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“Don’t forget, House. The annual oncology conference is in three weeks.” Wilson was trying to catch his gaze, but House refused to reciprocate. “I put it on the calendar on your desk, and the one on your fridge that I know you look at despite your insistences that you don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah.” House grumbled and took a sip of his beer. The ambient noise of voices and music around them made it hard for him to focus only on Wilson. “I remember.”
“Are you going to behave while I’m gone?” There was a teasing quality to Wilson’s voice, then.
House quirked his lips up and finally met Wilson’s gaze. “You expect me to handle you being gone for a week by behaving? Why, Wilson. It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
Wilson laughed, bright an airy. His eyes crinkled at the side and shone with amusement. House loved it when he got to make Wilson laugh like that, an occasion that was rare these days. He couldn’t help it, he laughed along with Wilson.
“It was worth a shot.” Wilson shrugged. He checked his watch and sighed. “I better get going. I have an early appointment tomorrow, and it’s getting late. Do you want a ride home, or are you going to stay a bit longer?”
House looked around him at the nearly packed, smoke hazed bar. The din of conversation was a wall of noise around the booth he and Wilson were sat at. It was a wall he didn’t feel like dealing with right now.
He shook his head. “Nah, you go ahead. I’ll be fine.”
Wilson nodded and slid out of the booth. He seemed to hesitate for a moment before reaching down and placing his hand on House’s shoulder. He squeezed once before letting his had slide gently down House’s arm. He smiled softly.
“Night, House.”
“Night, Wilson.”
And as Wilson was swallowed by the Thursday evening crowd, House felt a tickle in the back of his throat. He coughed lightly. Maybe he should leave the bar before he inhaled too much smoke.
___________________
House almost missed the day Wilson left for the conference. Thankfully, Wilson remembered for the both of them, and stopped by his office on his way out to head to the airport.
“I didn’t forget.” House said reflexively.
Wilson smiled fondly at him. House tried to ignore the persistent tickling sensation in his throat but failed, coughing lightly. Wilson’s smile turned into a frown. “Are you okay? You’ve been coughing like that for the last few weeks.”
House waved a hand dismissively. “I’m fine. I’m not sick. I would know if I was sick.”
“Right,” Wilson said dryly. “The diagnostician famous for ignoring his own health declares that he’s fit as a fiddle.”
“And ready for love!”
Wilson laughed. “I still can’t believe Singin’ in the Rain is one of your favorites.”
“What can I say? I’m a man of many surprises.”
“You’ll hear no argument from me on that.” Wilson shifted slightly and took on a nervous air. “Listen…House. I…may have used my spare key when I knew you weren’t home.”
House raised an eyebrow. “Okay? And? I gave you the key to use whenever you wanted to. Besides, I go to your place all the time.”
“Right.” Wilson drew out the vowel. “Of course you do. Anyway, I don’t have time to dissect that statement, and I likely never will. Just…I leftyousomefoodinthefridge.”
House hated when Wilson talked like that. It made it hard for him to understand, and he knew Wilson did it on purpose when he had something to say that embarrassed him. “You know that when you do that you inevitably end up needing to repeat yourself. You might as well save yourself the trouble and say it normally this time.”
Wilson scrunched his face (adorably, although House would never admit out loud). “I left you some food in the fridge.” He wouldn’t meet House’s eyes. “For this week while I’m gone. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t exist just on takeout.”
What? Wilson had never done anything like that before.
“I don’t expect you to say thank you,” Wilson continued. “And I think it would be weird if you did. So how about you just…try to avoid doing risky procedures and bullying your kids while I’m gone.”
Ah. Of course.
“You know I can’t make any promises.” House leaned back in his chair and looked up at Wilson. “For you, though, I’ll try and keep the necessity for damage control to a minimum.”
Wilson’s lips quirked up. “Keep up that kind of behavior and I’ll have to think of a way to say that I appreciate your efforts.”
“I hope it’s dirty.”
Wilson laughed. “I could make you help repot all my plants.”
________________
“Our patient was up all night,” Chase said solemnly. “She had a severe seizure and then a few hours later her lungs collapsed."
He looked exhausted. All the fellows did, really, but House couldn’t allow sympathy to break through and make an appearance. Besides, they all thought he’d gone home to a cushy bed and a good night’s sleep the previous evening, even though he hadn’t. Okay, the cushy bed part was definitely true, but the good night’s sleep part definitely wasn’t. He’d been up almost all night, the pain in his leg debilitating, and the tickle he’d had in the back of his throat for the past few weeks had devolved into a full on cough by the end of the night. Cough medicine had dulled the cough only slightly.
“What kind of seizure are we talking?” House asked, uncapping the marker and writing seizures among the numerous other symptoms listed on the board. “Full on twitching? Absence seizures?”
“Tonic-clonic.” Foreman cut in. “I wanted to get an MRI, because with a seizure that severe there could be a tumor that’s causing it.”
House considered that for a second, then nodded. He could feel it in his bones that they were running out of time for this patient. “Get an MRI, and get a second opinion on the scans. Unfortunately Wilson’s off at his stupid conference so any oncologist whose opinion is worth a damn is gone. Go to Jeffries, he’s the best we’ve got otherwise.”
Foreman nodded then rushed out of the conference room. The rest of the fellows looked at him expectantly, but there was another coughing fit forcing its way out of his throat. He let it ride, hating the moment of weakness in front of his kids. His whole body felt shaky when it was over, and he ignored the concerned looks of his fellows as he made his way to the sink to get a cup of water.
“Should you be here if you’re coughing like that?” Thirteen asked, concern in her voice.
“Swallowed a Vicodin wrong.” House shot back.
“You haven’t taken any pills since you got here.” Chase pointed out.
House rolled his eyes at Chase and chugged the water down to help combat another coughing fit. He succeeded but only by a narrow margin. “I’m fine. The rest of you go do whatever tests you think should be done. We need answers, and we don’t have time for me to sit here and shoot everyone’s ideas down.”
They continued to stare at him, apprehension in their features. He rolled his eyes. “So your boss had a coughing fit. Big deal. We have a patient whose lungs don’t work on their own, among other symptoms that I was taught at med school added up to…gosh, what’s that pesky little word? Oh yeah: terminal. I’d say that’s way higher on the list of priorities, wouldn’t you?”
He was glad to see them go.
______________
Lunchtime brought nothing but an inundation of test results and no further answers. House had to pay for his lunch on his own, and even though he could absolutely afford it, he liked it better when Wilson paid. Luckily, Wilson would be back at the end of the week, so he only needed to suffer through a few more mediocre meals.
No Wilson meant no sitting in the cafeteria, which turned out to be a good thing. He was having trouble keeping his food down, because nearly every breath he took brought a coughing fit on. There was a tightness in his chest, too, one that had come on as the morning had progressed. House was beginning to think Thirteen was right—maybe he was sick. But he’d know if he was, and this didn’t feel like any illness he’d ever had in his life. Besides, his brain was too preoccupied with solving his current case to focus on his own symptoms. He’d figure it out eventually.
But eventually came sooner than expected. His next coughing fit felt different. Deeper, and more dangerous. It hit him like a train, and he had to push his desk chair back to double over. He clutched at his chest, and felt, with mounting horror, something trying to come up and out of his body via his airway. Whatever it was was fighting hard, and House could barely get any air in to even allow for more coughing, but after a few terrifying moments of nearly choking, something small and soft came up from his throat and into his mouth. He opened his mouth and two small, blood covered orchids fell into the palm of his hand.
Missing you.
Oh.
Shit.
House felt like a monumental idiot for not recognizing the signs earlier. He felt suddenly all too aware of the flowers taking root in his lungs, burrowing into the muscles and taking hold. In the few dizzying moments between coughing up the orchids and sucking down lungfuls of air as best he could, House retraced all of the symptoms he’d had over the last month. They all coincided with, he realized, Wilson reminding him of the oncology conference he was currently at. The conference where it was very possible the fourth Mrs. Wilson was at, maybe even currently in Wilson’s bed all tangled up—
He doubled over and choked up two more flowers. Camellias, a beautiful rose color under the harsh spatters of red along their slender petals. Longing.
House didn’t want it to be Wilson. He didn’t want the feelings he’d harbored for years to be what ultimately killed him, although he supposed it would be a fitting end. And an end it would be, because there was no way in hell he was saying anything. His life was much less important than the relationship that he had with Wilson. Anyone and everyone who knew them could see it.
With a sigh, House tossed the flowers in his trash can and kicked it back under his desk. This far in, he had a week at most. More time than his patient, but with how severe his condition already was, he figured he didn’t have much time left to be useful to her. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and began to think.
________________
That night, House opened his fridge to pick one of the Tupperwares Wilson had left him. Almost all of them came with directions for heating and storage, along with dates and information about how long the food could go before it had to be thrown away.
One of the boxes caught his eyes, and he brought it out of the fridge to get a better look. On the lid of the Tupperware was a sticky note with Wilson’s familiar handwriting:
To cook: three minutes, stir, three more minutes.
—W
House’s lips quirked up into a smile. He took the sticky note and placed it on the side of his fridge. The scent of pasta and meat sauce hit his nose, and he sighed. Familiar, delicious. The recipe came from Wilson’s mom, but Wilson had changed it slightly to be his own. House stuck the food in the microwave and set it to cook. He tried to suppress his coughing while he waited—his throat was still raw from when he’d coughed up the orchids and camellias earlier that day, and he didn’t want a repeat performance. He felt strangely calm about the fact that he was going to die within the week. There was something fitting about him eating food that Wilson had cooked for him while he willfully didn’t tell Wilson that he was in love with him.
Wilson, taking care of him until the very end.
The microwave beeped, but instead of eating the food, House choked around a seemingly endless stream of camellias.
________________
House’s lungs were on fire. Every breath rattled in his chest, requiring more and more effort on his part. The disease had progressed rapidly once he realized what it was, and now he was coughing up flowers every couple of hours instead of twice a day like he had earlier that week. His vision swam. It was good he was at a hospital. He’d probably be a patient by the end of the day.
That morning alone he’d coughed up regret, longing (again), and jealousy. He’d nearly passed out on the way into the hospital from the parking lot, black spots dancing in his vision. And yet he was no closer to a solution for his patient.
He couldn’t help it—he thought about Wilson. He wondered not for the first time that week if he should call him and tell him that he was sick like this. That he should be prepared to exercise his rights as his proxy. But every time he had his phone flipped open and his thumb over the one to speed dial Wilson, a coughing fit would wrack his body and purple hyacinths would bloom up and out of his lungs and into his mouth. After the third time, he gave up considering calling Wilson.
House knew that he needed to get some oxygen into his body, and soon. He was barely clinging to consciousness even sitting down at his desk. If he just…if he just…
He stood on shaky legs, only to have the floor rise to meet him.
___________
“…he doesn’t have much time left. He needs to tell whoever it is, and soon. You’re the only one who has a shot at getting him to say anything.” A woman’s voice. Familiar. House couldn’t quite identify it, though.
A sigh. A familiar sigh. He knew the accompanying gesture all too well, and knew that if he could just force his eyelids open he’d see messy brown hair, a furrowed brow, and hands on hips. But it couldn’t be. He had to be dreaming or hallucinating or something, because Wilson couldn’t be here. He was somewhere in the midwest at an oncology conference.
“I can try,” couldn’t-be-Wilson’s voice said eventually. “But you know how he is.”
“Yeah, I do. But I also know that you’re the only one he listens to. You’re the only one who has a shot at saving him. Don’t you think he’d do the same for you if you were on that bed instead of him?”
No response. Just another sigh.
I would. House wanted to say, but he was already slipping back under whatever drugs they had him on. I wouldn’t let it go until I knew you were safe.
________________
House came to in waves. The first wave was an urgent beeping sound that grated against his eardrums. The second was hands reaching beneath his shoulders to pull him up to sitting. The third?
Well. The third was pain.
And for him to call it a pain comparable to his baseline leg-pain sent up alarm bells in his mind. Something was clawing its way out of his lungs, thorns scraping, petals blooming and taking up space that barely existed. The hands kept maneuvering him, and suddenly there was a trashcan on his lap for him to spit out the hyacinths, roses, camellias, and daffodils that he inevitably gagged around on their way up. They were all coated with spit and blood, and the respite he’d felt after the first flowers he’d coughed up didn’t come. He was already gasping for air again, seconds after clearing the garden that had taken root in his lungs. An oxygen mask lowered over his mouth and the same hands that had lifted him up gently pushed him back into the pillows.
“Hell of a reason to come home early,” Wilson’s voice came from somewhere to his side. House blinked and looked over at him. “Why didn’t you call me?”
House lifted the mask and gasped out, “I’m…fine.”
Wilson raised an eyebrow at him. “House, I just watched you nearly choke to death on flowers. You are not fine. Do you know who it is?”
House nodded.
“Who is it? I need to get her here as soon as possible, because you don’t have much time.” Wilson had his doctor voice on, and House wished he could laugh. If only he knew.
House shook his head, then motioned for Wilson to hand him something to write with. Wilson ducked out of the room to get a notepad from the nearby nurses station. House wrote don’t bother.
And there he was. House’s Wilson. Wilson who had learned to take up space. His tone was sharp. “Bullshit. I’m not letting you die.”
It’s fine.
“No, it’s not fine, House!” Wilson threw his hands in the air, then turned his back. He put his hands on his hips and hung his head. “I’m not letting you die because you refuse to tell someone you love them. I’m not letting your ego get in the way.”
House tapped the notepad to get Wilson’s attention and watched as he read it’s my decision. I don’t want to.
“Are you worried it’s unrequited? That’s what the daffodils were about, right? You do remember that even if it’s unrequited, saying something will cure you. I know you have a medical degree and some semblance of a brain in that head of yours.”
I don’t want to.
Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t…House I can’t let this be the reason you die.”
House took in Wilson’s face properly for the first time. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked rushed, as if he’d dropped everything and come back to the hotel and hadn’t left since. His hands were shaking slightly, like he’d had too much caffeine and not enough sleep.
Conference?
“Don’t change the subject.” Wilson muttered.
House looked at Wilson expectantly. Tell me.
Wilson sighed and dropped into the chair by House’s bed. “Thirteen found you collapsed in your office. There were blood covered flowers in your trashcan and she put two and two together.” Wilson shook his head and looked at his hands. “She told Cuddy, who called me. I got on the next flight home.”
You didn’t have to come.
“Don’t say that. Of course I did.” Wilson said softly. He raised his gaze to meet House’s and said, “So. I told you, now you tell me. Who am I calling? Stacy? Cameron? Cuddy?”
Nope. Doesn’t matter.
“I hate how stubborn you are sometimes, you know that?” Wilson’s tone had a sharp edge. “You work so hard to save your patients. You care about other people—and don’t tell me you don’t—but you won’t let anyone put in that same effort for you. Why?”
They matter. I don’t.
“Yes you do!” Wilson took a shaky breath.
I’m not telling you. And it was the truth, in both the ways he meant it: I won’t tell you who it is, and I won’t tell you that I love you.
Wilson stood up, shook his head, muttered I’ll be back, and left the room. House immediately began coughing, the familiar feeling of hyacinths forcing their way up. He wished he could reach inside his throat and pull them out, but he knew that it was dangerous—he risked damaging his lungs more than they already were. So he let the flowers take run their course: bloom, dislodge, scrape their way up and deposit themselves into his shaking hands. Then, he put his oxygen mask back on and drifted back to sleep.
________________
House knew what the approaching sensation of death was like. He’d felt it before when he’d gotten shot—an all encompassing sensation of fading away. He felt it again now, slowly working its way up his body. The oxygen mask wasn’t helping as much as it should. He looked around to see Wilson leaned to one side in the chair and looking back at him with a worried expression, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. One of his legs was bouncing up and down.
“I know that look.” Wilson said softly. “You can’t hide the fact that you’re dying from someone who sees patients through it at least twice a week.”
You can have my—
“Whatever it is, I don’t want it.” Wilson said fiercely. “What I want is for you to take care of yourself for once. Tell me who it is.”
House shook his head.
“I know for a fact that you’d be snooping through my apartment, my desk, everything to figure this out if it was me. Why won’t you let me do the same?”
You could’ve snooped when I was unconscious. You have a key.
“This late in your illness?” Wilson laughed incredulously. “I’m not leaving your side. Maybe if you’d called me the first time you started coughing up flowers I would’ve done it, but not now. I know you’re dying. And I know it’s going to happen soon. Let me save you.”
I don’t think you can.
There were tears in Wilson’s eyes. “Please, House. Just tell me. Tell me who it is and I—I’ll call them, I’ll bring them here. I can’t lose you like this.”
But House couldn’t do it. He was terrified of telling Wilson that it was him, terrified of the repercussions of telling his best friend he was in love with him. He couldn’t risk the only good relationship he’d had in his life, not over something as complicated and uncertain as love. He couldn’t.
Can’t risk it.
“Yes, you can.” Wilson was looking right in his eyes now, tears spilling out and down his cheeks. “I am telling you right now, you can absolutely risk it. And you should.”
House shook his head. He’d made his peace earlier that week, and he was going to see it through.
“For fuck’s sake, stop looking for an excuse to kill yourself!” Wilson yelled. “Believe it or not, some of us want you to live! Some of us like having you around, and want to see you happy and healthy. What could possibly be so terrifying to you about whoever this is about that you’d prefer to die—”
House ripped the oxygen mask from his face and forced the words out as firmly as he could: “It’s terrifying because it’s you!”
Wilson reared back like House had slapped him in the face. “What?”
“It’s…you.” House struggled around each word, needing to take a rattling breath between each one.
“You’d rather die than tell me that—” Wilson cut himself off and shook his head. “Say it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
House stayed silent. Wilson knew, but his lungs were still full of flowers, ones that House recognized the feel of now, and some that felt new. There was hardly space for his lungs to function how they were supposed to, and his chest felt heavy. He knew he was being dramatic, playing into that undercurrent of suicidal ideation that had existed since he was a boy, but he didn’t care. He still didn’t want to risk it.
“I made you food and snuck into your apartment to leave it there for you.” Wilson said quietly. “I dropped everything at the conference and got the first flight home after Cuddy told me you were sick. In 2003 I cut my honeymoon short to be with you after the infarction, and I never left your side. I took the job here three years after we met just so I could be closer to you. Say it, House. Don’t be scared of what I’ll say back. Don’t be scared of what I’ve been trying to tell you through my actions for our entire friendship.”
“I…” House trailed off, gasping for breath. Wilson covered his hand with his own, and looked down at him with a pensive expression.
“It’s okay,” Wilson whispered. House felt the words wash over him, and he relaxed. “One word at a time. I’ll help you. Ready?”
House nodded. Instead of the mask lowering back down to his face, Wilson’s other hand came to to press gently down on his nostrils, restricting the already limited air flow. House’s chest burned. The hand that was covering his slid to his jaw and coaxed it open, and then Wilson leaned down, sealed his lips over House’s and breathed air into his lungs. House shouldn’t have wasted air to moan, but he couldn’t stop himself. What Wilson was doing was hardly helpful, but House supposed it didn’t matter—the mask hadn’t been helping either. But House was taken by the fact that Wilson’s lips were pressed firmly into his own, and he was sharing Wilson’s air—Wilson was breathing for him and God if that wasn’t the most perfect manifestation of the way House felt about Wilson then he didn’t know what was.
Wilson’s lips and fingers lifted and House whispered, “love.”
A brief respite as Wilson eased his breath into House’s lungs before lifting up again: “you.”
As soon as he said the words, he felt the flowers wilting in his chest. Oxygen rushed into his body, each inch of space reappearing in his lungs filling greedily with air. He barely had time to relish in it before Wilson was leaning in for a real kiss, slow and easy, his hand still framing House’s jaw.
“And here you thought it wouldn’t be requited,” Wilson murmured as they separated. “I thought I was telling you that I loved you the only way you’d accept hearing it. But I should’ve said something. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” House said, because it was. He brushed the back of his fingers across Wilson’s cheek.
“I love you,” Wilson snuck in another kiss and House couldn’t complain. “Through it all.”
House couldn’t help it—he pulled Wilson in for another kiss and tugged him into a half sitting, half laying down position on his hospital bed. He wanted to kiss Wilson forever, lips brushing, parting, meeting again and again and again until they were swollen red from the attention, but his lungs wouldn’t let him. They were exhausted after weeks of being taken over by a veritable garden growing in them.
“Get some rest,” Wilson said, nestling himself into House’s embrace. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
A few more flowers wilted at Wilson’s words, more space opening to take in air. He took a deep breath, and let the gentle pressure of Wilson’s body against his lull him to sleep.