I Am Looking at You with My Best Eyes and I Wish You Could Tell

[disc0_volante]

Title: I Am Looking at You with My Best Eyes and I Wish You Could Tell
Author: disc0_volante
Characters: House and Wilson
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: If I was the owner of House, House would've professed his love for Wilson far more throughout the course of the show...
Summary: House has to take care of a sick, feverish Wilson after he shows up to his doorstep during a thunderstorm. This is his night.
Words: 3570
Author Notes: For Feveruary 2026, fulfilling prompts 2 (“You’re going to get yourself hurt.”) and 8 (Sharing Blankets). Title comes from Sunglasses (Single Version) by Black Country, New Road. Set sometime in season 3 after s3ep12, with no major spoilers for the series.



House stood in his bedroom doorway, watching Wilson sleep fitfully in his bed. In any other circumstance, he’d find this pretty funny—and he still did, if he divorced the scene from its wider context—but now he just felt…

Annoyance. Sure. Annoyance was the right emotion. Every other time something like this had happened, he found it annoying, so he did now as well.

It had been 1 in the morning. House was exhausted. But just as he sat down to re-watch this week’s episode of Prescription Passion, there was a knock on his door. Who else could it have been but Wilson, deliriously standing in his doorway, blabbering about some useless nonsense before he passed out in his foyer? Although it didn't beat Brock waking up from a coma after being pushed into a lake, it was entertaining to poke Wilson with his cane while unconscious.

All in all, House was lucky Wilson still had the strength to maneuver himself into House’s bedroom once he woke back up again. Wilson was already heavier than House was, but combine that with House’s bum leg and Wilson’s lifelessness making him a dead-weight, and House would’ve had to keep him where he passed out. Or just drag him to the living room, but that required a lot more effort than he was willing to exert for such a spontaneous circumstance.

But now, obviously, House couldn’t sleep. Ignoring the whole work thing (Wilson was sick enough he could call both of them off; it was fine), Wilson was currently taking up space in House’s bed, and House wasn't exactly keen on taking his snooze on the couch. It was his apartment, after all; usually, only guests (which consisted mostly of Wilson) got the couch. It was just that Wilson had abused his pathetic, I-collapsed-in-your-apartment charm to get a spot on the mattress.

He leaned against the doorframe, let his eyes lounge on Wilson’s sleeping form, and grumbled uselessly to himself at the unfairness of these circumstances.

Finally, after what felt like forever (but was probably just a few minutes), Wilson let out a noise only comparable to a groan and began to stir. Some stupid, utterly girlish urge in House made him want to rush to Wilson’s bedside. Except it was his bed, so it was actually House’s bedside, and making the connection between his bed and Wilson’s body was dangerous. He stayed where he was.

“…House?” Wilson muttered after waking up a bit more, the ice pack House had placed on Wilson’s forehead sliding off when he shifted. It was the most coherent version of his name he’d heard all night.

House nodded, turning his head away from Wilson but still keeping his gaze locked on him. “Hey.”

“Why am I…?” Slowly, he sat up, propping himself up against the headboard.

“You did the whole ‘dramatic collapse in my apartment’ thing. You’re sick, apparently.”

“Oh.” Wilson went to rub his eyes, but instead, he grimaced, pulling his hands away and wiping them down on House’s blanket. “Ah, eugh, I’m wet. Wait. What?”

“It’s raining out,” House shrugged in response, turning his attention to the window; it was pouring. Wilson copied the motion and saw it for himself.

After another useless noise of understanding left his lips, Wilson kept silent for a few moments. He was still looking out the window when he finally responded, “So I’m Jane Bennet.”

House snorted. He hadn’t thought about Pride and Prejudice in two decades. “And I’m Bingley?”

“Yeah. Mom sent me so I’d get sick and you’d have to nurse me back to health.” As if to accentuate his point, Wilson coughed. House’s legs moved forward without the rest of his body. “Have you checked my… temperature, yet? Or are your blankets just really warm?”

“While you were unconscious? No, not…” House’s hand still burnt with the heat of Wilson’s forehead after he last felt it. “Your fevers gone down since you got here. Let me get the thermometer.”

While House was turning around, Wilson, sheepishly, asked: “Do you still have those spare clothes I left here a while back?”

House stopped. Sighed. Pointed to the bottom drawer of his nightstand and walked out of the room.

Flicking on the light to his bathroom, House trudged towards his medicine cabinet, ripping open the doors and rummaging around until he found his first aid kit. It was a cheap thing—something Wilson forced upon him ages ago when he realized House didn’t own a first aid kit—the only things inside it that he’d replaced over the years being the gauze, band-aids, and antiseptic. He stuck his hand inside it, pillaging the overflowing container, only extracting the appendage when his fingers made contact with the shitty oral thermometer buried at the bottom.

First, he turned the thing on and off to make sure it still worked. When he was at least a little bit sure it did, he looked back in the cabinet, grabbing the only bottle of ibuprofen left inside (the ones he’d filled with Vicodin had been confiscated a few months prior, and he hadn’t procured enough of the medication to use such a tactic of stashing again). A bottle of NyQuil with a dubious expiration date was also in there, and, seeing no other reason to use it, he took it as well.

House was a pro at holding items one-handed at this point, so transporting his loot from the bathroom to his bedroom was not a difficult task. By the time he returned, Wilson had nearly finished changing—currently, he was pulling a slightly-too-small t-shirt over himself, sitting on the edge of the bed facing the door. Once again, House stood at the entrance, staring with wide eyes until Wilson finished pushing himself into the shirt and looked up.

Wilson then proceeded to try heaving himself off the mattress. His legs wobbled as he stood.

House instinctively took a step forward—as if he was at all capable of catching Wilson if he fell. “What are you doing? Sit back down. You’re going to get yourself hurt.”

Wilson was so confused by what House had demanded of him that he did what he was told. House was just as confused as he was, but, unlike Wilson, he refused to show it. Wilson stared at him with those gooey puddles he called eyes as House got closer and deposited his bathroom finds into the man’s lap.

“…I could’ve walked over to you myself, you know.” One hand was turning the thermometer over, pressing its on button. The other was flattening itself against his forehead, trying to guess his temperature. Wilson hummed.

“If you keeled over I wouldn’t be able to slow your fall this time, and I’d rather not have to deal with you while sick and concussed.”

His brows screwed together, and he looked back up at House from the thermometer. “You caught me last time?”

House peered down at the empty LED screen. “Take your temperature.”

“You caught me.” A statement, not a question: though he couldn’t even remember showing up, Wilson was sure he knew what had happened. “I can’t imagine what that would possibly look like.”

“If you call nearly dislocating your shoulder so you didn’t fall face-first on my floor ‘catching you’, sure, I guess I did,” House finally conceded. “Now take your temperature unless you want me to find my anal one.”

Wilson stuck the thermometer under his tongue, but for a few moments, he had been smiling at House. One of those real, genuine smiles he gave when he thought he had come to some new revelation about House—not like he ever really did.

House kept on flickering his gaze between Wilson and the thermometer in his mouth. Usually, their silence was amicable, but something awkward was brewing between the two of them; something he’d say was his fault, if he was willing to admit to such things. For a few seconds, they both made eye contact. Wilson looked away. House didn’t.

Then the thermometer was announcing it had completed its task, far too loud for both their ears. Wilson couldn’t help his flinch, spitting the thing out of his mouth and reading the temperature. He frowned.

“Two-point-eight.”

“Wow, you’re cold.”

“…Plus another hundred.”

“Wow, you’re hot,” and House wiggled his eyebrows as he said it, a smirk coming over his face. It went away after he’d been handed the thermometer. As had been told to him, it read 102.8. “…Too hot. I need to get you another ice pack. Take the medicine and stay there.”

House walked over to grab the melted ice pack flopped over next to his bed, but just as he was about to reach out and grab it, Wilson had maneuvered himself so he could take hold of it first. Again, they were staring at each other: Wilson had twisted himself at an odd sort of angle in order to grab the thing, and his shirt, too small for him, was—

He took the ice pack out of Wilson’s hands and grumbled: “that’s not staying there”, because he didn’t like the way his eyes lingered.

Just as he was about to pull his hand away, however, it somehow managed to find its way just above Wilson’s forehead. Strings of clammy hair tickled his fingertips before he drew them back.

Wilson looked like he was about to say something. House left the room before he could. All of that, by the time his feet met the floor outside his bedroom, was old news; nothing he should waste his time dwelling on.

Except he couldn’t help but notice the weird, almost quivering sensation taking hold of his stomach. Except his hand was still buzzing from that minute spark of contact; as if he were in a constant state of electrostatic discharge. Except his face, though he couldn’t see it, felt hot, almost like he was embarrassed—except he wasn’t embarrassed, and he wasn’t being shocked, and he wasn't experiencing indigestion, so there was really only one thing he could attribute those feelings to.

He shoved the melted ice pack he’d been crushing between his fingers back into the freezer, taking out another, identical ice pack moments after. They had become a more permanent fixture in his fridge since the infarction, being one of the only items of medical use he had bought for himself. Before his leg, he cared a lot less about keeping anything of the medicinal sort at his apartment; it just wasn't something he needed.

Pressing the newer, colder ice pack against his cheek, he wondered if he had taken more Vicodin that night than he realized, because the pain in his thigh wasn’t as much of a fixture in his mind now than it usually was. He knew if he told Wilson this—how he couldn’t recall his Vicodin intake—he’d be chiding him right now, even though he was the sick one. He was always like that, always so… so hypocritical, that Wilson.

Wilson. Wilson, who had showed up to his door with his work clothes sticking to his skin and his hair plastered to his forehead, a frenzied expression taking over his face as he rambled incoherent nonsense to him at 1 in the morning. Wilson, who had leaned into House’s palm when he placed it against his forehead, quieting the discomfort in his unconscious expression. Wilson, who was currently wearing clothes a size too small for him; who was lying in his bed, sweaty and feverish and—

The cold weight against his cheek felt like a brand against his skin when he finally took it off, and he marched his way back into his bedroom. He knew the end of that sentence, but to utter it in any way would mean he’d be admitting something he didn’t want to. So, for once in his life, he tried to let it go.

When House entered the bedroom again, Wilson was lying on top of his blanket, shirtless. And hot had been the end of the sentence, because he could never let anything go. Everyone knew that. For now, he forced himself to pretend he meant it literally, and snickered, “Getting comfortable?”

Caught completely off guard, Wilson sputtered. He must have been zoned out, House decided, as he didn’t notice House’s presence until he was speaking to him. Immediately, his arms went to cover his… chest. As if it were in any way provocative. Houses eyes lingered anyway. “Oh, shoot—uh—sorry. Hold on, I’ll put it—”

“Don’t.”

Wilson had been sitting up, ready to get his shirt, but he stopped at House’s words. “Huh?”

House internally cursed at himself for letting that slip out, and fumbled trying to correct himself. “You're… over… heating. It’ll help. Not having your shirt on.” In ungainly fashion, he pushed himself forward and shoved out the hand holding the ice pack towards Wilson.

“Um… okay?” And he took the thing out from House’s grasp, lying back down and placing it over his forehead.

House, trying his best to avert attention from the fumbling he just did, looked away from Wilson and centered his gaze straight on the wall. For once, he felt Wilson’s eyes boring into his own instead of the other way around. Apparently, he needed to back his diversion up with words, too.

“…You never actually told me why you came here.” If he had pockets, he’d be sticking his free hand in one. Instead, his fingers curled into the fabric of his boxers; they were just long enough to cover his thighs.

“Oh. Ah. I… don’t remember much.”

House decided the coast was clear enough to look back at the other man after a few more moments. He found that Wilson’s eyes were closed, with his head tilted away from him. “But you do remember..?”

“Not feeling very well. I think I… I think I needed to tell you something? But I couldn't find my car keys.”

Not just because he was now staring at Wilson’s… hair, House returned to smiling. His diversion was working. “You lost your keys. In your hotel room.”

“I guess? Or I was just too out of it to look for them. I don’t know—it couldn't have been that long after I got home from work, since I was in my work clothes. I just don't know when. I thought I felt fine at the hospital…”

“You got here at 1. Not exactly your ordinary ‘wake up House’ time.”

“I woke you up?” Wilson’s eyelids were fluttering open again, head turning languidly towards House. He knit his brows in lieu of an apology.

He inched closer towards the bed. Forgiving Wilson for a transgression he didn't commit wasn’t hard when he was looking at House like that. “You interrupted Prescription Passion. Arguably worse, but it’s not like I was asleep or anything.”

“Oh,” he repeated again; apparently, that was sick Wilson’s favorite word.

It was now, House recognized, that he could employ one of his many tried and true Wilson persuasion tactics—guilt. Already, he saw it lining the edges of the other man's face; if he just leveraged it a little bit, he could get what he wanted: his bed. Because, despite all of the… other feelings House had been having, his tiredness hadn’t gone away, and he deserved a good nights sleep for all the kind gestures he’s given out tonight, didn’t he? It wasn’t like a bit of light-hearted cajoling would hurt anyone, even if the person he was doing it to was sick and easily manipulated.

“I had been trying to prepare myself to go to sleep before you showed up, though. Now it’s past 2 now—on a work night. Really, Wilson; have you realized just how much hard work goes into taking care of people?”

The splotches of red accentuating Wilson’s cheeks from his fever grew bigger, this time out of embarrassment. Bingo, House decided prematurely.

“Actually, uh… I think I’m a bit better now. I can… I can take the couch for the night. You can have your bed back. Sorry.” He sat up again, letting the ice pack fall into his lap. The pajama pants he wore were the most luxurious things his mattress had seen in a while. “I‘ll take the bus in the morning, I think.”

But this wasn't what House wanted. Sure, he wanted his bed back, and Wilson leaving it meant it would be returned to him—but that’s not how he wanted it. He, however subconsciously the realization might have been, had come to the conclusion that Wilson wouldn’t remember this in the morning; he wouldn't remember this when his fever broke. And, well, it wasn’t his fault if he felt the desire to take advantage of that fact, doing something he wouldn’t dare admit he wanted.

“No. You're still nearly at hospitalization temperatures; someone needs to monitor you. I can’t do that if you’re on the couch. Scootch over.”

“Wait. What?” Though still embarrassed, bewilderment had cut through shame, causing him to smile. As if he didn’t understanding what House was asking of him; as if there were any other interpretation to House’s words.

“Move. If my bed can fit me and two strippers, it can fit just the two of us.”

When what House truly wanted finally clicked for Wilson, his eyes widened in an almost vulgar fashion. If he couldn’t already feel the heat emanating off his skin, he certainly could now; the capillaries were dilating at an obscene rate, a flush taking over the parts of his face not already red with fever. Almost instantly, he skittered to the side of the mattress in order to give House more room.

Placing his cane down besides the bed, he pulled up the corner of his rumpled covers and climbed under. Wilson, who was still lying on top of the blanket, started shuffling so both House and himself could get beneath them. Not truly because he wanted the warmth—he was still febrile; not something all that conducive to blanket sharing—but because he, as House could only surmise, wanted to be next to him. That, or he was just being nice; or he was just confused; or he was doing the only thing he could think of.

The explanation as to why bothered House, but the feeling of a body sitting beside him mattered just that bit more, so he, if temporarily, allowed himself to dwell on that instead.

House was never exactly one for physical contact—at least of the friendly sort—so he and Wilson never really got close like this. The only analog he could think of was when they sat on the couch together, drinking shitty beer and eating shitty takeout, but that wasn’t at all as… intimate. As romantic, House supposed.

He could only deduce that this—effectively sleeping with his best friend, if he wanted to be perverse—was gay. That, by asking for and actively enjoying the feeling of another man lying sharing the same bed as him, he was, in a way, homosexual. All the thoughts he had been having about Wilson (or James, he supposed was best to call him in this situation) he knew were unabashedly, unequivocally queer.

Was that really a bad thing, though? He knew he’d disavow this conclusion come morning, in that chance moment of sobriety between Vicodin doses; but that didn’t stop him from turning his body towards Wilson’s, staring at the man whose eyes were closed as if in slumber, and reaching out. If he were giving himself one night, one sole night to be as homoerotic as he wanted, he supposed the one Wilson wouldn’t remember would be his best choice.

The back of his hand pressed against Wilson’s cheek. The man grunted, opening his eyes. Blearily, Wilson looked back at him, features creased in confusion.

“Checking your temperature,” but both of them knew he was lying.

Wilson must have been having his own conniption about this; he was the shirtless one, after all. Yet, despite his curiosities, House didn’t ask. He never kept quiet about this sort of thing. Never kept himself in the dark on other people’s thoughts. Except for now, apparently. He was already behaving out of character; the contact his hand was still making against Wilson was physical proof of that. But did he care?

If he had the choice, he’d make this moment last forever. He’d make the feeling of Wilson’s burning-hot cheek against his skin a permanent fixture, if he could. The look of his eyes, cloudy like untempered chocolate, staring right into his; it felt more suited as a never-ending event than a once-in-a-lifetime visual.

But Wilson, who was closing his eyes again, couldn’t see that. Couldn’t see how much he meant to House. Because House never showed him. Never told him. By morning, when Wilson’s fever broke, he’d forget any of this had happened, House would pretend it never had, and life would continue as normal. He’d blame all of this on his exhaustion; on the surprise that came with being caught so off guard.

Annoyance had been the wrong emotion. Wilson had come to his door telling him he was worried about him. That was the right one. It was a shame House would never be able to voice it.

“Okay,” is all Wilson responded with, and that was that.