knots
Title: Of Nuptials
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: NC-17
Summary: His first marriage is a failure. His second isn't any better.
Warnings/Dislaimers/Spoilers: Weird!fic, spurred by too much alcohol. (Semi)-coercive intercourse. An alternate history. This is BJ(BeforeJulie)!Wilson, after his second marriage.


Note: It's depressing, not exactly a dark!fic, because it isn't. But the plotbunny is a malformed and maladjusted bunny. I'm blaming it for any discomfort caused hereafter *cringe*

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His first marriage is like playing house. Too young, too brash, and too indulgent -- of chasing rainbows and chasing fairytales. There's a reason why such liaisons are called fairytales, and he likes to think that he has learnt from that lesson. He likes to think that he has matured enough since then. He likes to think that he has matured enough to not get involved in entanglements he doesn't need; matured enough to give marriage another go. So, why he's sitting on the curb outside a bar in a part of town he's not even familiar with is... a good question.

Two feet and a cane. Those are what's crowding his vision right now, and he tells them to go away. But shoes talk nowadays, and canes can hurt.

"You're not the easiest person to track down, are you?" the left shoe tells him. Maybe it's the right shoe. Maybe both shoes are telling him off. He's supposed to be the boy genius, and here he is: sitting on a curb and being told off by a pair of shoes. "You're drunk." And this time he swears it's the cane telling him off.

"Out of my mind." Mental confusion, he thinks. Signs of alcohol poisoning. He feels like he wants to vomit and if he aims it right, the shoes might just shut up. Maybe he'll asphyxiate himself and die. Because maybe dying will take his minds off things, take his mind off all the mess and confusion he's signed up to. "What are you doing here?"

"Collecting you." And a familiar face swims into view. The edges are a bit fuzzy, but the voice, the scent, and that face are unmistakably House. The last person he wants to see right now. Ever.

"Why do you care?" Because he's feeling a little bit petty. And he blames House for dragging him into this kind of mess, for making him care for House enough to sign a second divorce. What was he on anyway, thinking that his second marriage will be the 'this-is-it', the Forever. Fucking world of good it did. Because he's now sitting on the curb outside a bar in a part of town he's not even familiar with. House may be the one with the growing dependence on Vicodin, but he - James Wilson - is the one with the incurable addiction problem. Because who needs to indulge in substance abuse, when one is thoroughly owned by Gregory House. And the sad thing is either House is really oblivious or that House relishes in the destruction he causes. "Why do you care?" he asks again.

"I'm not all callous you know," House stretches beside him on the curb.

"Could've fooled me." Blood rushes in his ear. Street lights and lights spilling out from the bars and the neonlights above him... they only serve to aggravate his migraine a little bit more.

"That's the idea." House tells him. "Now get up," House instructs. And he tries, really, to get up, tries to hold onto House's grip and haul his ass off the curb. But his body prefers to melt into itself, onto the floor, through the cracks, and into the ground. "Come on. Help me a bit here," House implores.

"Fuck off," he manages to grind out, before putting his head between his legs.

"I really want to. But there's no one willing and you're a mad drunk."

"I am drunk," he slurs, "tell that to the world."

"They don't have to know."

There are hands all over him. More than one set of hands. People. Or maybe House has grown a couple more hands. Hands dragged him to a waiting car and unceremoniously dropped him in it. Maybe he's getting abducted. In a car. Not in a spaceship, though. He wants to be abducted by a spaceship, wants to see what aliens are really like. Wants to see if they can take him away from this world. Maybe putting a few galaxies between him and House can help mend him. But he's in a car. Abducted by House.

So he slumps across his seat and leans awkwardly against House's side. House tries to push him away but he latches on, pressing his lips against the side of House's throat. It's an awkward position, and his muscles will make him regret later. But the alcohol in his brain is dictating everything, telling him things. Good thing he possesses a flexible body. So, he brushes his lips against the House's skin, and feels House's elbow digging into his ribs, trying to push him away.

"Stop it!" House exclaims. "I'm trying to drive."

"So, drive." A lick here, a lick there, and he can feel goosebumps rising on House's skin.

"I can't drive with you mimicking a fucking limpet."

"I'll show you fucking." He traces a crease here, a wrinkle there, and feels the car lurching sharply from one side to the other.

"I don't want us to end up wrapped around a tree."

"Maybe you can drive us off a bridge, instead?" Die together. How romantic. Like two runaway lovers running away from irate families. Shakespeare'd be so proud of them. The sky is irritatingly clear and the stars twinkle brightly at him even with the amount of city light around him. And he can see his house looming into view despite him licking House into distraction. The whole world is having fun at his expense.


---


"It's only a divorce," House tells him. "No need to get all sad about it." House helps him climb out of his clothes.

"It's not only a divorce. I made the vows. For better, for worse, et cetera et cetera," he spits.

"It'll get better. Practise makes perfect. Elizabeth did it eight times and she's nowhere as sad as you." House pushes him onto the bed. "Lie down," House orders.

"Elizabeth?" He blinks at House. "Arden?"

"No, Taylor."

"Oh." Thinking about cosmetics makes him want to weep again. Friggin' alcohol, he curses. Makes him want to weep at everything. This is why he doesn't drink as much. And he thinks about the cosmetics his wife wears. Ex-wife. And he can still smell of her night lotion, if he sniffs really, really deeply.

"Do you want me to stay?" House asks.

"Do you want to stay?" he retorts, leaning against the headboard, sheets pooling around his waist. He smiles with undisguised triumph as House hobbles back towards the bed. There's a small satisfaction as he watches House park his cane against the wall and start to strip methodically. And he can't stop himself from grinning as House slides under the sheets to join him. "You're warm," he comments, as he snuggles up to House.

"And you stink like a skunk in a brewery."

"What are you going to do 'bout it?" he whispers against House's shoulder. He traces patterns on House's stomach, nibbles on House's throat, humping House's thigh. In a bed that, until a few months ago, he shared with his ex-wife. There is a need to make House understand what this is doing to him. She's gone, the marriage in tatters, all because he can't stop pining for House, and that House didn't do anything to dissuade it. And he wants to stop feeling, wants to stop caring, wants to punish House for things he himself can't comprehend. Maybe he's punishing himself too. Maybe he's overreacting. House told him so, and House is most often right, in his own meandering way. But rational thinking makes reason sounds like a subterfuge, and truth is a protean commodity.

No human rationality will suffice, no talk and no whispers will becalm his thunderous thoughts; and in such a state of inebriation he decides to place himself in the role of the aggressor. Maybe then, in a primitive coupling, he can transfer the aches and bruises of his heart onto the outer surfaces of their skin. And maybe then he can watch it heal. And he forces himself in -- with little preparation, with no amorous adulations. There are only intrusions coupled with the unmitigated need to injure. The extrusions are painful even for him. And he wants to share the ravages of his soul with House. And he can feel House trying to hold his tongue -- to maintain the overcharged quietude. He can feel House trying to give him a wide berth. And he hates House for caring.

So he thrusts a little bit rougher and bites a little bit harder, trying to inflict a fatal wound, a river of sorrow, and a rain of perspiration. His thighs bunch up, and his muscles scream, and his head throbs from the migraine that never really did go away, and his spine feels like its cracking. He babbles a lot of things that don't make sense -- words he make up in his head -- all of them hollow exultations of an act that doesn't even merit a mention by the time the sun rises again. And he can vaguely comprehend the enormity of House's efforts to be as still as possible underneath him. House who is probably shoring up his last reserve of patience, humoring him, covered in bitemarks and scratches. House who tries to be silent. House whose eyes are closed and screwed so tight.

And he doesn't know how to make things right.

For after everything, as his anger abates and as his drunken haze retreats into the innermost recesses of his mind, he realizes that he finds no release. As he slides out and rolled onto his back next to a still-silent House, he realizes that nothing has changed. Everything that matters remains broken. He slides into a pathetic depression, unable to face himself or House. As he turns to put his back to House he ponders about irredeemable relationships and what the aftermath of this night might be. And he knows that the amount of alcohol he took at the bar isn't enough to make him forget.

He realizes belatedly, as he surrenders the last shred of wakefulness to exhaustion and excess, that he's sleeping on the wrong side of the bed.


---


The warm morning sun rouses him out of his sleep. House has long abandoned this bed, left him to the unmerciful cold; abandoned him to the inclement isolation. There is no note, no remnant of the night before -- at least nothing that he can salvage. There's only a messy room to put back to normal and a life to put back into order. No problem whatsoever.

No problem whatsoever. And what can be a better way to start the day but with a brazen lie?




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