments and teasing carried on for several minutes, she wouldn't be drawn any further. The conversation eventually moved onto other things.
House waited for a bit, then managed to slip out of the cafeteria unnoticed. He went straight back to the hospital, and found Wilson just coming off clinic duty. The two of them fell into step heading towards their offices. As the elevator door closed behind them, House fixed Wilson with a gimlet eye, and said, "You've slept with her."
"How the hell did you know that?" Wilson looked understandably flummoxed.
"Oh... it's the way you're walking." House was airy. "Big night last night, I can see."
Bushy eyebrows twitched with suspicion. "House, were you spying on me?"
"No!" House said indignantly as a reflex, and added, "No!" again because it was actually true. He might have been spying on Jean but he hadn't been spying on Wilson, and he could even prove it. "Thursday night's my poker night, you know that. I won thirty dollars off bus stop guy, while you were sealing the deal."
"Hmm." Wilson didn't look totally convinced, but House saw he'd scored some points.
"I hear Wilson's got a new girlfriend. Jean?" Cameron asked enthusiastically one morning. "What's she like, is she nice?"
"No, she's a harpy from hell," House barked. "She must have a cripple allergy or something, 'cause Wilson won't introduce us."
"You haven't met her?" Chase was clearly entertained by this. "But they've been going out what, two months?"
Two months and ten days, House knew, but he wasn't going to admit to that level of interest. He scowled instead. "No idea."
"I know Wilson's love life is more interesting, but can we get back to our patient?" Foreman said with an air of great forbearance.
"Listen to the man," House declared, and hit the whiteboard with his cane.
The case was easily diagnosed, and House left the patient to the tender ministrations of his staff. He turned to his Gameboy, but found the conversation rankled with him. He had to meet her. Perhaps he should accidentally bump into Wilson and Jean together somewhere. But then Wilson would accuse him of interfering and probably of breaking his promise, maybe try and claim that hundred bucks, and the situation didn't quite seem to warrant that.
The last straw came a couple of days later when Cuddy finished bawling House out in her office about clinic hours owed, and then remarked as he turned to leave, "Hey, I bumped into Wilson and Jean in the bar across the street last night. I only saw them for a minute, but don't they seem like a nice couple?"
House glared. "How would I know?"
Cuddy was amused. "You haven't met her? Wilson thinks you'll scare her off?"
Fuck this. Enough was enough. He had to engineer a situation where they could meet. Ideas flew around House's head. "Cuddy...how about I go to the clinic right now and do those two hours I missed?"
She stared at him in surprise. "Why the sudden change of heart? Is your current patient in an ethically unsound situation?"
"Nothing like that. I just want a favor." House looked as innocent as he could. "I want you to throw a dinner party, and invite me and Wilson and his lovely new girlfriend. That's all."
Cuddy gazed at him speculatively. "You think that's worth two clinic hours? Which you owe me anyway?"
"Don't push me!" House snarled, but there was no heat in it.
"Give me another two hours, and I'll start thinking about it," Cuddy drawled.
House did the two hours he'd skipped, and no more. As he'd expected, Cuddy herself was sufficiently interested in Jean to go along with his idea; they were all duly invited round for Sunday dinner next weekend.