Chapter Text
Dr. James Wilson waited, fidgeting, too keyed up to feel any nameable emotion. House’s death had shattered him, and House’s funeral had melted the pieces into slag. Now he was waiting for House, who was apparently not dead — and he’d mourned him, dammit, for days — waiting for House in the gathering dusk of a chilly New Jersey spring. He’d checked the address four times already, and was about to check it again.
He was going to get stood up by a dead man.
He was dreaming. He would wake up, and it would be the morning of the funeral.
He was going to get hypothermia if he had to stay out here much longer.
Wilson pulled out the phone — not his phone — and checked the address again. Looked up at the facade in front of him to read the fading numbers. Again.
Froze.
House was leaning against the crumbling brick, looking at him.
It was House, unmistakably, although death seemed to have done him some good — his cane was nowhere to be seen, and his gait, when he started forward, was relaxed and even. Wilson frowned. Was he on something?
“Hi.” House’s familiar voice was strained with the effort of sounding casual.
“How…” Wilson shook his head in bemusement.
“I got out of the back of the building.”
“The body…”
“Just switched the dental records.” There was something unnerving in House’s expression. Gentle. Almost apologetic. Like Wilson was dying or something.
(He was dying.)
Wilson put the pieces together slowly, his mind still sluggish with surprise and residual grief. “You’re destroying your entire life,” he said, the situation coming into focus like cells on a slide. It looked terminal. “You… can’t go back from this. You’ll go to jail for years. You can never be a doctor again.”
House’s expression made clear the obvious — that he knew, that he understood the gravity of what he’d done. Then his eyes — had they always been so blue? — flicked up sharply to fix on Wilson’s face.
“I’m dead, Wilson,” he said flatly. “Only way I could make this work.”
He took another step closer, and the nagging sense of wrongness that had been itching in the back of Wilson’s mind kicked up a notch. Something was off about House, very off. Wilson closed the distance between them, heart sinking as he peered into House’s face. Up close, his friend looked worse than pale. Cyanotic.
Dead.
Wilson was going to wake up, and it would be the morning of the funeral.
He didn’t.
He felt cold, cold to his bones, but with the terrible certainty that, if he touched it, House’s bloodless skin would feel even colder. In a voice that barely rasped above a whisper, he asked, “What did you do?”
House’s discolored tongue flicked over his lips, almost like he was nervous. His eyes were still silently apologizing. Wilson hated it.
“A vampire owed me a favor.” House’s voice was barely louder than Wilson’s. “A big one. I cashed it in.”
“You — why? Why would you want that? House, you know that’s no kind of life. Narcotics would have been better. Hell, amputation would have been better. You’ll always be in hiding, no legal identity, no property. You’ll never see the sun again. Nutjobs on dirtbikes will hunt you for sport. You—” Wilson felt like crying. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
House frowned. “You think I did this to fix my leg?”
Hadn’t he? What other reason could he have to voluntarily undergo a painful, terrifying — No. No. He wouldn’t.
“A vampire’s blood can stop cancer in its tracks,” House said carefully, searching Wilson’s face. “Eliminate all symptoms, postpone death almost indefinitely, even cause full remission in some cases. And it’s painless.”
“No.”
“The research is conclusive—”
“The ‘research’ isn’t even widely recognized as real, and it was done by fucking Nazis .”
“But it was conclusive.”
“It was Nazis.”
“So they owe you one.”
“ No.”
“You’ve seen it work. I know you’ve had at least two patients who only pulled through because they managed to score a few doses.”
“God.” Wilson turned away, burying his face in one hand. “Yes. Sure. Two patients, maybe three. So you could reasonably assume that I already knew it was potentially an option, and chose not to pursue it.”
“You didn’t have any way to access a consistent, trustworthy supply. Now you do. That changes things.”
“No, House, it doesn’t. I’ve seen what that shit does to people. It hooks you instantly, screws with your head, squashes your free will like a bug… I couldn’t live like that.”
“You can’t live like this, either.”
Wilson rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I know. That’s why I’m dying.”
“You don’t have to, not anymore. The treatment is safe, totally free, not even a little bit uncomfortable, and all but guaranteed to keep you alive. It could cure you. ”
Wilson wasn’t sure how House was failing to see the problem here. He changed tack. “Would you do it? Sacrifice your mind? Surrender your free will to some vampire just so you could keep breathing a little longer? I may only have five months to live, but at least that life will be mine.”
House looked almost hurt. “It wouldn’t be ‘some vampire,’ it would be me. Do you think I’d abuse it or something?”
“Yeah, House, I think you might. I mean, if you had any respect at all for what I want, you would have at least run the whole vampire blood idea past me before you went and got yourself fucking exsanguinated.”
“You would have said no.”
“ That’s the point! You’ve already abused my trust, time and time again! I can’t even trust you with my fucking coffee. My mind? You’re insane.”
House shook his head. “No. If I’d asked you before getting turned, you would have refused for my sake. You wouldn’t ask me to do this for you, wouldn’t let me do this for you. Even if you were willing to try the treatment, you would have lied to keep me from doing it. That should be my choice, but you’d make it for me, wouldn’t you? You’ve never once hesitated to manipulate me, lie to me, cause me pain, when you thought it was for my own good. Am I wrong?”
Wilson sputtered a little, but couldn’t bring himself to meet his friend’s eyes.
“Well,” House went on, “Now you can’t do that. I’ve already made my choice. It’s done. There’s no way you can save me from myself. All you have to decide now is whether or not you want to live.”
Wilson stared at him. “Please tell me you didn’t gamble away your entire life just on the off chance that I might agree to this.”
Now it was House’s turn to look away, and his silence was a more damning confirmation than any words could have been. Wilson stood frozen, shocked and shaken, painfully re-evaluating his relationship with his enigmatic best friend. He’d always believed that House’s motives in their relationship were mostly selfish or pragmatic. Wilson was entertaining, tolerant, and rarely collected on his debts. House took, Wilson gave. House used, Wilson enabled. Wilson wasn’t so cynical as to assume that their friendship was entirely transactional, and he’d always believed that, in his way, House really cared, but this? How could you possibly distinguish between selfish and selfless love once that love had consumed someone entirely? Once they’d died for it?
Quietly, into the dragging silence, House said, “You don’t have to say yes.”
Wilson opened his mouth, but couldn’t speak. How was he supposed to refuse something that had come at such a cost? Above the distant rush of busy streets, a dog barked. The traffic lights at the end of the street cycled from yellow, to red, and back to green again.
House drew in a shaky breath. “Okay. Forget it. How do you want to spend your last five months?”
Wilson bowed his head at the resignation in House’s voice, his heart aching. His friend had wagered everything on one last, desperate hope, and now, having been denied that hope, he was offering Wilson the only thing he had left to give. He was giving up.
Wilson cleared his throat. “I do have a bucket list. I was thinking of doing a road trip, but the logistics might get a little tricky with the whole vampire thing.”
House shrugged. “We could travel at night. Or you could just stuff me in your trunk.”
Wilson snorted.
“What? I’ll be asleep. It’s not like I’m gonna die in there.”
“House, come on. That would be weird.”
“Hey, don’t kinkshame me. My desires are beautiful and empowering.”
“ House.”
House sighed. “Look, if you want a road trip, you’ll get one. We’ll figure it out.”
“You mean that?”
“Yeah. Car, or bikes?”
A cautious smile pulled improbably at the corner of Wilson’s mouth. What the hell. “Bikes.”
House’s answering grin would have been wicked even without the startling addition of some new and very sharp-looking teeth. “Awesome.”
The car ride to Wilson’s place was a quiet one. House stared out the window, and, out of the corner of his eye, Wilson watched the yellow glow of the streetlights slip over his face.
This was the difference, wasn’t it? Selfish love, truly selfish love, wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. Not that Wilson was entirely confident House wouldn’t slip him something once he got too sick to notice, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.
Wilson parked the car, and House moved to get out, but Wilson put out a hand to stop him. “House?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Road-tripping with a vampire took some getting used to, but once Wilson got into the swing of it, he found himself enjoying it more than he’d expected to. He and House would fire up the bikes at dusk and ride night-quiet roads under an endless expanse of stars. Dealing with hotels was a hassle, given the odd hours they had to keep, but Wilson developed a knack for estimating how far they’d get in a night, and he called ahead to make reservations. They would roll in well after midnight, and Wilson would pass out on what always felt like the world’s most comfortable mattress while House spent the small hours out and about doing vampire shit. Beyond confirming that no murder was involved, Wilson didn’t ask. House would creep back before dawn, slipping in so quietly that Wilson almost never caught him.
Wilson would wake around midday, hang the “Do Not Disturb” tag on the door, and leave House to his eerie daytime slumber. He spent the afternoons soaking up the sun, exploring, and visiting museums, nature trails, roadside attractions, botanical gardens, and any other place that struck his fancy. Sometimes something noteworthy would catch his eye — a factually inaccurate museum exhibit, maybe, or a particularly form-fitting blouse — and he would feel a twinge of regret that House wasn’t there to share the moment. On the upside, he got to do things that would have bored House to death — someone else’s death, probably — without weathering a hailstorm of complaints and embarrassing antics, so that was something.
Wilson always found himself smiling, though, when the shadows started to stretch long and it was time to go back for House. Sometimes they would just hit the road again if there was nothing worth hanging around for, but other times they ventured out into the electric-lit dusk of endless, restless cities. There was a kind of magic to it. Wilson had only ever been a casual enjoyer of nightlife, but House was an old hand, and he seemed determined to make up for costing Wilson so many precious daylight hours by giving him everything the nighttime had to offer. From strip clubs and nightclubs to concert halls and jazz bars, from the sleepless streets of coastal cities to the lit-up midways of midwestern county fairs, and all the way to the vast and timeless silence of the Grand Canyon under an astonishingly bright moon, they saw it all.
Wilson let himself get a little lost in it; chasing whims, dancing badly with friendly strangers, and forgetting the days of the week. He got pleasantly tipsy on a wide variety of girly drinks, secure in the knowledge that House had been rendered permanently stone-cold sober — a supernaturally designated driver. By the time they headed back to their hotel, if Wilson got the dosage right, he would be just drunk enough that he didn’t have to think about how much he enjoyed being pressed against his best friend’s back as he leaned into the turns.
They explored state parks that were technically closed, but not closed tightly enough to keep two dead men out. They made a grand tour of the nation’s 24-hour diners, Wilson becoming a true connoisseur of breakfast foods, House playing increasingly complex polyrhythms with cups and cutlery until their fellow diners went from stoically annoyed to grudgingly impressed. They saw fireworks. They were thrown out of the town of Normal, Illinois, and warned never to return. They rode roller-coasters, and an antique merry-go-round, and a mechanical bull at a roadside steakhouse that left Wilson laughing so hard he could barely breathe, and miles and miles and miles of starlit highway.
In the dewy grass of a quiet river town, at the edge of the halo of a lit-up bandshell, Wilson pulled House into a clumsy waltz and smiled until his face hurt, because why not? The music was bombastic, and the murmuring shadows of strangers sweetly surreal, and Wilson forgot that he was dying.
Wilson had a short list of people he wanted to visit — family, a few old friends, a former professor — and House seemed perfectly content to hide away in a hotel room watching soaps while Wilson tied up the last of his loose ends. Wilson told them all he was on sabbatical, traveling alone. The secret of House — legally dead, almost alive, and known only to Wilson — was so dark, strange, and hard to keep that Wilson barely thought about his other secret at all.
The months slipped by like water, blending together, shimmering, beautiful. Moving far too fast.
Wilson had gotten pretty good at ignoring the painful squeeze in his chest, the soreness in his throat when he tried to swallow, and even the lingering cough. It was all getting worse, but slowly, slowly enough that he could almost pretend it wasn’t. It was the fatigue he finally had to admit to. Riding a motorcycle at night was already dangerous enough. Doing it with a foggy mind and drooping eyelids was just plain stupid. He made his confession to House, hating every word, and House stared off at the horizon and said nothing. The bikes were gone the next morning, replaced by a sporty sedan.
The car made things easier for a while, because Wilson could nod off while House drove. They talked, and then House did most of the talking because Wilson’s throat was too sore, and then they just listened to the radio. The pain got steadily worse, but it didn’t do much to slow down the passing of time, which Wilson thought was deeply unfair. House broke out his stash of Vicodin, and Wilson took it gratefully. It gave him several more genuinely good days, and he felt a little bad for giving House so much shit about it. The pain/no pain equation seemed a lot simpler from this side.
The first time House sang Wilson to sleep, voice low, eyes fixed on the road, Wilson knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he really was dying. It would be soon, and House knew it too. Wilson slipped a hand into House’s and gripped it tight. The cool skin was masked by a leather driving glove, and the grip was firm and comforting. Wilson ignored the prickle in his eyes, and focused on the sound of his best friend’s voice.
They pulled into their motel in the small hours, and House handled check-in and unloaded their luggage while Wilson dozed in the passenger seat. Then House came to fetch him, and helped him up, and they made their way slowly through the familiar, liminal gloom of a parking lot at three A.M.
The cold, dry air of the motel room set off a coughing fit the minute Wilson inhaled. It hurt — fuck, it hurt — and he couldn’t force himself to stop. By the time he got a handle on it his head was spinning, his legs felt like Jell-O, and there was a splatter of crimson smeared across his forearm and the back of his hand. He looked up apologetically at House, whose face was frozen in an expression of muted anguish. Wilson huffed a weak little laugh, and held out his bloodied arm. “Want it?”
He’d meant it as a joke, mostly, but House was across the room in an eyeblink. He took Wilson’s hand, gently, so gently, and brought it up to his mouth as if he meant to kiss it. Then his cool tongue was running over Wilson’s skin. Wilson shivered, but didn’t pull away. House cleaned the blood from his hand, then worked his way up his arm, chasing down every fleck and smear. Then he pulled Wilson close, slipping a cool hand around the back of his neck.
For a moment, Wilson thought that this was how he would die — gripped tight in House’s arms, with those terrible teeth buried deep in his neck, bleeding out into his friend’s mouth. It was almost a relief. It would be quick, much quicker than the cancer, and House would be right there. House would be holding him.
But House didn’t bite. He only leaned down to lick the blood from Wilson’s chin, from his lips. Wilson gasped and let his mouth fall open, in surprise or invitation. House’s tongue played against Wilson’s teeth, ran over his tongue, seeking out every trace of blood, and then it was just a kiss. House was kissing him. House was kissing him.
Wilson didn’t mind it, actually. He hummed softly and pulled House closer, pressing hard against him and slipping a hand into his hair. House kissed him carefully, delicately, very mindful of the risk posed by the sharp new teeth, but Wilson could feel the passion in the grip of his hands and the shuddering of his breath.
Time slowed, finally, after months of rushing past like it was late to catch a flight, and Wilson kissed House — he was kissing House! — to his heart’s content. House’s fingers were in his hair, tracing the contours of his face, running over his back. When they broke the kiss at last, House laid his fingers lightly against Wilson’s lips. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing like he actually needed the oxygen. Wilson watched him, still close enough to feel the brush of his breath. His chest was full of butterflies — they were practically crowding out the cancer. He almost laughed. There was a wonderful, terrifying, slow realization dawning in his mind. Somewhere between leaving Princeton and arriving at this moment, he’d made his choice.
He was going to live.
In a voice that was now doubly hoarse, he said, “House.”
House’s eyes met his, heart-stoppingly blue. Wilson loved him. Had always loved him.
“I’ll do it.” Wilson swallowed, suddenly nervous. “I’ll…try the blood thing. If the offer still stands.”
House’s eyes were wide, but Wilson couldn’t read his expression. Hopeful, maybe? Afraid? He pulled Wilson across to the nearest bed and sat him down without a word, still gazing at his face like it was the mother of all puzzles. At last he said, “You sure?”
Wilson tried to take a deep breath, failed, coughed, winced, and met House’s eyes. “Yeah. Save me.”
Slowly, like he didn’t quite believe this was happening, House raised a hand to pierce the pad of his thumb with one sharp tooth. Gently, almost reverently, he slipped the injured digit into Wilson’s mouth, brushing the bleeding wound over his tongue.
Wilson had expected the blood to taste like, well, blood, and it did, more or less, but the taste was almost entirely overshadowed by sensation. It burned like hard liquor and tingled like licking a battery, and it sent a startling jolt through his whole body. His mouth watered. He swallowed, cautiously, and felt another little shock, along with a radiant warmth that spread out from his throat and filled his chest. It felt…nice, actually. Good. Wilson sucked gently at House’s thumb, and was rewarded with another sparking shock, another bloom of heat. The pain in his chest and throat were all but gone, and even breathing felt easier. The sensation moving through his veins was as pleasant as sunshine, as vital as oxygen, and as inexorable as morphine.
The pure need uncoiling from Wilson’s core overwhelmed him so suddenly and completely, he didn’t even have time to register surprise. He clung to House’s hand and sucked hard, moaning in desperate ecstasy as the blood trickled into his mouth, too slow, too slow. He needed more, needed it like a drowning man needs air, but it wouldn’t come fast enough. He sucked, and whined in frustration, and worried thoughtlessly at the little wound with his teeth. He heard House’s sharp hiss of pain, but he couldn’t remember how to stop, and House didn’t push him off. The blood was flowing a little faster now, but only a little. Wilson bit down harder. The hand jerked in his grip.
“Ow! Wilson, cut it out. Stop that.”
Wilson stopped biting and moaned wretchedly.
House sighed. “You’re okay. I’ll open a vein for you, but I need you to let go for a minute.”
Wilson couldn’t do it.
“Wilson. Let go. ”
Wilson’s hands released seemingly of their own accord, and House reclaimed his thumb, pinching a finger against the pad to stop the bleeding. Wilson’s fingers twitched, fighting the urge to snatch the hand back, and he whined.
“Stay put.” House walked away from the bed, and Wilson almost cried. He’d never needed anything this much in his life, and it was getting away from him, and he couldn’t go after it. Then House was back, grabbing Wilson by the front of his jacket and hauling him bodily back onto the bed until he was lying propped up against the pillows. Wilson didn’t even realize he’d been begging until House shushed him gently. Biting his lip, Wilson watched as House pulled a small folding knife from his pocket and flicked it open. House cut into his own wrist with surgical precision, going deep, angling the incision to ensure heavy bleeding. Then, quickly, he pressed the wound to Wilson’s waiting mouth.
And at last, at last the blood was flowing freely. The sheer relief of it wiped Wilson’s mind clean. He clung to his friend’s arm like a lifeline, losing himself to the miracle of House’s blood flowing into him, House’s skin against his lips, House’s steady strength at his side. House’s other hand was in Wilson’s hair, brushing it back from his face, combing through it soothingly, and Wilson had never felt anything, anything , even remotely close to this.
House let Wilson drink until the desperation eased and fell away, leaving only gentle pleasure in its wake. The flow of blood slowed to a sluggish trickle. House healed fast these days, and Wilson could feel the gash closing under his tongue. He licked at it languidly as the dribble became a drip, then stopped altogether. When Wilson could feel only smooth skin against his mouth, he relaxed back onto the pillows and opened his eyes, searching for House’s face.
Wilson’s body was so heavy and saturated with ecstasy, he felt almost paralyzed by it. He gazed up into House’s eyes, his mind blissfully empty of everything except a vague longing to stay here, just like this, until the earth fell into the sun. House seemed content to sit with him in silence, and for a while there was nothing else in the universe.
The physical mechanics of the solar system were not beholden to Wilson’s heart, however, and eventually the gray light of predawn began to creep through the gap in the curtains. House rose and carefully covered the window. Then he gently stripped Wilson to his boxers and t-shirt, tossing his sweatpants carelessly onto a chair, and got him settled under the blankets. He made a move to retreat to the other bed, but Wilson caught his arm on a reflex and, after a moment’s hesitation, House slipped under the blankets with him. His arm draped around Wilson’s waist, and Wilson nestled close against him and closed his eyes, perfectly at peace.