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House glances up at Wilson, at his intense stare that he has to not realize he's giving. He has to not realize he's clutching onto the arm of the couch with one hand and onto his thigh in the other. His eyes move with every note and strum of House’s fingers on the guitar. Its a rustic six string. Something a bit warmer and quieter for the midnight moment. House had excused it as not wanting to go through the effort of setting up the electric. Wilson said it was better for the neighbors sake. It was past midnight, Greg. Truly, something had just pulled House to the thing. He didn't even play a particular song, instead improvising. Wilson said nothing otherwise, simply sitting across from him and sipping his glass of water ("old man." "Some of us aren't used to passing out with our bodies full of drugs and alcohol.") as he listened and watched. It was... domestic. House tried not to linger on it. Wilson helped by giving him something much better to focus his thoughts on than the tenderness of any possible moment between them.
Unable to hide a smile, House begins to riff on the strings, playing notes and rhythms that, if someone just happened to only be watching his fingers, would look rather explicit. His pointer and middle fingers rubbing up and down the same string. Curled finger plucking. Spreading the pairs of his middle and pointer and his ring and pinky far apart in a way that would lead to disasters in technical skill but to raised brows from anyone familiar with finger-banging. And of course, making a point of sliding his hand up and down the neck of the guitar, both languidly and rapidly. Wilson frowns. The kind that House loves to pull out of him.
"Greg."
"Don't like that one, pervert?"
"Pervert?" He's aghast like a pious southern woman in church. All he needs is the hand fan. House looks at him as he continues to stroke the guitar neck up and down.
"Hands is pretty cliche, especially for a doctor."
"I-what?" Despite his reaction, he's still clearly getting embarrassed. He's starting to go pink and looking at the ground rather than House.
"You were eyefucking my hands."
"I was watching you play!"
"Sure thing, Jimmy." Greg's strumming fingers rub the lip of the sound hole. He's entirely abandoned playing.
"Do you have to ruin every moment?" God, he's fucking pouting. He's a grown man and he's pouting his lips with his eyes averted. Greg wants to rip him to shreds in a brief flash of red animal instinct.
"Is it ruined now? Only get a boner for me when you think about chopping me up?" That gets his eyes back on Greg. It's that beautiful glare paired with a red faced blush.
"How many times do I have to say it wasn't like that?"
"Mm, thousands." Greg watches his own hands as he rubs inside the guitar. "Still won't believe you."
"You can't even do," Wilson gestures at Greg's movements, "that with me. What effect is it supposed to have?" Greg looks back up at him, brow raised skeptically.
"How closeted are you, Jimmy?"
"Narnia," he replies flatly. It was a back and forth they had developed. A bit that they shared after enough comments about how Wilson and those around him somehow never noticed.
"It takes work, especially for a tight ass like you."
"I-" James starts, then realizes he doesn't have anything to say to that. He does still try, mouthing for some witty retort.
"That wasn't part of all your deep dark secret fantasies?" Greg idly tunes one of the strings. "Didnt think about bending over for Dr. House?" James scrunches his face, distracted by the joke.
"Don't say that."
"I don't care if you like it or not, just don't get the bed too dirty." It's something he said in the clinic at one point dealing with a particular kind of man's examination. It did not assuage his discomfort, just as it didn't help James now. At least he wanted James to consider it. He could tell that he was. James shifted in his seat, frown carved deep into his face.
"I don't think about that."
"Oh," Greg makes it sound like he's had some kind of breakthrough, "Jimmy wants the doctor to do the bending?"
"No one needs to do any bending!" James blurts, hands out in an aggressive gesture.
"Good. Can't stay like that long with the ol' girl." Greg pats his bad leg on the knee. Wilson holds his face in his hands.
"I hate you so much." A heavy, muffled sigh. "You're miserable."
"And you're a self punishing prude." Greg stands up, knee popping as he does. He brings the guitar with him as he crosses the short distance to James. The hands come off his face to look up at Greg. God, the way he looks up at him sometimes. Not even puppy eyes, more like deer. Big, bright, surprised. Greg doesn't stop himself from waxing the poetics of his brown eyes, amazingly. There are times he wishes they were a place he could lay like a cat in the sun. They were so warm and bright. They were something... homey. Greg sets the guitar on the couch next to James, still holding the neck of it. He boxes James in.
"You know I can keep doing this all night, so either put your foot down or tell me you want me to keep going." It's surprisingly serious for Greg. His tone is firm and clear, and his expression solemnly serious, if just a hint exasperated. James blinks up at him many times. His eyes dart quickly away, assessing that he well and truly is trapped in place. Greg picks up a foot and puts it down on James's other side on the couch, just to truly drive the point home. He's watching James like a hawk. There's the nervous twitching and fidgeting of his fingers. Greg was waiting for the motion to start. "This one’s for all the points, Jimmy. What's the answer?" Greg mimes speaking into a microphone and handing it to James like they're on a game show. The oncologist stammers for a moment. He's actually red up to his ears by now. "Get this shy with all the ladies too, or am I just special?" He takes back his imaginary microphone to speak the quip into it. He cracks a smile while James looks more and more like he's either about to cry or cum in his pants.
"You can keep going, if you want." It's so pathetic it almost makes you want to cry. Greg cooes instead. He cruelly takes the oncologists face in his hand, squishing his cheeks forward. He shakes his head for him minutely.
"Oh so sweet and considerate, Jimmy! You gonna say please and thank you too?" He likes mocking James, and likes that James somehow enjoys it even more. His eyebrows turn up, giving him some kind of pathetic pleading kind of expression.
"Do you want me to?" Muffled with the way his face is squished together, but still clear enough that Greg laughs and drops his hold on the other man.
"I'm starting to wonder how so many girls want you, acting like that. You act like more of a bitch than them." James frowns as he rubs his cheek.
"Don't say that."
"The part about the bitches tailing you, or the part about you being a bottom?"
"...both?" He's genuinely unsure. Greg turns and puts the guitar in the chair he was just sitting in.
James tenses and squeaks when Greg plops himself down in the other's lap once the instrument is out of harm's way. His hands are out and open, like he doesn't want to get slapped for touching the stripper during the lap dance. Greg turns himself as much as he's able and still have his legs close to ninety degree angles, turns enough that he can look properly at James.
"Fine, I'll refrain from misogyny when I'm flirting. You're still such a bottom. I won't budge on that."
"I'm not," he falters at House raising his brow, "trying to be a.. bottom, or whatever."
"Then you're a natural, Jimmy." He smacks the other's cheek lightly. His frown deepens at the condescending praise. "Not that the bets weren't already in decades ago. An OCD oncologist Jew in the closet? He has to like to take it up the ass." James's face scrunches in disgust, jerking his head away like he bit a lemon.
"Greg."
"From life and men. Verdict is still out on women. Should call the ex-wives."
"Please don't..."
"How do you feel about dominant women?"
"How do you feel about going mute?" James retorts.
"How do you feel about making me if you want it so bad?" James doesn't have anything to shoot back for that one. He's slack jawed and stupid. "Temporary silence is at an all time low. Buy while supplies last." He finally puts Wilson out of his misery by kissing him; his hands finally settle on House's thigh and back.
There had been a handful of kisses between them when James was actually cognizant and not desperately grabbing onto whatever comfort he could amidst an anxious spiral. Few were any degree of heated. Any time they were, James seemed to pull back and restrain himself. It was always under the guise of some excuse that passed as reasonable. House, we're at the hospital. Greg, you're going to fast for me. House, your patient just went into cardiac arrest. Here in this moment, all those excuses were null. He couldn't push him away for any reason other than fear or disgust. Greg would entertain the first, but he would understand the second. Greg wraps his arm around James's neck, locking him into the embrace. For all his embarrassed floundering, he wasn't actually awful. Something about the ever self chastising closet case was that his bite was better than his bark. He held onto Greg just right, kissed him just enough, bowed his head and curled his tail between his legs just right .
"Happy?" He pulls away just enough to look at James. He nods with a hazy look like he's drunk. "You are so easy."
"N' you're an ass." James is too distracted looking at him to manage any venom at all. Greg blows an amused breath again and puts a hand in the other's hair. He sleepily blinks his eyes closed, relaxing into the touch. Such a dog. A puppy, even. He jerks and his eyes fly back open as Greg pulls a fist full of soft brown hair.
"Tell me to stop then, if you hate it." He continues to blink at Greg, eyes wide. His lips are still just barely parted. It feels like an invitation.
"I-I didn't mean-"
"I didn't mean," Greg mocks, putting on an overdramatic version of James's expression. That immediately turns some switch in James. Promptly sends him into a fiery irritation. The hand on Greg's thigh shoots up to grab him by the shirt and pull him in. He groans and chuckles at James biting onto his lip with a punishing sharpness. He'll be surprised if one of them doesn't taste blood. Like it always was between them, it was only a matter of who bled and who lapped it away.
Greg keeps a firm hold on the fist full of hair he managed, holding onto James just as hard as the oncologist pulled him in. Before was something more tactful and trained, this was sour and sloppy. Greg finally managed to crack some of that shell. Finally, He's pushed back a little, just enough to speak and breathe against one another's lips.
"What happened to the special on silence?" Greg chooses to forget how much he grins, or at least later imagines it as something evil and not something given by someone giddy and lovestruck.
"Special expired. I'm afraid you'll have to pay full price, sir."
"And what's that?"
"Hundred." Oh and he looks so disappointed Greg struggles to not laugh.
"Huh, was.. expecting something else." Greg lets go of James's hair to instead put the hand to his heart with a canned gasp.
"Are you trying to pin me as some kind of whore?"
"Are you?" Greg raises his brows at the brazen statement. It takes a moment before whatever had overtaken James quickly crumbles. He looks away. "Sorry, that was-"
"Oh shut up." It has to be comical the way he immediately does. Simply snaps his mouth shut just like that. If only Greg could recreate that reaction at the hospital. Maybe he should do some tests to see if its possible. "Don't try to back out after you finally give in." Greg rests his elbows on Wilson's shoulders, arms behind his head. It would certainly be a spot with a view for Wilson if Greg was one of his wives or pretty little bimbos. "Don't go back to the shy boy schtick after you call me a whore."
"I didn't call you a whore."
"You made it clear how you think of me, Doctor Wilson." There's a rough juxtaposition there of using his title that they both know is intentional on Greg's part. It conjures the thought of hospital staff trying to shoot their shot with him. "Bite me and then call me a whore, what's next? Pin me to the couch? Pull my hair out?"
"You can't really pull your hair."
"Reem me so all the sweet innocent neighbors that like you so much can hear?" You could hear and see the cogs turning in his head. He's looking somewhere near House's collarbones rather than his face.
"It's harder to tell when you're joking or not like this."
"I'm a fan of banter as a form of foreplay," is his non-answer.
"Do you," he meets House's eyes again, "want me to do that?"
"Whatever gets us closer to fucking rather than talking at this point." He frowns.
"You just said-" House cuts him off, patting his cheek condescendingly again.
"Jimmy, Jimmy, stop thinking with your brain."
"Like you do?" And they actually both chuckle at that. Greg first and James hesitantly following with.
"Very funny. Classic "no you" response."
"Oldie but goodie." James's smile is much more tender than it should be. "Like you."
"Now I'm an old whore? You really know how to flatter a woman, Jimmy." A hand comes to Greg's waist, thumbing over where his lower ribs hide under his skin. James watches the movement.
"If that's flattering, I'm surprised you didn't jump me years ago."
"Mm, you didn't strike me as the type to have a gay extramarital affair then. Sad to know I missed my shot." Greg makes no move to stop him. Goosebumps rise up on his back.
"You have another one now," so demure and sweet, like he's telling House goodnight and not, essentially, "please fuck me silly." He's such a fascinating study disguised as a brain numbing one. A reverse Cuddy.
"Mm, but you're not married now." Greg slips a hand down to put it in James's shirt, hold his collar, thumb on his Adam's apple. "Not as kinky now."
"Two old guys having gay sex isn't kinky?"
"We're not old enough for it to be a fetish."
"I guess that's good." The hand slips up under his shirt, thumbing the hair on his stomach leading to his waistband.
"Any lumps, doctor?" House humors. James plays along and begins to gently press his finger tips in Greg's flesh.
"Nothing surface level. Have you noticed anything abnormal?"
"Mm, yeah, just a bit more south," House stage whispers. He's too late to delay a shudder up his spine as Wilson dutifully follows the directions, peeking just his finger tips under the waistband of his jeans. He presses again, gently. "You trying to make me piss myself, Jimmy?" The pressure immediately lifts. James grimaces.
"Please don't."
"You're getting warmer, doctor." Greg finally takes the initiative to move this thing along. He takes James's wrist and forces his hand down as far as it can go with Greg's jeans still closed.
"Oh," Is all James says under his breath. He doesn't pull it away as Greg undoes his pants. Greg nearly knees himself in the face on reflex when James wraps his fingers around the base. Just his pointer and middle. "Do you want my help?" He asks with a touch of amusement as Greg is pushing his pants off with his feet with growing frustration.
"If you take your hand away I will burn this house down with both of us in it." They're off and immediately forgotten as James leans in, tucking his head into Greg's neck. He chuckles there in that tender space. An ache develops in House's chest and if he were to hug onto James like he wanted in that moment, his hands would have shook.
"Alright, alright," he mutters. There's something almost maternal there.
As his hand moves to take a proper hold of Greg, he noses into the rough skin of his neck. His touch is everything that House is not. It is slow and considerate. It is both loving and loved. It is the touch that mends, coddles. It is not so soft to not be noticed at all. It is enough to make him squirm, and just that. It is softer than Greg has ever expected, or gotten. There is no second side to James, the other always has to remind himself. This is him. This is his reality. Even all of his repressed fear and anger and longing. They are all just him at his truest. He doesn't have a false face he wears to speak to House. He has the same eyes looking at the broken and worn as he does looking at House. Maybe he doesn't see them as separate entities. He kisses Greg's neck, soft little pecks at first, before they become something more open mouthed. He falters a moment when Greg fixes his underwear to be tucked down, no longer obstructing James's movements.
"Didn't tell you to stop, Jimmy." There's something missing there that Greg can't identify. He own voice falling back in his ears sounds wrong. He feels a kind of sickness in his stomach that isn't the beer or the pills or the dinner from hours ago.
"Yes, dear." Said right against House's collarbone, through his shirt, before he returns to his neck. His pace is a little quick, and his fingers focus at the tip that suggests much less experience with cock than other things. Still kind. Still so fucking sweet its nauseating. Like that little pet name he surely couldn't mean. Yes dear. Like a husband. Or a lover. He doesn't even use his teeth. It's just tongue and lips and whispers and sickness. His head moves to have his nose in his hair, mouth right by the other’s ear. Just below it.
"I didn't expect you to be so quiet." Again, with that gentle amusement. Greg can feel James's lips move in what is surely a smile. He smiles at him like a lovesick dog during a handjob. Greg tries to insult him. "What are you thinking about?" James asks before he can. He never got to a point before Greg could jab at him.
"I wanted you to sleep with me when you were married." Despite all better judgment, Greg tells him honestly. James's mind is clearly too fogged to immediately understand.
"What?" His hand slows to a halt, like he forgets what he's doing.
"I wanted you to choose me instead," he explains. He wishes he could be surprised that he's confessing this. He wishes he couldn't understand why he was telling James this in what should be an intimate moment, in what should be tender and loving. He won't let it be so. That's why it's a handy on his couch in the middle of the night and not something better, something more familiar to James. Greg wishes he didn't know himself well enough to understand why he needed to hold a match up to everything to test if it would light. James had pulled away from his neck and his stare felt like pins and needles. "I wanted to be better than her."
"You were jealous?" He doesn't sound particularly shocked, and he somehow isn't disgusted. It's that gentle your-tests-came-back-positive tone of voice. Greg doesn't fight the jump in his jaw tight as a hydraulic press.
"Astute observation," he replies bitterly. Of course he was fucking jealous. Of course James had no idea. Of course he was trapped in the vulnerable position of his dick out sitting in Wilson's lap. The hand that had been touching him, mournfully, tenderly rests on his thigh as he looks up at House with those miserable fucking innocent fawn eyes. "I'm sorry I had no idea, Greg."
"Why be? You're not going to go back and cheat on your wife just to appease me. It's done."
"I'm sorry I didn't figure it out sooner," James elaborates. For God's sake, would he stop looking like that? "I wouldn't have made you wait if I knew."
"Don't say good things come to those who wait." James's smile and chuckle are so small they almost don't exist. His look is making Greg want to gouge his eyes out more and more by the moment. Beautiful earth that looks almost black in the dark, that looks like melted amber and bronze and watercolor desert landscapes in the light.
"I'm grateful you waited. I love you." Oh how easily he can say such a thing. It should be expected, the three time divorcee. He hands out his love and care like its candy, like its germs. Even when he's not conscious of his every action, they still manage to contaminate whatever he touches with sweetness. House believes he is immune. He doubts it will last.
"Why?" Greg asks simply. No inflection. He doesn't feel all there, somewhere far from this conversation. He's off stage watching it with popcorn in hand, loudly giving his criticisms. James doesn't look surprised, or hurt. He shrugs a shoulder.
"Because I can and you can't stop me."
"I have tried." Now James truly does smile. It spreads across his face like a hole was punched out of a sky full of clouds to let the moonlight pour down.
"I hadn't noticed."
"I'm playing the long game. I'm the honeypot." James doesn't humor him anymore. His hand behind Greg's back comes up to hold the back of his head and brings him in for a kiss. Greg sighs and James's nose scrunches at the tickle of air.
"I'm not going anywhere, Greg."
"Don't say I never tried." It has to be amusing to hear and see what they whisper like young lovers. There's cruelty and love and mockery and affection that far exceeds the romantic proximity of their faces only inches apart.
"If you ever manage it, I'll even let you have an 'I told you so.'"
"You know just what to get me."
"I've had years of practice."
"James." Greg drops his voice even lower, makes it even softer. A well and true whisper. He bats his lids at James, while he blinks back a small surprise at the change.
"Yeah?" Breathless.
"Are we ever going to fuck or should I just put my pants back on?" James blinks, then glances down.
"Oh, right." That little flame of arousal had faded out. James clears his throat and gains some of that pink back to his cheeks. He looks up at Greg through his lashes like a fucking baby bottom.
"We can continue in bed?"
"How forward," Greg mocks as he temporarily fixes his underwear.
"My legs have been asleep for ten minutes."
"Want my cane?" Greg climbs off of his partner, who immediately groans as he stretches out his legs again.
"Fuck, just let me get feeling back." Greg watches him wiggle his toes and tense his feet.
"I'm sure the ladies love it when you tell them they're too heavy for your lap."
"You're almost the same size as me!" James gestures at House's person.
"Oh yes, I'm sure that makes them feel even better." Wilson huffs as he pulls himself up off the couch. He gently shoves House along with a hand to his shoulder.
"Go to bed." The neurotic begins to turn off everything, putting the apartment to rest. Greg begins to walk to the bedroom.
"Make sure you flip every switch five times!" He calls behind him.
"Oh fuck off!" Comes the reply. House smiles to himself.