jezziejay

Pairing: H/W Friendship
Summary - Post 'Out of Chute' fic.
Spoilers: For the above
Rating: PG13

Wilson stumbles away from the pool on feet that seem to know where he is going even before his brain does.

And then he is seeing things just as House did.

Well, nearly.

He watches as below him hotel security ushers uncooperative co-eds from the pool, until there is no one left in the water but a protesting House.

Carnell must be close by.

Wilson hooks a patio chair with his ankle and tugs it until the metal bar hits lightly off his thigh. He climbs onto the woven fabric and one foot steps onto the rail. Just as House probably did, he considers the reach above him, and he thinks he can make it.

He’s right. His palms open and spread across the concrete overhead and his left foot joins his right.

Finally House looks up and Wilson wonders if he can see his smirk. He probably can, because Wilson can see the glee disappear from the man below him, can see the jaw fall slack. If it wasn’t for the air-con, he’d probably hear the slow churn in House’s bowel.

Welcome to my world.

House calls to him but Wilson’s not listening. His face is now tilted towards the night sky, his thoughts beyond it, and it’s all so fucking liberating. He wonders why House looked down instead of up.

He smiles a bit when he hears the door open behind him, and then even more when he hears the squelch... thump of footsteps on the tiles.

“Wilson. Get down.”

There are so many stars in the sky tonight. Why so many stars?

“I like it here,” Wilson answers, and he’s telling the truth. The steps are closer now.

“Ah, ah,” Wilson tuts. “Stay where you are, House.”

And this is what is takes to get House to listen, because he stops.

“I didn’t see you, Wilson. I didn’t know you were there.”

“Really?” Wilson asks. “All those people at the conference and I was the one you noticed? All those people down there and I was the one you didn’t see?”

“You were yelling back then. It was hard not to notice you.”

“I yelled down there, too.”

He can smell chlorine. It makes him think of peeing in the pool when he was a child. The memory and corollary combine and before Wilson is even aware of it, his bladder is emptying itself and its contents are splattering on the balcony rail.

Huh.

“Please, Wilson. Please get down.”

And when has House ever spoken to him like this? Like he’s the parent.

“I don’t know,” Wilson muses. “It’d be nice to just…fall.”

And really, it would.

“If you fall, you’ll miss the pool,” House pleads.

Is House pleading?

“That’s kind of the point,” Wilson explains, wondering if House knows that this is not about revenge, this is about…enough. He tips his chin towards the sky and closes his eyes. Then his hand relaxes and he’s falling. But he’s falling the wrong way, into strong arms that are pulling him backwards. This is not what he wants.

He wants to go forwards.

But he’s sitting between wet legs, his back pressed against a wet chest, his neck wet from salt and not chlorine.

“Got you. Got you. Got you,” House is whispering again and again and again, and Wilson is dimly aware that his backside is smarting from hitting the patio floor.

As he looks once more into the illuminated sky, he can’t help but think that they are still going down.