This game will be resuming on the weekend. Sorry for the sudden hiatus. But yaaay, back to House/Cuddy/Wilson action! :D

Well, House wasn't going to have a bar of this.

After arriving home from Cuddy's place, he was unable to shake the evening from his mind or the way in which Wilson and Cuddy had reacted to him showing up. He'd been geared up for confrontation, for Wilson and Cuddy to be angered or upset or humiliated, something that spurred them into outrage at him crashing their date. And it was a date, as far as he was concerned. This whole 'friendship' thing might've been friendship for now but he really didn't like the way Wilson and Cuddy both wanted to continue pursuing this friendship of theirs. He didn't like being left out, or left behind, or potentially forgotten about. He really didn't like the idea that they'd possibly end up considering each other as more important than they considered him. And their virtual non-reaction to him showing up left him unnerved for that very reason.

Thus, the wheels had to be set in motion for reactivity. If Wilson and Cuddy weren't going to react to him gatecrashing their date, then he had to find another way to get their attention and make sure it stayed on him. He busied himself with coming up with a different kind of intervention - one both Wilson and Cuddy couldn't ignore, no matter what. He decided the best way to intervene would be when they weren't there; on Sunday evening, when he knew neither Wilson nor Cuddy would be at work, he let himself into Cuddy's office and spent an hour rigging her desk up. With a piece of very fine fishing line, he strung everything together on her desk - her stapler, pen retainer, photo frame, paperclip container, even her desk blotter. Once he'd connected everything together, he stood up, pushed her chair in and carefully tied the string to the chair so that when she arrived at work the next day, everything would drag across the desk and crash to the floor at once the moment she pulled her chair out.

To be extra annoying, he produced a bottle of clear nail polish from his coat pocket that he'd purchased from a corner store on the way to the hospital, and carefully painted the tips of all her pens and pencils with it so that when she tried to write with them, they wouldn't work.

Then he went up to Wilson's office. He glued all the pen lids onto the pens in his pen holder with superglue, which he'd purchased with the nail polish. He then set to work on Wilson's chair, crouching underneath it to depress the lever that controlled the chair height. With a piece of string, he tied the lever so it was firmly wedged in place, so that every time Wilson sat on it the chair would immediately sink down low and then pop back up to full height when he stood up. As a final touch, he smeared the underside of Wilson's office door handle with petroleum jelly (also purchased from the corner store).

Satisfied those things would at the very least piss Cuddy and Wilson right off for their sheer inconvenience, he went home, pleased with him. And when he returned to work the next morning (late, of course - it was past 10am by the time he'd rolled into the hospital parking lot on his bike), he walked through the lobby and rode the elevator to the fourth floor with a small, smug smile on his face.

Cuddy stood in front of her mirror, mouth twisted as she critiqued her appearance. Wilson hadn't given her any specifics on the expected dress for the jazz festival but most campus events tended more to the casual side. Actually, on campus it was likely clothing styles would run the gamut from formal to ultra-casual. She decided to shoot for somewhere in the middle. She had to dress up for work--although she admittedly had her own definition of business style--and she had to dress up for hospital associated functions and she had to dress up for the occasional blind date. She kind of liked the idea of dressing down a touch to hang out with a friend. It would be a nice change of pace.

Actually, both previous outings with Wilson had been a nice change of pace. It wasn't that she never attended cultural events before. It was that she was spending time with Wilson in a way she never had before. She'd known him for years, of course, but so much of the way they related to each other had always been determined by their relationships to House. She felt like she was just getting to know Wilson in a way--the Wilson who wasn't part of House's tilted orbit. It was nice. Wilson was nice. She enjoyed having him as a friend.

If he was nothing more than a friend, though, she really shouldn't be spending so much time worrying about how she looked. She always liked to look nice but she'd chosen clothes that had some sex appeal as well. Snug black slacks, a hot pink silk blouse and a cropped black leather jacket were definitely on the sexy side. And the high heels, naturally--she never went anywhere without those. The outfit was sexy without being too revealing. But...maybe too sexy? If Wilson was just a friend, should she maybe dial the sexy down a notch? Demure wasn't really her style but she worried she might be sending the wrong signal by wearing an outfit that was, well, kind of hot.

She shook her head and opened her jewelry box to find a pair of earrings. No, she wasn't sending any signal at all. She always liked to look sexy and there was no reason to change, not when Wilson was accustomed to the way she dressed. Besides, he wouldn't be looking for the wrong signal because he wasn't looking for anything more than friendship.

And she was out of time to fuss about it anyway. As she fastened a dangly silver earring to her left ear, there was a firm knock at her front door. She shouted that she was coming and quickly fastened the other earring before grabbing her purse and heading down the hall. She opened the door for Wilson, still juggling her purse as she tried to slip on a bracelet.

"Hey," she said with a big smile. "Sorry you had to wait but...." She gestured at herself to indicate the way she was still putting on the finishing touches. "You know how it is--can't leave the house without my jewelry."

Growing up, Wilson had idolized the idea of an iconic "male friendship." The kind of kinship bond you saw in archival footage or in historical anecdotes: two guys with their arms slung around each other's shoulders, smiles crooked, wearing matching regatta pins on their jackets. The kind of friend whom you'd have quiet conference with in the smoking lounge after dinner, or who would second you in a duel if you turned chicken. Wilson grew increasingly obsessed with the notion of finding that One True Friend as he nurtured a somewhat painful adolescence in smalltown Connecticut. His older brother had heaps of friends; his younger brother was too young to understand what friendship was and could mean. So Wilson took it upon himself to find that one true friend -- his Byronic counterpart -- that would balance both sides and, he thought, stand as the truest, most laudable example of male friendship.

House wasn't exactly Lord Byron. He was more Traci Lords -- without the film career.

Wilson woke early the day after his "date" with Cuddy. By the light of day, Tuesday night's "disaster" seemed more tame and Wilson could look at himself in the mirror without seeing a whole hanging gallery (literal and metaphorical) in the reflection behind him. He'd called Bonnie when he'd gotten home and received an earful. Apparently, she had taken House to Trenton to look a couple of high-end condos. "He said he had to 'strike while the iron is hot'," Bonnie had told him. Yeah, I'll bet.

"Well, is he buying a condo or not?"

"Oh, I don't know. He said he wanted some time to think about it but, you know, I really feel like I have him on the ropes with this one, James. He was totally into the experience. I don't think I've ever heard him ask so many questions before. I think I hit this one out of the park."

"He wasn't buying. He was fishing."

"Fishing?" A pause. "For what? Something in a better school district?" Bonnie's congenial tone had turned snappish and cold. Wilson felt his stomach turn over itself in a wet, oily slick.

"Nevermind. Let's talk about the dog."

When he arrived at work, he had tried paging House but gotten no response. He knew that his friend's brain was wrapped around the case of the rapidly declining conwoman; he'd seen House and his team in conference several times over the last week, filling the whiteboard with knots of symptoms, battling the gravity of a grim diagnosis. When he finally caught up to him, House was sitting in the chair behind his desk, rolling an oversized tennis ball between his oversized hands. His collar was wilted. He might have slept in the same clothes he had been wearing yesterday.

"You know," he said, entering the sanctum sanctorum, hands on his hips, "I hear King David actually went condo shopping with Bathsheba right before he moved her husband to the front of the battle. She was going to show him something in Canaan, but they were having a problem with plagues at the time and the goats kept eating their leases."

He raised both eyebrows. "What's going on?"

Cuddy found herself breaking into a smile again as she and Wilson entered into the little cafe just down the street from the art gallery. She'd been smiling all evening, ever since they'd walked through the door of the gallery to find...something she certainly hadn't expected on a date. Not that it was a date, of course, but even on a non-date, it wasn't something she'd expected from Wilson. House, maybe, but Wilson had always struck her as being a little less adventurous. A little less kinky.

Admittedly a few of the photographs had replaced her smile with a look of confusion or utter disbelief, because seriously--there was no way some of that stuff didn't cause some serious pain. The concept of actual pain being erotic escaped her. She simply couldn't wrap her mind around it. It was fascinating in a train wreck kind of way--she found it disturbing but couldn't take her eyes off of it. On an artistic level, the photos had been well composed and really quite striking. It was the subject material that left her figuratively scratching her head.

Fortunately, she wasn't easily embarassed. Wilson had been, though. She'd never seen him so flustered. It was cute. He was always so calm and collected, it was a revelation to see him so completely at a loss. It was reassuring in a way. She was used to feeling somewhat awkward on a date--or non-date--but Wilson always seemed so confident. It was nice to know he wasn't quite the smooth ladies' man he was reported to be. 

They took a seat at a small table near the front window of the cafe. Cuddy ordered herself a cup of hot tea. She would've liked a nice, hot cappuccino but she didn't need the jolt of caffeine at this hour. She wouldn't be able to get to sleep for hours if she did, and the last thing she wanted was anyone--especially House--commenting on how tired she looked at work the next day. Tea would do her just fine.

"So...." She grinned again, looking across the table at Wilson. "Do you think anyone actually buys those pictures? And if they do, do they actually display them in their homes?"