XII

Sometimes he and House go atop the roof on really hot nights. If the moon isn't obstructed by burgeoning clouds, the cool light reflects off the waterfront like a trillion tiny, white hot fireflies. It makes Wilson think of his great-aunt. The foxtrot. Fugue in D minor.

***

It happens on a day that Wilson is really sick, and he stumbles out of bed coughing, blood speckling the sheets. House isn't awake yet, and he doesn't want to waken him. As much as House likes to believe otherwise, the sight of your best friend coughing up blood is actually kind of frightening.

Wilson stifles the sound into the crook of his elbow. His heart is palpitating rather fast for someone who's only just gotten out of bed. He's scared.

A wave of nausea rolls over him, and he staggers to the bathroom, holding onto things as he does. He can hardly sit up straight, now, and he's seeing stars whenever his foot makes a definitive step. If he could, he would've stolen House's cane and used it as a sort of support, but it's on the other side of his bed and he can't wake House up by blundering blindly around their bedroom.

He tries to open the door noiselessly, crumpling to his knees in front of the toilet bowl, and then the dry heaving begins, capturing the concavities of his body and rippling across in agonizing waves. A meager amount of pinkish liquid regurgitates, tainted with blood, and it tastes so bad that Wilson dry heaves some more and more blood comes up, until the liquid is a dark, off-color crimson.

He doesn't even know why he's trying anymore. House's Vicodin are in the next room. He's got three weeks, four, if he's unlucky, and then he'll be dead. He could swallow down ten of House's pills and be gone in minutes, completely absent of pain, the relief spreading through him deliriously. The thought relaxes his stomach muscles, and he stops vomiting for a long enough time to finally take in deep breaths.

His body quakes feverishly as he summons to strength to flush the toilet, fingers hanging on the lever. Wilson lays his head on the rim of the toilet bowl, closing his eyes and gasping for air, each breath stunted and rattling. It sounds like the even, methodical shaking of a spray paint canister; he concentrates on the motion of his chest instead of the wet, slick sound - steadily rising, inflating, deflating, inhaling, exhaling, in and out, like tides.

"Wilson?" he hears over the din.

It's House. His body is in the door frame, one arm pressing up against it.

Wilson opens his eyes and looks blearily up, blood dripping from his mouth. He doesn't have to energy to say anything, and if he did, he wouldn't know what to say. Exhaustively, he shuts his eyes and exhales, hardly bothering to pay attention when House finally sits beside him with a damp washcloth and wipes the blood from his lips. His eyes are fully opened, eyelashes hidden from view; Wilson can see the pure anguish - the type that convinces people to cry into their friends' hair and drive cars into living rooms. Wilson wants it all to stop; he wants to freeze time so he can get his bearings back, so he can muster enough strength to clean the blood from his own mouth. This feels like an intentional invasion of privacy. "It's early," Wilson rasps, his right hand pushing House away weakly. "It's too early. Go back to bed."

"No," House says stubbornly, like a kid that's not ready to come back in the house at dinnertime. "I'm with you. I'm staying here, Wilson."

"I need..." Wilson trails, urgency thickening his tone, "I need to take a shower."

"No, you don't. You're already vomiting." He holds onto Wilson's shaking shoulders, clenching tightly. "You can't get up."

Wilson shakes his head shakily. "I'm not dizzy," he wheezes. "House, I feel like shit. Just let me take a shower."

House's hands go from his shoulders to his waist, gently slinging Wilson across his arm and helping him to walk to the shower, a couple of feet away. His fingers accidentally slide up the fabric of Wilson's tee, his hand touching the pale, papery skin that's going to be nothing but dust in a few years. This thought prompts Wilson to blurt out, "I don't want to be cremated, House," and House's hand shifts away from Wilson and all Wilson can think is no, please.

"Alright," is all House says, and he leaves Wilson at the edge of the tub as he motions for Wilson to raise his arms.

"I can do this myself," Wilson protests, slowly easing his hands to the hem of his shirt.

"You can barely sit up straight," House says, taking off Wilson's tee in one uneven motion. "Let's be realistic, Wilson. I know that's not one of your stronger suits, but-"

"Oh, shut up," Wilson rasps, frowning poutily, and for a second he glimpses half of a warm grin that House stifles by turning away to leave the room. "What?" Wilson calls. "No jokes about male hookers? No Freudian analysis?"

"I'm saving all of those for later," House calls back. Wilson shakes his head and strips of his boxers, getting into the shower and turning it on, with a little difficulty. He knows that House is outside the door, listening for a thump. The fear is infectious, except Wilson's not entirely sure who caught it from who.

They're all afraid, though. Wilson is thankful that House ignores it most of the time, taking moments out of their day to play pranks and wrap cellophane around the toilet seats, because he's a pain in the ass. And he likes Italy; he wishes they came sooner. The nights smell clean and new and crisp, and every sunrise is beautiful; wonderful. Sometimes they sit on the roof and House smokes cigarettes languidly, and Wilson pretends to get worked up over it. "You're going to get addicted to those, too," he usually says, "and then you're going to die of lung cancer and I'll laugh." And House always says, "You'd donate me a lung if I lost mine," and that always pisses Wilson off to high hell because it's true: of course it is. In the early days they went on road trips and sat in Venetian fields, looking up at the sky under tree branches and they felt so full of life that they could yell, despite the abnormality growing in Wilson's chest, besides all the things that had gone wrong in their lives.

In the beginning, it didn't matter that Wilson was in love with House. They had time. Now he's even more in love, and they have no time. At least they're in Italy. Italy is nice. Wilson is happy he gets to die here.

It's when Wilson stumbles out of the shower, slick straight hairs shadowing the thickness of his eyebrows and dripping down the ski slope of his nose that House scrambles up from his sitting position and stands up, looking Wilson over. There's no greediness in his eyes - just pain. He looks like he misses Wilson already. "You used to be fatter," he gripes, a small flash of a smile flickering across his features. Wilson scoffs, but the action is painful - he ends up wincing, slowly making his way down to his bed.

"I thought all you cared about was my boyish charm," Wilson says, a slight laugh gracing his throat. "If you told me that you liked curvy ladies, I probably would've kept my love handles - oh," Wilson groans, cringing in pain. "Can you spare a Vicodin," Wilson pants, sitting down slowly on their bed.

House pops the cap and tosses one over. Wilson's motor control is shot to hell, and it takes him a minute to finally find it in his lap. "Hand it over, next time," he objects. "Ass."

"That'd be making it too easy."

"Yeah, well." Wilson dry swallows it, gulping hard. When House doesn't go away, he looks up, his eyes expectant. He gestures to the chair, his head shaking as if to say, "Yes...?" but when House still doesn't move from where he's standing in front of him, his stare concentrated but vacant, he gives up. "House," he says, his eyes squinting in almost-worry, "unless you're going to kill me or kiss me, sit the hell down."

For a second, it looks as if House is about to storm out of the room, an epiphany on the horizon.

That's why it surprises Wilson so much when House bends down, takes his face in his hands, and kisses him for all that he's worth.

***

This is what utopia feels like, oh God, oh God-

***

Could it have been different?

In another world, where the points of divergence were determined by other worldly gods, would they have waited until their last days?

They could have slept together and paid the rent together and kissed together and they could have died together. They could have touched hands at a certain moment and could have fallen in love like that, brushing knuckles, a coffee mug in one of their hands. They could have been attached, part of the same string, each word they spoke unwinding the other's response. Wilson imagines taking a fishing line in his hands and twisting it around his finger until it is purple from a lack of blood flow, and then pulling the twine loose - the blood rushes back and he thinks that that is his head and his heart and everything about him. He is stagnant with deoxygenated blood, and waiting for a catalyst to relieve the tension again.

There are so many moments they could have chosen. Wilson could have split the seconds into fractions; into fourths and eighths and thousandths and trillionths and chosen one of those fractions to tell House that it was time. They could have kissed gently in the Princeton-Plainsboro park, and not be wrought from the inside out over Amber and Stacy and Cuddy and Lydia and Julie and Bonnie and Sam. (They were mistakes. They had to be mistakes, or this reality wouldn't exist. Wilson wouldn't be dying. Would he?)

Wilson could have torn himself to shreds over House, over the way he did the things he did, the way he lost his mind, how they were odd and unsyncopated. He could have loved his eyes in the way you love the smells of your childhood; missing it at every instance that you were reminded that it was gone. He could have craved his touch, and his voice, no matter what sounds were leaving it.

They could have gotten married and worn a sliver of gold upon their fingers, and been happy and domestic and boring. They could have broken each other's hearts and screamed so loudly that their voices were hoarse and cut-throat sharp. They could have sent each other packing because loving someone who hurt you was too painful and too hateful. Wilson could have left in the snow, crying so hard that the tears froze to his cheeks, chafing the soft skin for days to come.

They could have kissed each other softly after work, and bickered about the existence of God. They could have popped beers and screamed at the TV, because "THE FUCKING JETS MUST DIE," and spent Thursdays roaring at monster trucks.

They could have slept in on Sundays and looked up lazily at each other's faces, smiling from the knowledge of just knowing.

Wilson could have sat on his desk in office, his legs shoved apart and one hand covering his mouth to muffle his cries. He could have wrapped his arms around House's neck and gasped loudly as House fucked him, hard, panting from the fucking pleasure of it, the desk rocking treacherously under him, his head bent back. He could've heard House's harsh whispers lost in the waves of orgasmic euphoria washing over him.

He'd say, "You were so ready, weren't you?" and Wilson would nod eagerly and moan. "Didn't even wear any underwear," he'd chastise, "You wanted to get fucked, 'cause you can't go a day without me, can you?" and Wilson would keep nodding, just keep at it, pushing himself onto House's cock. "You'd rather get fucked on your desk than wait until we got home, huh? You want me that bad?" and Wilson would say, "Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, oh Christ, please, please," with every thrust.

House could have said, "Wilson, I fucking hate you," and Wilson would have relished in the feeling of the words, the fact that House cared enough to hate him at all.

He could have.

They could have raised children together. Grown old together. That knowledge tears Wilson apart.

***

But this is enough. This has to be enough, or else Wilson will flicker out and he won't be thankful for all the things that have happened in his life. They weren't good things, or even okay things, but they were linear events and Wilson knows he needs to accept them for what they are; what they were. There's no such place as utopia, and because of that, he can forgive himself of the fact that he never made his life as good as he could've. Reality is rarely ever so euphoric, and Wilson needs - he needs - he doesn't know what he needs, actually. It's all so obscure.

But he knows that if there were such a place, it would be here. It would be kissing House as the sun rises behind them both, soft and certain, on the bed they share; it would be touching all those notions and odd fantasies that had built up in his head for years, knowing that this was better than anything he'd ever hoped for; prayed for. There are lines, but Gregory House defies them, he rips them from their place in the ground and he storms his way through with cutting sky blue eyes and he holds onto Wilson because he is everything, because he is a utopia within himself - he holds onto the sound of blow dryers at six thirty in the morning and the off chance that maybe they'll end up together and the possibility of laughter and brown eyes that House could drown in. He could drown, kissing James Wilson.

Wilson feels like a siren. He knows that at the bottom of the ocean it's quiet, so they must be there, although he can still breathe. All he tastes is salty sweat and the faint tint of cigarette smoke. He remembers that House has picked up smoking and that he needs to remind him to quit, and then all his thoughts are vaporized when he hears the sound of cocks easily sliding together in rhythmic syncope. His body begins to tense as his face flushes, and he pins his eyes shut, holding onto House with all that he can manage. Maybe, Wilson thinks, maybe this is what they talk about when they describe nirvana.

He holds out, although he's shaking with tension - until House gives him three erratic strokes and then he comes with a soundless cry, his mouth opening involuntarily and his body oscillating into House's hand. House hardly has a moment longer before he shifts off Wilson's damp, quivering body, the remnants of a smile on his face, and collapses to the side.

After a few silent minutes of exhilarated panting, Wilson turns to House and laughs, until his lungs hurt and his stomach hurts and everything hurts. "That wasn't even good sex!" he shouts, and then House is laughing too, laughing so hard that there are tears running down his face, because God, this has got to be the happiest day of their lives, it has just got to be.

"I wasn't about to let you die without a good boning," House says, his eyes shining, shallow breaths escaping them both. Wilson looks over to him, his smile slipping a bit. He's so close that all he can see is half of House's face, overwhelmed with an urge to kiss him, and he does kiss him, because he can. Because he fucking can. He feels like Kyle Calloway on shrooms.

"I'm serious, House," Wilson gasps, smiling. "That was the worst fucking I've had in a while."

"You haven't had sex in five months, so..."

"Who says I haven't!"

"You must have had it with a corpse, because no one else would accept how fucking lazy you are in bed - ow, fucking Christ!" House gasps, clutching onto the nipple that Wilson just mercilessly pinched. He laughs through the pain, until Wilson rolls over on top of him and kisses him senseless. "I love you," Wilson breathes through ravished pecks, "I love you."