At the Seams
Title: At the Seams
Pairing: House/Wilson friendship; possibly unrequited, if that's your angle
Rating: R for swearing
Disclaimer: Don’t own ’em, making no profit off ’em, etc.
Word Count: 1,718
Spoilers:: ...Wilson's living situation?

Summary: Wilson isn't comfortable anymore.

Notes: Prompt: filipendulous, meaning "hanging by a thread"




The shirt Wilson pulls on before collapsing onto the bed is threadbare at the shoulders. Coming apart at the seams, just a little, which is appropriate. Just a little.

A hotel, he’ll be the first to ruefully concede, is a stupid place to turn to for a comfort zone. Hotels are staid and sterile, while comfort should be something well-worn and welcoming, like sinking into the folds of an enormous knitted afghan. Only now, all the most brilliant threads in it are House. So much of his life is made up of House, defined by House, that the gaudy thing doesn’t look anything like his own anymore, all the comfortable neutrals being woven over with darker and brighter moremoremore, pushed out to the edges, to the fringes, by additions that aren’t his choice.

He doesn’t normally think in metaphors like this. House is the one who loves drawing the most grandiose comparisons possible.

He should call his mother, see how she’s doing, because cliché dictates that’s what you do when you regress like this; and besides, he feels bad when they don’t talk for long stretches of time. Easily guilted like a good little stereotype, House would be too quick to say.

Always too quick to say, always too close, consuming, always there in all his overwhelming glory. He’s used to it. House is used to it, takes it for granted that Wilson will unfailingly step in and have habits for him to ridicule and food for him to steal, and Wilson can’t deny him that. Not that it’s his problem if House closes up for good and ratchets up the self-destructiveness as a result, but he’s a good little Jewish boy and the guilt would roll over him in waves, and even so, it’s not like any time he’s tried to step in on House’s behalf has ever worked anyway.

He’s good at the life he’s made for himself, however uninteresting, plodding through work and wives like he’s on some freakish hamster wheel. Except with House, who is never boring. Because you’re a contrary son of a bitch who won’t take good intentions from anyone unless they’re rammed down your throat and even then you spew them up like pills and whiskey on your living room floor.

Contrary to multiple accusations, Wilson doesn’t actually thrive on need and need alone. And he can’t keep going while House runs himself into the ground and relies on Wilson being there to bail him out, never thanking, just expecting, the way everyone always expects—why won’t the radiation work, why won’t the marriage work, why won’t the keycard I filched to your hotel room work?

Fists on the door and he wants to yell at House to fuck off and let him fucking sleep because he doesn’t have the energy to be dealing with him now. He needs to rest and let some life sink back into his bones so he can make it through another day, and rest like that is not something that can happen with House so close. It’s why he could only live with him for so long before going insane, because Wilson doesn’t have the strength to be around someone so consuming that frequently without being sucked dry. Not like this.

He doesn’t yell, of course. It would disturb the neighbors, it would be rude, and House is the rude one, not him.

Wilson is starting to resign himself to the dull dank void spreading wearily through him like some sullen decay, and it would scare him if he had the energy to be scared. He’ll let House in, like he always has, but for now he entertains the possibility of not doing it. He’s the guy who waits on the doorstep for hours because House wants to see if he’ll do it. House is the guy who smashes a window to get in and makes him pay for it because Wilson should have known better. The kindergartner who throws tantrums and craves attention and gets it all, the bad with the good, more so than the kid who’s afraid of getting in trouble and is quiet and quiescent, and then gets it twice as hard whenever there is trouble because “that isn’t like you.” With House, it’s nothing but expected. And he can’t force himself to deal with that now.

It’s been a staple of House’s jibes lately, making fun of him for stagnating in a hotel room, never demanding to know why, though he has to be diagnosing him skillfully in his head, has to know this isn’t all Wilson’s fault. Has to. Not even House can edit himself out of this.

I live here because there is nothing in this room that reminds me of anything else. No wives, no House; nothing but impersonal, clean-slate blankness every day with the monotony of room service and generic bathroom cleaner and washcloths folded like origami. Cookie-cutter impersonal precision. I need to get away from you and it terrifies me to think of what that will do to you. Wilson wonders when his thought processes started sounding like soap-opera dialogue.

Distancing himself from House will end in a Technicolor explosion worthy of soaps in and of itself the second House catches on. Every relationship he’s ever ended seems almost childishly cut and dried by comparison: hand back his friendship bracelet and lock the playhouse door, don’t sit next to him in class… Worse than breaking up with Katrine in ninth grade, who cried so hard he thought she would faint and then didn’t come to school for the rest of the week.

And House is still calling through the door, the perfectly paneled and painted door that’s the same as dozens of other doors in the building.

Wilson thinks of curling up under the covers and balling his fists against his ears. He thinks of finding a new hotel, but House would visit every place in town if he did, playing the part of the poor handicapped man looking for a friend whose room number he forgot. It’s slightly comforting to think that he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t care. It’s slightly disturbing that he’s still blindly grabbing at excuses like this.

He tells himself he wouldn’t mind this so much if House would say something every once in a while instead of wrapping every remotely amiable gesture in sandpaper and shards of glass. No witticisms, no insults, maybe a normal, boring, conventional just wanted to see how you’re doing. No having to decipher House’s every backhanded version of giving a damn. If he ever said that out loud, House would snort and claim Wilson knew what he was getting into from the start.

His room phone, his cell phone, and his pager go off in rapid succession. He debates turning them off—less noise, but definitely confirming his presence in the room, not that House is going to believe for a second he isn’t in it now. It’s routine in its own way: House will be bored, needing to bitch about something, wanting to finagle Wilson into getting him dinner, same old, same old. Cactus camaraderie, when nothing is talked about and everything is implied. I’m here, I’m seeking you out. Clearly I value your company, so no shit I care about you, now get the fuck out here. It’s just that sometimes the implication isn’t enough.

Relationships have to work from both sides, he’s learned that by now, and this one doesn’t anymore and he’s tired, so tired, of that. Nothing is ever monotonous with House, except when it is—outlandish remarks, stolen food, all the same—and House would hate ever having that pointed out. If he really wants to make an iconoclastic impression, he could ask Wilson how he is like any normal boring person would. With his own perverse practicality, House would only say that Wilson should find a new friend if that’s what he’s after, then point out that no one will be able to handle how screwed-up he is, no matter how hard he tries to pretend he’s not. And it might be true, the same way it might be true that House is all he has and he’s too much, but without him Wilson isn’t sure what would happen. And that unnerves him, more than he’ll admit, more than the idea of what might happen to House without him around.

House has been there so long and now that he’s the only thing left, he can’t push that away and call it all forgotten. Guilt will come pouring down in sheets and Wilson won’t know what to do with himself and House will know that. Facing the resultant glares and maliciousness would be worse than going to work and expecting the same old casual abrasiveness. Or, worse still, facing nothing but obliviousness, House simply ignoring him as if he’s washed his hands clean of Wilson entirely, because House never does anything in the middle of the spectrum, it’s always one end or the other, and Wilson can’t just say it’s not you, it’s me, and expect him to understand that. Just need some space, just need a break, and House will take that statement and wring it dry, shut himself away, pretend not to be hurt and project for all he’s worth.

Wilson thinks he’s been close enough to House for it to hurt if his presence diminishes. It doesn’t make him any happier, but it’s more pleasant than thinking of House taking in such a statement with a nod and a fine, whatever and proceeding to act no differently. That would hurt more; that would mean all this time he’s spent with House and dealt with House and done his best to be there for House hasn’t affected him enough to care whether or not he and Wilson remain friends.

It doesn’t matter whether Wilson is wanted or needed because House will never tell him, and that’s the crux of it. He doesn’t want to find out how deeply they run. What they do have is screwed up, but it’s there and Wilson needs very badly for something to be there, some thread to cling to, something keeping him from snapping free and tumbling into the void.

Wilson straightens his shoulders and opens the door.