The Marrying Kind

House was awake, which sucked, and his back was abruptly freezing cold and he realized his human blanket was doing something terrible like leaving him.

“Nooo…” he complained, reaching out. Then the screeching noise that had been hammering at his skull stopped, and he forgave Blanket. Blanket was ending the noise, Blanket was House’s friend again.

Wilson wrapped back around House, but just as House was about to slip once more into unconsciousness, gave him a sharp jiggle. “Up and at ‘em, House.”

“Nrrsk.” (No thanks!)

“C’mon, baby. It’s our wedding day!”

Well, that woke House the fuck up.

“Huh?”

“Our wedding day,” Wilson repeated, kissing House’s ear.

“Schmedding,” House mumbled, “Can’t be. Not day. Still dark outside,” he pointed at the window, feeling this should be self-explanatory.

“Yes. That’s what it’s like at 4 AM.”

“Four—?” House’s horror wasn’t manufactured. “This is not a time that decent, god-fearing people are awake.”

“Good thing neither of us fit in that category then. Because getting up early is a requirement to pull off miracles.” Wilson, using his position wrapped around House’s back and chest, heaved upward so they were both nearly upright. “For instance, you and I are getting up early to go remake my fake wedding to Julie into a real wedding to you!”

House turned a harsh if bleary glare on him. “You’re using a lot of verbal exclamation points right now. If this marriage is gonna last, you’re gonna have to moderate your jubilation.”

“Sure, I’ll work on being less happy and you can work on being more happy. It’ll all even out.”

Wilson made to leave the bed and cruelly abandon his fiancé to a cold mattress but suddenly gripped House’s arm as if to stall him, like House had any intention of actually going anywhere. “Wait. I think…yeah, I have to blow you first.”

“Have to?”

“Well, if you don’t want—”

“I’m just hassling you,” House spread his legs and started pushing Wilson downward, “gonna have to get used to that too if you still wanna go through with this wedding thing.”

Wilson hummed contentedly as he went down on House and brought him off with impressive speed.

He wiped his mouth efficiently on the back of his hand and House swiped a drip from the corner of Wilson’s lip and brought it to his own tongue. Wilson’s eyes darkened.

“You know the drill,” House slid back down, horizontal and mouth ready, “I like to take it on my back.”

Wilson clambered eagerly up to frame House’s face with his thighs and slide between his lips, already hard and aching. House closed his eyes and decided being on one’s knees was seriously overrated when you could just lie back and get filled with zero effort on your own part.

Wilson picked up the pace and his balls slapped House’s chin and House’s spent cock gave a heroic twitch.

It’s four AM and I’ve got Wilson’s dick in my mouth, he thought. My boyfriend—my fiancé’s dick. Very-soon-to-be-future husband. House was surprised but pleased to find that the molten panic at the thought was mostly outweighed by a sort of catastrophic joy.

He kneaded Wilson’s ass, pulling him in deeper, sucking and swallowing in short order as Wilson lost himself in the rhythm of House’s lips and tongue.

Wilson collapsed against the headboard as House rubbed his jaw with a pleased, smug grin. “Sure you don’t wanna give this wedding schtick a pass and just stay here? I’m sure there are clean sheets somewhere, we can fuck until our dicks fall off.”

“As tempting as you make that offer sound…” Wilson tweaked House’s nose and got up heavily, stretching and wincing from last night’s leftover soreness. “Separate showers!” he shouted over his shoulder, collecting his wrinkled, abandoned clothes. He pointed at House’s pout, “No more funny business until we’re married.”

“Are you serious?” House followed, eyes bugging out.

“The ceremony is in less than twelve hours, you can handle the strain.”

“Are you concerned about your purity all of a sudden? Because I would remind you of four seconds ago when you were fucking my face. I think that ship has sailed.”

“Nope,” Wilson turned around just inside the bathroom to swing the door almost-shut, “I just want you to be really desperate when I get you in bed tonight. In Providenciales, in our private honeymoon villa.” He closed the door on House’s dangling jaw.

After (tragically) solo showers, Wilson scrambled them some eggs and sausage (House made filthy moans around that “good firm meat” and Wilson glared at him while gripping his fork intensely). They got fully dressed, and each time House’s left hand flashed back into visibility he was startled by the glint of gold there. Part of him stubbornly refused to believe this was really happening, but a more significant percentage was starting to enjoy the realization that they were about to kick off a whole wild sequence of inconvenient dominoes—this wedding might be a disaster, but it certainly wouldn’t be boring.

“I haven’t been to a wedding since…” House wracked his memory, “I dunno, but before the business.” Wilson’s eyebrows popped up and House added, “You know I don’t go to any of the weddings I plan.”

“But what about friends, family…?”

“Not a lot of those around these days. And even the ones who’d consider inviting me despite my exuberant personality get nervous inviting a professional to their shindig. They think I’d be critiquing their show the whole time.”

“Which you would,” Wilson said, tying his shoe.

“Which I would,” House agreed, selecting his dress cane from the closet. “After all, I literally wrote the book on—” He froze, cane clattering to the ground. “Oh my god, the worksheet. The fucking worksheet.”

“House—”

“—I cannot get married without going over my own goddamn Pre-Nup worksheet.”

House tried for a lopsided sprint to his home desk but Wilson caught him, calm as a lake on a summer’s day. Clearly, he’d been expecting a meltdown, perhaps even this specific meltdown. “House, you’ve planned three of my weddings, including this one. We’ve gone over the worksheet together before.”

“Yeah,” House hoped he hadn’t visibly paled in gut-twisting regret, “And I remember your answer to the first question every time.”

“I would like kids,” Wilson rubbed calming hands along House’s arms, “but I don’t think my life would be incomplete without them. If you never want them, that’s fine. I’d much rather have the reality of you than the idea of a potential child.”

“What about the rest?” House pressed, even as the drowning knell of panic retreated. “Careers, retirement, pets, dreams…”

Wilson listed them off in prepared order: “I don’t see either of us wanting to leave Jersey anytime soon, but if you wanted to go then I could and would follow you. All I care about regarding retirement is that we can—which does mean I’m going to introduce you to the concept of a budget. If you want to spend our twilight years right here or on the Riviera or the moon, it makes no difference to me. I would like to get a cat again and someday I will wear you down enough that you’ll let me. And I don’t have any all-consuming dreams like traveling the world or hiking Everest. The only dream I give a damn about…” Wilson cupped House’s face in his hands, “is marrying you.”

House screwed up his expression in pretend disgust, “You are so mushy.”

“Is that a dealbreaker for you?” Wilson teased.

“Absolutely. It’s all off unless you up your cynicism quotient by at least ten percent.”

Wilson leaned in and nipped gently at House’s bottom lip, soothing it with a flash of tongue. “How’s that for a counter offer?”

“…Sold.”

They drove over to Stacy and Cuddy’s house as dawn broke. Wilson was whistling a jaunty tune while House was still coming down from his anxiety attack and checking periodically that reality still showed no signs of being a hallucination, delusion, or simulation.

Parking at the curb, Wilson crept along the sidewalk in deference to the early hour. House stamped his way up without a care in the world. He knocked with the flat of his fist on the door, great booming blows that made Wilson wince.

“Don’t you have a key to their place?”

“Nope. I keep making copies and they keep confiscating them. And every time I locate the hide-a-key they stash it somewhere else. It’s almost like they don’t want me in their home.” House pounded on the door again until it flew open to reveal Stacy, clad in red-and-green plaid button-down pajamas and squinting at House like he was a beetle she was about to grind beneath her heel.

He watched with great amusement as she reeled in her rage, tucking it away with a swallow, and said in steely tones, “House. I believe the rule is: once we kick you out, there is a twelve hour window before you’re allowed to darken our doorstep again.” Her gaze darted to Wilson and narrowed even further.

“Ah, yes, but this is a special circumstance.” House bounced on the balls of his feet.

“Oh, really?” Cuddy inched up behind Stacy, propping her chin on her wife’s shoulder and spearing Wilson with a glare all to himself. “Is the circumstance that we’re going to remove all your internal organs in alphabetical order? Don’t think you’re exempt, Wilson, I don’t care that you’re getting married today.”

“Yes, um, about that,” Wilson stepped forward. Where House was increasingly gleeful at the prospect of dropping their bomb, Wilson seemed to be contracting House’s earlier rattled nerves. “The thing is…”

He glanced to House for support and House threw an exuberant arm around his shoulders and crowed at the top of his lungs, “We are getting married!”

Stacy and Cuddy blinked at them. Then Cuddy grumbled, “I’m going back to bed.”

“No, Lisa,” Wilson rushed to explain, “He’s being serious. Look,” he grabbed House left hand, draped over his shoulder, and held out the be-ringed digit. “He said yes. Took the ring and everything. House and I are getting married.” The glee from last night slipped back into his tone and House was surprised he didn’t start vibrating on the spot.

“Greg…” Stacy stared him down, mouth a thin line, “I don’t know why you would think this is funny—”

“—it’s not,” House cut her off, “It’s not funny at all. You think I’d kid about something as fucking horrifying as getting married? Me getting married?”

“Thanks,” Wilson inserted.

“It’s not a joke. It is insane, I can’t argue with that, but it’s happening. Wilson faked this whole wedding-to-Julie thing—” Wilson winced and grimaced as Stacy turned her incredulous gaze on him, “—just to get closer to me, me, me.” House kissed Wilson’s forehead in time with his pleasantly selfish exclamations.

Wilson picked up the thread, “And so, we have a perfectly good wedding and a perfectly good engagement and it seems a pity to waste the opportunity to combine the two.”

Cuddy’s shock fractured and she reached out to clutch House’s arm, “Oh my god. This is all my fault.” He looked questioningly at her and she cried, “I introduced you two. This wouldn’t be happening if I hadn’t brought Wilson to that bar eight years ago!”

“You’re right,” House realized, “This is all your fault.”

“Fault?” Wilson repeated patiently, “Aren’t we being a little melodramatic?”

“Again, melodrama comes with the til-death territory,” House reminded him, “get used to it.”

Cuddy clutched violently at her bedhead, “Is he—I mean—are you alright, House?”

“Nope! Thanks for asking.”

“Seriously, did he finally fucking snap? Are you being forced to do this? Blink SOS if you need me to—to anesthetize Wilson!”

House blinked wildly and Wilson snorted in his I’m-not-amused-ok-maybe-a-little way. “Given my track record, and the fact that we just woke you up at 5 AM, I’m not going to be insulted by that. And I’m not saying House didn’t take some convincing—”

“—all night if you know what I mean—” House winked hugely.

“—but he did agree of his own free will. And personally, I’m not looking this gift horse in the mouth. Not when there are much better things to do with your mouth,” Wilson added the pro forma innuendo with a quick kiss.

Silence ensued. Stacy broke it with a small scream, quickly clapping her hands over her mouth. “You two are…getting married.”

“Yes,” Wilson nodded.

“You’re getting really, actually, married.”

“For realzies, no take-backs,” House confirmed. “Pigs are flying, hell’s freezing, call in your bets for judgement day because I…am getting married.” The phrase still tasted alien, but in a way he thought he could grow to enjoy.

“You don’t—I mean, it’s amazing that you two have finally figured your shit out and gotten together. Seriously, I cannot tell you how happy I am for both of you.”

“And happy for us,” Cuddy added, still wavering in a shell-shocked kind of way, “I mean, surely a married House will be too busy to sustain his full-time moping-on-our-couch commitment.”

“But…you don’t have to get married today,” Stacy pointed out. “I know you’ve sunk a fair bit of capital into this event, but it is possible to reschedule. Give us time to, you know, take Julie’s name off of everything.”

“It’s not about the money,” Wilson shook his head, “among other concerns, there’s no guarantee that having convinced House to do this once, now, today, that I’ll ever get him to agree again.”

House nodded happily. “That’s true.”

“Besides, we did plan this wedding together. House may not have known he was planning it for us, but still…”

“Oh,” Stacy held her hands out in front of her like she’d lost her balance, “A whole bunch of things just made a lot more sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Cuddy replied tightly, “what about this makes sense?”

“Well, like why a woman with a 24 inch waist would put a deep fat fryer on her gift registry.”

“I’ve always wanted one of—” House trailed off and stared at Wilson, who shrugged modestly.

“And it’s why you were so cagey about the guest list, and…” Stacy blanched, “Oh my god, this is why you had me invite House’s mother.”

“What?!”

“He said it was such a shame she never gets to see her son’s work!” She slapped Wilson’s arm as she explained to House, “You know what James is like, when he says things they make sense.”

House’s grip on his cane went slick with sweat but Wilson answered the fear on his lips before he spoke it.

“Just your mom,” he promised, then more quietly, “I knew you’d want her here, but I’d never subject you to your father on our wedding day.”

“Hold on a moment,” House raised a finger to the married women, then grabbed Wilson by the shirtfront and kissed him ferociously.

“Wait, wait,” Cuddy tried to break in with a measure of common sense, “Have we just…moved past how deranged this all is? I, personally, wouldn’t mind another few minutes of freaking out about the general derangement.”

“Neither would I,” Stacy agreed, stepping back inside to grab a nearby plant mister and then give the lusty couple a few good spritzes. “This is deranged. Even for you, Greg. It’s missing the whole point of a wedding! You’re just going to have a bunch of baffled guests and inaccurate signage. You don’t have a license—not that the state of New Jersey would give people like us one—and you don’t have any other official paperwork either, like a health care directive or financial combination agreement. This isn’t a marriage, it’s…it’s an insane stunt!”

A wolfish grin stretched House’s mouth and Stacy realized, “And that… is the point. You could only ever want a marriage that wasn’t a marriage.”

“It’s still a marriage,” House insisted, “He’s gonna hang a sign around my neck that says ‘If lost, return to James Wilson’ and everything.”

“And I’m going to have a matching ‘Property of Greg House’ one, taped just below the requisite ‘kick me’ sign.”

House gazed at him with adoration, “You really are the only one for me.”

“Hey!” Stacy stuck index and pinkie finger in her mouth and whistled sharply, “Let me get this straight. We now have less than twelve hours to turn this nice, normal, well-planned ceremony upside down and transform it into the House and Wilson wedding?”

“Correct.”

Stacy did a yoga-style deep inhale and exhale. “Alright. Lisa,” she put her arm around her wife’s waist, “I always said this day would come.”

“You always said Wilson would lasso House into a surprise wedding?”

“Oh, hell no. I’m still not sure this isn’t all a messed-up nightmare. I meant that I’m going to have to deputize you into a sudden wedding planner apprenticeship.”

Cuddy smiled grimly, “Great. The dean of medicine hanging flower garlands. Not like I had anything else to do today.”

“Sorry, honey,” Stacy gave her a squeeze, “Hanging garlands is way above your pay grade. You’ll be a floral assistant’s gofer, at best.”

Cuddy pointed a sharp fingernail at Wilson, “When you get back from your honeymoon—assuming you survive, which is not a given with House—you owe me big time. And that won’t even compare to what you owe my wife.”

“Noted,” Wilson clasped his hands in front of him as if in prayer, waiting for the official send off.

“Alright,” Stacy snapped into action, “Lisa and I are gonna go put on our grown-up daytime clothes and you two are gonna head over to the venue. Find a janitor to let you in or break a window, I don’t care, and start going through all the signs and paper materials. See how many different ways we’re gonna have to tell people who’re expecting a beautiful bride that they’re getting a lunatic second groom instead. Then we’ll make a proper update for the day of to-do list once we get there.”

House sprang into a salute, “Yes, ma’am!”

It turned out Wilson had been thorough in his devious secret-real-wedding-underneath-the-fake-wedding planning. Relatively little bore the specific nomenclature of “James & Julie,” from the name-and-statuette-free donut tower that would be arriving for the reception to the gleaming white tent being set up in the gorgeously landscaped gardens of the event center.

“What about the invites?” House mused as he viciously scratched out Julie’s name on the cardboard ‘Wedding This Way’ venue direction sign, “Didn’t anybody question that the bride-to-be disappeared from your life right around the time of the engagement? And now that I’m saying that out loud, I’m wondering if Julie’s actually buried in shallow grave out back.”

“Please, I’m a doctor, I could get rid of a body way more effectively than that,” Wilson sniffed. “And fortunately, once we broke up, Julie and I’s social circles didn’t really overlap. No one on my side to know that her side was no longer part of the equation.”

“Yeah, good thing. Otherwise she might have heard you arranged a fake wedding using her name. Some people might be bothered by that.”

“Not you, though,” Wilson leaned in and started kissing House’s neck, “you think it’s sexy.”

House was very ready to defile that event center storage closet, but Stacy burst in with a clipboard in her hand and a curse on her lips. “Zip up, boys! Let’s get this shitshow on the road.”

Wilson and House’s tuxes had been safely stored offsite and brought in by Stacy’s crew once the venue opened properly (House had wiggled every doorknob at the center until he found one that gave and then waved his cane pathetically when a frightened night guard caught them rummaging around the prep rooms). The reception would go forward as planned, the flowers were on their way, the DJ hadn’t come down with a sudden fit of gout or anything—as far as House could tell, this wedding would run itself. He said as much to Stacy and she backhanded the balloon he was toying with so hard it popped.

As noon came and went, House’s complaints for food escalated in both volume and intensity of promised violence. “You’re starving your future husband, you know. There has to be something about that being illegal in the vows.”

“You’re confusing matrimony with the Geneva convention,” Wilson replied lightly.

“We passed a Wendy’s on our way here. It would take me like two minutes to drive there and curly fry us all up.” He tried to make his dreams a reality, but Wilson caught him by the elbow and reeled him back in.

“Oh, I’m not letting you off the grounds. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

House thinned his lips and narrowed his eyes. “What, you think I’ll just run away and never come back?”

“Yes.”

“Good call,” House admitted, grudgingly proud.

“Anyway, this is what assistants were made for.” Wilson flagged Cuddy down and she turned a gimlet eye on him that produced a prey-like freeze. “Um, Lisa—Doctor Cuddy—do you think you could possibly, uh, make a food run? Otherwise I think House is gonna start eating the flowers. Or the florists. He already mowed through the decorative mints.”

“But on the upside, my breath is ever so fresh,” House exhaled dramatically.

“You know what, I’d love to,” Cuddy replied tersely, “anything that’s not helping untangle fairy lights would be so fucking welcome right now.” House was surprised her spike heel didn’t grind up dust as she turned on it and shouted over her shoulder, “We’re getting Greek and you’ll all fucking enjoy it.”

House did enjoy his falafel balls (“the humorous potential alone,” he enthused, spilling tzatziki sauce everywhere and making Wilson very grateful they were still in street clothes) and he became much easier to corral once given something to chew on.

Wilson cleaned up their lunch garbage and en route from the trash got suckered into helping a venue worker wrestle the big white tablecloths into position, leaving House to observe the action. He watched Wilson swamped in about a dozen yards of cotton blend and laughed, he watched Cuddy shout down a caterer regarding something to do with the quantity of silverware and laughed some more. He watched Stacy elegantly threaten to strangle an electrician until he agreed that yes, of course he could set up the outside sound system as promised, how silly he’d been to say otherwise—and House didn’t laugh.

It had been slowly eating at him all day. He had to talk to her.

“Stace?”

“No,” she told him simply, intending to walk off.

“Please,” he said, and she stopped short.

“Oh, god,” Stacy’s eyes bore into him, “you’re not trying to back out, are you?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Great. Then what the hell do you want from me right now? Because you can thank me later, if and when we pull this off.”

“I don’t want to thank you. Though, obviously, thank you. I just feel like I have to…” he rolled the word around his mouth a moment before spitting it out: “apologize.”

“For…this colossal fuck-up of a ceremony?”

“For having a ceremony at all. After I always told you…” House twirled his fingers outward, hoping it would encapsulate all their marriage-free years together and the unfamiliar guilt that was nosing its way up from his stomach to his heart.

“Oh.” Stacy frowned, paused, and held up a hand. “Okay. Give me a sec. Taking off the wedding planner hat, putting on the ex-girlfriend-and-current-best-friend chapeau.” She did an adorable little mime that made House crack a tiny grin. “Listen, Greg, I’m not sad about it. I’m not mad. I’m not jealous. Because Lisa isn’t a consolation prize for losing you. She’s my wife and I wouldn’t change that for the world. Even if you and I had stayed together and you’d eventually felt guilty enough to propose to me, it wouldn’t have been good for either of us. It wouldn’t be like today. I never imagined you could be happy heading up to the altar because you couldn’t have been when you were with me. That’s not who we were. You could only ever be happy doing this with him. And now, we both have what we need, and we still have each other to boot. That’s a pretty good deal.” She feinted as if to take his arms but reached around to grab his ass instead. She squeezed fondly. “For good luck.”

Then she stepped back and her expression regained its fierce tint, “Alright, that’s enough of that. Wedding planner role resumed. Get a move on, soldier.” She poked him in the gut with the sharp edge of her clipboard and strode away. He watched her march efficiently off with admiration and a contented feeling that had started settling in his chest the night previous, like a stray cat that’s got its claws in a cozy fireplace rug and has no intention of going anywhere.

About an hour before the ceremony was slated to begin, Stacy reappeared in House’s Allowed Area (a small patch of carpet delineated with tape inside of which he was meant to stay after the Folding Chairs and Candlewax Episode—don’t ask) with a row of young, nervous professionals following behind her like attentive ducklings. Wilson was sequestered down the hall with Cuddy going over the reception seating arrangements and he’d left House safely ensconced in his first and enjoyable duty of erasing Julie’s name wherever he found it and replacing it with his own.

At the moment, House was gleefully taking a thick black sharpie to the oversized “James & Julie” banner so that it would instead read: “James & HOUSE!!”

“Greg,” Stacy kicked him lightly in the shin with the point of her shoe, “Meet the current assistant team. Kutner, Masters, and Park,” she gestured in turn to a smiling geek-chic young man, a twitchy rabbit-nosed girl with long shiny hair, and a stocky shoulder-slumped young woman with glasses and an apparently permanent scowl. “Every year Lisa sends me some nice, impressionable, impoverished med students who need a side gig to make ends meet. I use them as day-of runners and they’re invaluable. Being almost-doctors means they’re usually competent enough to know the difference between a bouquet and a brassiere. Usually.”

House inspected Masters, Park, and Kutner in turn, immediately chucking their names out of his brain, “Nice baby, mean baby, nerd.”

Kutner frowned, “I’m not baby?”

“Babies don’t live on Mountain Dew and play Tomb Raider until 3AM every night.”

“How do you—”

“Keep an eye on him,” Stacy pointed at House, “And less importantly, assist him, but only within reason. If you’re not sure what’s reasonable, go find Dr. Wilson, you all know him from the hospital. He’s off his rocker too but at least he doesn’t actively want to cause harm. And yes, House bites, so watch it.”

As she stalked off, House bared his teeth.

“We’ve been instructed to get you into your tux,” Masters informed him timidly.

“Forward,” House waggled his eyebrows, “Think it’ll take all three of you to handle me naked? I’m flattered.”

“Maybe don’t hit on us forty-five minutes before you’re scheduled to get married?” Kutner suggested.

“What’s the cut-off on pre-marriage flirtation? An hour before the altar? Two?”

“Listen, go in there and strip,” Park pointed to the dressing room down the hall, “or I’ll get some scissors and cut you out of that stupid old T-shirt.”

“Excuse you,” House plucked at the faded charcoal shirt, “Mötley Crüe fucks hard.”

“Oh good,” Wilson approached, “I hoped our wedding would include arguing with strangers about the virtues of heavy metal bands.”

“That’s statistically true,” Masters piped up, “that they ‘fuck hard’ numerically, I mean. They topped the Billboard 200 with Dr. Feelgood in 1989.”

“Did you just know that stat off the top of your head?” Kutner marveled.

House meanwhile pinched Masters’ cheek and said tearfully, “If I had a daughter, I hope she’d be just like you!”

“House, leave the child alone,” Wilson batted his hand away and then asked the girl, “I’m sorry but…how old are you, sweetheart?”

“Old enough to drink, vote, attend medical school, and not want to be called sweetheart.”

“Oh, she’s a keeper,” House patted the top of her head.

“Tux!” Park insisted, then made a scissors motion pointedly near his groin.

“Everyone’s really interested in castrating me lately,” House said thoughtfully to Wilson.

“Can’t imagine why. C’mon, soon I’ll legally be the only one allowed to undress you.” He took House by the hand and pulled him into the dressing room.

“I thought you made a promise about no adult activities until after we say ‘I do,’” House rumbled in Wilson’s ear as they were finally and properly alone together for the first time in hours.

“What’s adult about taking your clothes off?” Wilson teased, going right for House’s belt.

House grinned, pleased with the direction this was taking, and thus unprepared when Wilson had him stripped to his underwear only to step back and smack a black garment bag against his chest. “Tux time.”

“I thought it was fun time,” House whined.

“Fun time comes tonight, when I take you back out of that tux as my husband.”

House pointed out reasonably, “There can be more than one fun time.”

Wilson paused in his own undressing (House admired the way his unzipped pants hung tantalizingly off his hips) to consider. “If you get your tux on before me, then I will do one—one—sex act of your choosing before we leave this room.”

House leapt into action. He got the shirt on easily, the pants as always required a bit of bracing against sturdy walls to get over both legs. The fancy socks and shiny shoes, ditto. The jacket was a no brainer and the tie he could theoretically tackle but there were still other inexplicable pieces left hanging in the bag to baffle the casual observer.

“This seems like an extra bit,” House lifted a stripe of black strappy fabric, “or possibly it’s a sex thing for later.”

“That’s a cummerbund,” Wilson took it from where House was trying to wrap it around his eyes like a domino mask, “and I refuse to believe you didn’t know that.”

“It’s amazing what I don’t know,” House countered as he plucked the suspenders from their hanger, “like this? I assume it’s a leash for when you drag me down the aisle.”

“Yes,” Wilson agreed, “that’s correct.” He tied his own bow tie with a practiced flourish and House watched with hungry eyes. “Oh no,” Wilson snapped his suspenders beneath his coat and checked his cufflinks, “you lost.”

House glanced down at the jacket still on the hanger, the cummerbund and suspenders held in either hand, the tie he hadn’t begun to do battle with. “From a certain perspective, I’m as dressed as I’ll ever be.”

A grin tugged up the corner of Wilson’s mouth as he got in close and started to assemble the rest of House’s formal wardrobe. His intelligent fingers pulled the suspenders into place, dancing along House’s waistband to pin them down, then covering the dark leather attachments with the swoop of cummerbund around his abdomen.

“Have to do this from behind,” he commented lightly, sliding around to press against House’s back and wrap the tie under his collar, arms around him to tie it in a neat bow at his throat.

“Anything else you’d like to do from behind? You know, while you’re back there.”

Wilson murmured something wordless into the nape of House’s neck, lips parting to leave a soft, damp kiss against his skin.

There was a knock and a cough at the door and Park sidled in. “Sorry. Don’t mind me.” She stood just inside the room and stared directly at them.

“Can I help you with something, little Miss Hall Monitor?” House finally snapped.

“Nope. It’s just my job to supervise the horny scale today.”

Wilson sputtered, “Excuse me?”

“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on the wedding party and make sure they don’t wreck their fancy clothes with pre-ceremony sex. Making out, light petting, and some minor hand stuff are all okay, but nothing that risks tearing or staining.”

Wilson blinked very fast while House looked admiringly at the tiny grumpy butch and said, “Wow. There’s so much to Stacy’s side of this work that I never knew about.”

Unfreezing from his embarrassed statue mode, Wilson separated from House. “Okay then. C’mon, let’s get your jacket on, the guests will be arriving soon.”

House stuck out a petulant lip but Wilson just tweaked his chin and said, “You lost. And it’s not like I’m going to do anything with you in front of this angry kid.”

Park waved and House groused, “Outfoxed by those lesbians once again.”

Jacket in place, House figured he looked as good as your mid-range James Bond (on par with Brosnan, still aspiring to classic Connery). Wilson stopped in front of a mirror to fidget (“Your hair looks fine, my sweet little cherry pie,” House offered snidely, and Wilson tossed him the bird without looking at him) while Park beelined for the exit saying, “I’ll go check if they’re letting the guests in yet.”

Wilson pretended to follow but detoured to push House up against the door jamb as soon as Park exited. He kissed House, long and slow, hands getting under his suit jacket and pawing up his back. “Just to tide you over,” he murmured, leaving one last bite against House’s stubble before levering them both up and off the door so he could step breezily out. House remained behind for a moment, pleasantly stunned, before staggering out after him.

“Parents incoming,” Kutner hollered across the hall which bustled with venue employees, vendors, and Stacy’s personal crew.

“Okay. Okay.” Wilson nodded, visibly steeling himself, and House realized he was about to meet his future in-laws. In-laws who likely expected their son’s next spouse to be a beautiful woman and not a grizzled addict. And a man.

“Do your parents know that you…?” House gestured vaguely.

“Made up my wedding with Julie as an elaborate plot to marry you? No.”

“I was gonna say ‘go evens on dick and pussy’ but that too.” Wilson flinched and House felt buoyed, “Look, you’re already regretting putting a ring on it!”

“Yeah,” Wilson grabbed House’s hand and brought that ring to his lips for a kiss, “and I hope to regret it for a long, long time.”

“Greg?”

“Mom,” House was struck with an odd sense of relief at seeing his mother’s bob of teased hair and slightly vacant expression. Stacy led her over and passed the older woman off to him with a knowing smile. House bent to hug his mother gently and she patted his back. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, sweetheart. I was so glad when Stacy called. But, ah, what is all this? Why is your name…scribbled on things?” she pointed to a nearby bit of cardstock House had enthusiastically defaced.

“Yeah, there was a slight change of schedule. I’m, uh, I’m actually the one getting married today.”

To Blythe House’s infinite credit, she rolled with this news with nary a blink. “That’s…wonderful, dear. Do you mind me asking to whom?”

“This guy,” House clarified, hooking his arm through Wilson’s and reeling him in close, “He can’t give you grandkids but he is a doctor. That counts for something, right?”

“Hello, Mrs. House,” Wilson awkwardly held out a hand to shake, “James Wilson. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“Oh!” Blythe took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it, “That’s to say…you’re… Well, bless my soul. Haven’t I heard about you before? Why, yes—Wilson, I knew that I knew that name. You were Greg and Stacy’s first client!”

“Um, yes.”

“I guess that first round didn’t work out so well.”

“No—”

“Or the second one, if memory serves?”

Wilson flushed. “There were some…bumps in the road.”

“It took a while to figure things out. I’m an acquired taste, after all, it took repeated exposures,” House leered and his mother and Wilson let out identical sighs of fond reproach.

Wilson turned to Blythe once more, “I’m sorry this is all a bit, er, abrupt.”

“Abrupt or no, I’m just glad someone’s finally going to be taking care of my boy. You will take good care of him, won’t you?”

“Mo-om,” House groaned.

“I will,” Wilson promised, “I swear I will.”

She patted Wilson’s cheek and nodded, approving of what she saw in his earnest eyes.

“Now, that nice young lady with the—” Blythe gestured unsubtly in the air, fingers curving in a chesty squeezing motion that made Wilson choke-cough, “who I saw with Stacy, was that her wife?”

“Mmhmm,” House nodded with barely restrained laughter, “That’s Cuddy alright. Cuddy to a T. Or to a double-D, as it were.”

“She could give me some very nice grandchildren. Stacy already talks to me more than you do, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t dote on her babies instead. Though you,” she returned a thoughtful eye to Wilson, “look like a boy who calls his mother.”

“I—thank you, I think, um,” Wilson’s eyes widened, “Actually, you could ask her yourself. Hi, mom—”

Wilson’s mothered barreled in to hug him tightly and Wilson rocked back with practiced balance at the impact. “James! You look so handsome. Of course, you looked handsome the other times too, and look how that ended.” She spoke at roughly fifty miles per hour, pulling back to pinch Wilson’s cheeks and tug a lock of his hair disapprovingly. “Now, where’s this round three hussy of yours? She must be a lunatic and a half or else very, very naïve to throw her lot in with you, my love, because you go through girls like a carousel of ice cream flavors. And I’m not judging! Sow your wild oats, but for god’s sake slow down on the marriages and just sleep with them like a normal person, I’m sick to death of buying new hats.”

“Oh, she and I are going to get along very well,” Blythe whispered in an aside to her son.

“Thanks for the support. And hi, dad,” Wilson shook his father’s hand, the father in question nodding with the comfortable quiet of a spouse who was well pleased not to be expected to do much toward the speaking front.

Mrs. Wilson finally noticed House and gave him a sharp up-and-down review. “Well, what’s this handsome scarecrow lurking about for?”

“Fifty percent compliment, those seem like good starting odds,” House noted, wondering if he should try and smile or if that would just make things worse.

Wilson gulped and ran a finger around inside his collar and finally saw nothing for it but to start the explanations. “Um, mom, the thing is that…I know it said on the invitation that I was marrying Julie, and I suppose, I told you that too, but we…” he tugged at his bow tie anxiously, “well, I guess I should come right out and say it. I’m not marrying her. I was never going to marry her, that was just a, uh, pretense. I’m marrying him.” He linked his hand with House’s. “This is Greg House. I love him and I’m going to marry him and that’s really all there is to say.”

Now, Mrs. Wilson’s evaluative gaze intensified by an order of magnitude. “You lied to us?”

“For love,” Wilson’s father helpfully added, his first venture into speech.

“Yes. I lied to everyone.”

“For love,” Mr. Wilson repeated, giving his son a thumbs up.

“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Wilson patted her husband’s arm, “I understand.” Still clearly in the assessment period, she scrutinized House once more. “House?” she echoed, then hopefully, “Not a Jewish name?”

“’Fraid not. Atheist,” House replied.

“Oh, then you’re halfway there,” she waved an absent hand, “Wait, House, why is that so familiar—oh my. James. You’re marrying the man who planned your last weddings?”

“Yeah,” Wilson confirmed sheepishly.

A moment’s eye-bulging pause, then: “Ha!” She barked a laugh and bustled in to give House the cheek-pinching hair-pulling routine, “You must be really good at your job, stretch. Or really bad. You hook a lot your own clients after their marriages fail?”

“Only the cute ones,” House said with a wink.

“I can promise my son isn’t a fly-by-night,” Blythe popped in, “why, he was with that nice competent lesbian who really runs the business for years. Hi, by the way, I’m Mrs. House, but you can call me Blythe since apparently we’re about to be in-laws.”

Mrs. Wilson gaped for a moment before catching up and pulling Blythe into a hug, “Well, color me shocked, here I was thinking this would be another gauzy snoozefest where I’d have to walk on eggshells around some over-sensitive daughter-in-law—”

“—I don’t think calling Bonnie a frizzy frazzled frump to her face was exactly ‘eggshells,’ mom—”

“—but I was right, wasn’t I? And instead, I get to tell all my friends at home that I’ve got a gay son complete with a husband. Take that, Myrtle, that beats your little socialist niece out by a mile. Now, Blythe, tell me everything I have to know about my new son-in-law…”

Wilson, slightly dazed, gestured to a passing Kutner to come and escort the parents to their seats. As the ladies took Kutner’s theatrically proffered arms, Wilson’s father paused to speak to House.

“Very good to meet you, son. A surprise, of course, but the good kind and I, er…I hope this is the one that sticks, if you don’t mind my saying?” He held out a hand and House shook it, admiring against his curmudgeonly instincts this father who painted such a genial, accepting figure—the very opposite of House’s notion of the concept.

“Nope, I don’t mind. Thinking the same thing myself.”

House and Wilson only had a moment to recover from their departing parents before Masters swooped in to hurry them off with a chirpy, “Confab with Ms. Warner, ASAP, thank you!”

“That went shockingly well,” Wilson wondered aloud as they followed Masters’ short skirt and schoolgirl strappy flats towards the indoor anteroom abutting the path to the wedding tent. “Though it makes me worry another shoe is gonna drop.”

“Grandkids will be the first size-ten clatter,” House predicted, “Though you have siblings, so maybe the pressure’s off. Or your parents could also content themselves with fawning over Stacy and Cuddy’s future spawn, like my mom. But don’t worry, even if that’s not an issue, plenty of things could still go wrong with the ceremony!”

“There’s that fatalistic attitude I fell in love with.”

House purred an exaggeratedly lusty rolled-r and Wilson squeezed his hand.

“We’re T-minus-fifteen,” Stacy announced, blasting into view and gesturing with her clipboard like it had become one with her flesh. “The guests are being arranged in their seats—and politely informed what the hell is actually going on—with no particular ordering since there is no bride to have a bridal side, and House has no friends to fill it with anyway.”

“Just out of curiosity,” House leaned forward on his cane, “what does ‘politely informed’ sound like?”

“It mostly involved me saying, ‘Dr. Wilson was just joking about the Julie thing, he’s actually marrying a man called House.’ And people would respond, ‘Wait isn’t he the wedding planner? And your psycho ex?’ And I’d say, ‘One and the same’ and they’d say, ‘Huh, kinda weird move,’ and I’d say, ‘You’re telling me!’ And speaking of explanations…” She gestured to a grayed, slightly stooped man being towed along by Park.

“Dr. Faber,” Wilson smiled at the newcomer, a brisk faith-neutral officiant and fellow medical man he’d chosen after having been subjected to a vaguely anti-Semitic pastor at his first marriage and a loquacious rabbi at his second. “I know this is all a little, uh, non-traditional—”

“Non-traditional?” The doctor squinted from beneath bushy brows and above an even bushier mustache, “Listen, son, I don’t care that you turned out to be some breed of homosexual. But this switcheroo stunt demonstrates a disturbing lack of sense, dignity, and commitment. Especially coming on the heels of two divorces, it’s clear that you do not take the sacrament of marriage seriously.”

House broke in, “Come on, it’s not even the sacrament of marriage, it’s the sacrament of governmental red tape on account of us being a pair of flaming faggots and—okay, he’s leaving.”

“But…” Wilson tried to protest, too late.

Stacy sighed deeply. “Well, this is exactly why I’m a legal officiant in the state of New Jersey. Not that you need legality, as Greg so tastefully pointed out. I assume I’m an acceptable substitute?”

“Stacy, that would mean so much—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stacy cut Wilson off with an irritated flap of her hand, “Fine, it’s not like I have a million other things to worry about right now. That’s that sorted. Next order of business regarding the wedding party: House, you’re very lucky that Lisa agreed to be your best man. Get the jokes out now.”

“What jokes? Cuddy’s the best man I know.”

“Nice, now give me your ring.”

House clutched his hand to his chest, safety blanket style.

“Give it.”

“It’s mine!”

“Yes, and I need to give it to Wilson’s brother who will give it to him who will give it to you. Cuddy already has Wilson’s to give to you to give back to Wilson. You get how this works?”

“That’s a ton of unnecessary labor. Weddings are inefficient as shit.” But House worked the ring off his finger and relinquished it to Stacy with great reluctance. Wilson’s eyes had gone all soppy and so House elbowed him in the ribs just to keep things businesslike.

“Now, choreography,” Stacy peeled a checklist back on her clipboard with a snap, “We didn’t do a rehearsal because Doctor Delusional here said he’d ‘pretty much got it down pat by now.’ Guess it doesn’t matter, since it all would’ve been a crock anyway. But fortunately it’s simple. House?”

“Yes?”

“Walk down the aisle. Stop at the altar. Wait for instructions.”

House shot her a finger gun.

“James—same thing, same time. One of the many joys of a queer ceremony is there’s no giving-away bullshit so you can just amble on down as equals. Saves time and gets us to the reception’s open bar faster.” For the first time, she spoke to them and not to her clipboard. “This is going to be simple. In a few minutes, you’ll hear the music cue. Come on out, do your runway walk, take your vows from me, exchange rings, and then poof! You’re married. Smash a couple glasses and then we all get to go eat donuts and gossip about what a perfectly matched set of looney tunes you are. Got it?”

“Got it,” Wilson echoed. House just nodded stiffly. Stacy looked from him to Wilson and back again.

“James, honey, I think you’d better check in with your almost-spouse. He looks a little hypoxic, to use your lingo.”

“Cold feet, to use yours,” Wilson hypothesized, taking House’s shoulders in hand and giving them a squeeze.

“Too late to back out now,” Stacy cautioned as she left, “I’m not telling all those people ‘ha ha, just kidding about that wedding thing’ again.”

“It’s not true, you know,” Wilson said once they were alone, still massaging House gently, “It’s not too late.”

“Giving me one last out?” House kidded.

“Yeah,” Wilson nodded seriously. “You can still stop all this. It doesn’t matter about the ceremony, the guests, the money. It doesn’t even matter how I feel. If you don’t want to go through with this, you don’t have to. I’ll still love you and I’m still going to be with you.”

“Eh. But if I don’t marry you then I’ll have to hightail it quicklike and I won’t get any of those donuts.”

“I would save you a donut.”

“Goddamn freak,” House muttered, squeezing his eyes shut.

“House? You seem like you’re having a panic attack.”

“You would know.”

“Yeah, I would. Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know, doctor,” House parroted, “is there?”

“Uh, do you want me to blow you?”

House’s eyes flew open, “Why do you think that would calm me down?”

“I don’t know, it was just an instinct!” Wilson covered his face with a tight press of his palm, then rustled around in his suit, “Do you need your meds?”

House’s hand flickered instinctively to his jeans pocket but of course, said pocket was draped over a chair in the dressing room, and he’d been too alternately horny and cockblocked to think through the consequences of his fashion choices.

But Wilson pulled out the bright orange prescription bottle from his own jacket and pressed it into House’s hand. House looked at the pills, then up at Wilson.

“What?”

“You…” House didn’t know what to say. You noticed? You remembered? You cared?

House crammed the bottle into his pocket to free up both hands for kissing his feelings—which were too manifold and frightening to name—into Wilson’s mouth.

In a rush, he finally admitted, “I want to marry you. I don’t know what you did to make me feel this way...”

“Some would say unconditional love,” Wilson suggested.

“Others would say witchcraft or hypnosis,” House replied, “But po-tay-to, po-tah-to. I, Gregory House, do of my own free will consent to this wedding bullshit. Though I maintain that it is bullshit.”

“Which is your prerogative. But despite that, we’re going to walk down that aisle and I’m gonna make you mine in front of everybody.”

House smirked. “Kinky.”

They were in each other’s arms again when they heard the music cue from the portico outside.

“Oh, fuck,” House muttered against Wilson’s mouth.

“Yep,” Wilson agreed.

They pulled apart and Wilson checked House’s tux and then his own, running one last lingering touch along House’s cheek before reaching for the handle. “Ready?”

“Nope. Do it anyway.”

Wilson pushed the door open and they walked out hand in hand into the sunny afternoon.

There was a smattering of uncertain applause and a much greater percentage of whispering. Wilson tightened his hold on House, which was a good move, because House felt suddenly like dashing cross-country until he hit the Canadian border was a super solid plan.

The silver grip of House’s dress cane under his palm felt like the only real thing in the world. Wilson certainly couldn’t be, how could a man who convinced House to bind himself happily into the trap of matrimony be real?

The walk was blessedly short. Only a half-dozen rows of chairs separated the portico from the officiant—between Wilson’s wedding excess and House’s wedding-phobia, there weren’t an over-abundance of comers for this little farce of theirs. They reached the front of the gathering where Stacy waited in the center of a small dais, their best men (Wilson’s courteously baffled brother and a harried Cuddy) on either side.

The weather was perfect and if House believed in signs from fate, this would surely be a good one. They ascended a gently inclining ramp up from the grassy stone path to the miniature stage. House spotted his mother gently cradling the bouquet he’d picked out with Wilson. He admired how the welcome shade of the tent let in just the right amount of sunlight and the fragrance of the gardens while giving the middle finger to any rain that may have decided to fall.

He cataloged all the little ways Wilson had lovingly manipulated him into planning a wedding for himself—for them.

“Welcome, friends and family,” Stacy began, looking like an angel whose patience was being severely tried. “We’re gathered here today to witness the unexpected union between James Evan Wilson and Gregory House.”

A titter of nervous laughter flitted through the crowd and House whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Wait, your middle name is Evan?”

“Shut up.” Wilson kicked House’s shoe and grinned.

“These two idiots—and I don’t call them that lightly—have been in love with each other for almost a decade. And they’ve finally decided to stop torturing themselves. They’re gonna throw in the towel and be happy. Start torturing each other, exclusively.”

Somebody wolf-whistled in the audience and House snapped a smirk their way.

“James,” Stacy tilted towards him, “I think since this whole thing is primarily your fault, you get to go first.”

“Okay,” Wilson acquiesced gladly and took one of House’s hands in his, while the other slipped into his jacket to produce a notecard.

“Pre-written vows?” House hissed, “Head start! Cheater!”

Wilson pursed his lips to blow House a kiss, then took a deep breath. “Alright. The truth is, I said what I needed to say to House last night when I convinced him to come up here with me. When I got the man I love to agree that spending the rest of his life with me might be an okay thing. Today is something more selfish. It’s about me getting to shout to everybody here that I won!”

He jiggled House’s hand and a laugh burbled out of House and his eyes threatened to tear up, which was seriously embarrassing.

“You’re marrying me,” Wilson continued, “I broke through that armor and I made you set aside logic and I wheedled and cajoled and begged until I got what I wanted. And now I promise, in front of everyone that I care about and respect, that I’m going to honor the gift you’ve given me. I promise to love you forever, House. No matter what you do to me or to yourself—though that’s not a dare.” Another laugh and goddammit House wasn’t going to fucking cry. “Because I love you so much. I love how you stubbornly pursue what you think is right, no matter if every other person on the planet thinks you’re wrong. I love your brilliance. I love when you see solutions that no one else can understand. I love when you drive me crazy. I love that you think the rules are a problem for other people. I love that you don’t know how to use a vacuum cleaner. I love that you love daytime TV and monster trucks and electric guitars and that you’d probably go into epileptic shock if you ate a vegetable that wasn’t on a pizza. I love you and I’m going to keep on loving you and there’s nothing you can do to stop me now. I’m going to take care of you until we’re both in the ground.”

He turned to his brother, who quickly shuffled forward and deposited the ring in Wilson’s waiting palm.

Wilson slipped it into place on House’s finger and it felt both much heavier and much lighter than it had before. He looked at House, brown eyes lit up almost gold in the afternoon light, and waited.

“Tough act to follow,” House coughed. “Gimme a break, I had like ten minutes of notice that I was the one getting married today.” The ripple of nervous laughter in the audience steadied him. He glanced out and saw more familiar faces than he’d expected—not just his mother, not just professional acquaintances Stacy had filled out seats with. But all the people he’d helped-slash-harassed over the years, past clients and, he realized, Wilson’s colleagues and friends. Doctors Chase and Cameron sans rings, Thirteen and Foreman with them, the Taubs (couldn’t win ‘em all) with a great wall of mistakes between them, even Adams sitting in prim isolation at the end of an aisle. And it was a perfect sample: the complete dataset.

It doesn’t always work out, in fact, it rarely does. But statistically speaking, sometimes it has to. Who said he and Wilson couldn’t be the zebra in the thunder of ordinary hoofbeats?

“I never wanted to get married,” House confessed. “Part of me is still fucking horrified by the idea. But I’m here. I want to be here. After you proposed, I didn’t ask Stacy to take you out with a karate chop to the neck so I could get a head start on running away because…it’s you. You’re different, Wilson. And I’ll take any opportunity I can to make sure everyone knows that you’re mine and they can’t have you. Because I need you more than anyone. In both ways: I need you so much more than I need anyone else, and I need you more than anyone else could ever need you. I’ll take every step, every chance, I won’t give up even if hurts because you’re the one thing life isn’t worth living without. I need you to be with me until I die. So, let’s do that.”

He clicked his tongue and a sniffling Cuddy handed him the ring. It slid effortlessly into place on Wilson’s finger, and House realized he’d never tire of seeing it there.

Stacy scraped a thumb under her eye to wipe away a tear and cleared her throat. “Wow, not bad for an inveterate cynic speaking off the cuff. Okay. Let’s take it over the finish line, boys.” House hooked his cane over his arm to join both hands with Wilson’s. “James Wilson, do you promise to love, honor, and cherish this man, even when he’s being a real bastard?”

“I do,” Wilson promised.

“Greg House, do you promise to love, honor, and cherish this man, even when that scares you?”

House nodded, then remembered this was an out-loud part. “Yeah. Er, I do.”

“Well, that’s good enough for me. I pronounce you two married.” She lifted her palms between them. “Kiss already!”

Wilson reached almost cautiously for House, but House wasn’t one to wait for the starting whistle. He’d already grabbed Wilson by the lapels and hauled him into a kiss. Applause broke out in the audience and House felt a tear trickle down between their faces and decided it was definitely Wilson’s.

“We’re married,” Wilson whispered amidst the slightly confused but enthusiastic cheers of the onlookers.

“And that means you’re legally allowed to give me tongue in front of our parents,” House decided, leaning in for another round.

Cuddy came forward with two glasses wrapped in white linen napkins. “One more of the many, many traditions you’ll be weathering today.” She set them down and House balanced on Wilson’s arm to raise a foot above his target. “As this glass shatters, so may your marriage never break.”

They stomped the glasses in sync with a satisfying crunch. Blythe House’s “Mazel tov!” was loud and proud, and Wilson’s mother looked very pleased that her coaching had paid off. House decided he liked any ceremony that included him breaking crockery as a feature rather than a bug.

Cuddy and Wilson’s brother took the return trip down the aisle with House and Wilson following, after which Stacy graciously dismissed the crowd and directed them towards the reception indoors.

“We did it,” House wondered out loud. “I did it.”

“You did it,” Wilson agreed, eyes shining, “And you didn’t even try to run away once.”

“I did think about yelling ‘fire’ though. Or announcing that you were blackmailing me into matrimony though incriminating pictures of me committing indecencies at Six Flags.”

“Have you committed a lot of indecencies at Six Flags?”

“None that would be out of place in your average wedding vows. Oh, shit,” House swore suddenly, “What a wasted opportunity!”

“What?”

“The vows!” House explained, “I had a whole audience of people hanging on my every word and all I did was string out some mushy garbage, when I could’ve been singing praises to your magnificent ass. Sculpting poetry about your ballsack. I mean, not even a single mention of dicks worked in there, not in terms of length or girth or texture—”

“There was a shocking lack of penile reference in our vows,” Wilson agreed. “We’ll just have to renew them sometime and then you can make all the public and inappropriate comments you want about my body.”

House threw an arm around Wilson’s shoulders to glare him down at intimate range. “You know I can’t hold you that because I’d rather eat that glass we smashed than renew our vows.”

The click of a camera shutter startled House and he turned to find Lucas—the best wedding photographer in the county and booked up two years in advance, whom House had bribed with ill-gotten Shania Twain tickets to poach for Wilson’s do—getting in close with his lens.

“Alright, gents,” Lucas declared, “photo op time, since I was informed you were out of service before the ceremony.” He shot them a lascivious look and House decided he was definitely hiring this guy for all future events. “Let’s get some with the wedding party, first. I understand that party consists of you two lovely ladies? Oh, and you.”

Wilson’s brother didn’t mind being addressed as a third wheel since he looked invested in the possibility of taking off as soon as was humanly possible. He lurked politely if awkwardly in the garden’s floral background as Stacy and Cuddy gathered on either side of House and Wilson. Wilson posed easily and House tried not to flip out that he was having his wedding photos taken Jesus Christ.

Cuddy tugged nervously at the hem of her dark blue floral-print dress, “Wish I’d had more than five minutes to get ready for this.”

“Don’t worry,” House assured her, “that dress is plenty ugly enough to pass for a bridesmaid’s gown.”

Cuddy slapped House upside the head and Lucas got a great action shot.

Lucas brought their parents in next. House’s mother hugged him tight and said, “I’m so happy for you, honey! And proud. Watching you come down the aisle, I was worried you might cut and run to Mexico.”

“Don’t be absurd. Canada’s way closer.”

Wilson’s parents embraced their son and got House in on the familial affection too. Mrs. Wilson promised him, “These photos are going on the mantlepiece place of honor. No out-of-the-way dusty side table of shame for you!” She pinched his cheek again and made Wilson swear he’d bring his new husband around for dinner soon, “Not ‘sometime next year’ soon, I’m talking ‘your parents are getting up there and would like to get to know their son-in-law before they keel over’ soon!”

Lucas sent the parents off to enjoy the reception and House’s fidgeting escalated.

“The sooner you stand still, the sooner this’ll be over,” Wilson tried to reason with him.

“Yeah, and if I don’t get a donut in the next two minutes I’m filing for divorce.”

“It’d just be an annulment right now.”

“I’ll wait sixty days or whatever and then divorce you. These things should be done properly.” He craned his neck mournfully towards the indoor ballroom where music and the aroma of fried sugar drifted out.

“I hope the caterers checked the food for rubber pests,” Wilson said pointedly. “Or will there be no plastic tarantula joining us today?”

“Forgot it in my other cummerbund. Considering the zero lead-time I had on this whole wedding thing…” House angled himself completely against the photographer’s wishes to stare at Wilson. “You—you preempted what surely would have been legendary marital hijinks with diversionary last-minute-proposal shock and awe.”

“Did I?” Wilson wondered innocently.

House took him in a laughing kiss and Lucas caught the best picture of the whole ceremony.

The reception passed in a blur. No guest enjoyed the buffet-style build-your-own-hoagie bar more than House, who gave up on bread partway through and just started mainlining deli meats, and had to be stopped from pouring mustard directly into his mouth (“If I can’t guzzle condiments in peace at my own wedding—” he complained, and Cuddy replied, “—then hopefully you won’t do it anywhere,” as she put him in a half-nelson). Wilson was thrilled with the big glass dispenser of bulk cosmos affixed to the end of the open bar and forestalled House’s imminent commentary with a sharp, “There will be no homophobic beverage remarks at my bisexual wedding.”

House took a single bite out of each flavor of donut and Wilson affectionately cleaned up the remains. They split a bottle of Prosecco (“because why would you pay ten times as much for sparkling wine just because it came from one specific patch of dirt in France?”) and House became much more tolerant of all the people who kept trying to congratulate him once the bubbles set in.

As the champagne and cosmos spread through the crowd, various audience members recalled and began to put into action the tradition of newlyweds being made to kiss every time someone clinked their raised glass. Where Wilson found this ritual vaguely problematic, House thought it was a scream, and started chucking olives at people to encourage them to partake.

“You know, you don’t have to clink your own glass just to kiss me,” Wilson pointed out, undercutting his argument slightly with the big grin stretching his well-kissed lips.

“But you know I like to make a scene,” House countered, drumming a fork against an entire wine bottle as he leaned in again.

They decided to skip the speeches on account of the best man having drafted his with a bride in mind, and the maid of honor being fictional. Wilson was particularly grateful for this choice when he overheard Cuddy tipsily giving a quick draft of her potential toast to House.

“No one needs to know about House’s birthmark,” Wilson tried to intercede.

Cuddy replied, “Half of New Jersey has seen it by this point, it’s a local attraction. Like Drumthwacket, or the Princeton cemetery.”

“And wasn’t I recently complaining about the lack of cock-talk at this supposedly gay wedding?” House completed the argument. Cuddy pointed at him like this was the first sensible thing she’d heard all day, and Wilson decided he hadn’t been drinking enough.

The food gone through, the DJ prompted the newlyweds to take to the floor for their first dance. House was ready to prompt him to eat shit and die, but Wilson covered House’s mouth with a kiss and pulled him to his feet.

“I promise it’ll be fine,” he murmured so only House could hear, “Just lean on me.”

House allowed himself to be slowly dragged out from behind the safety of the table.

“It’s a tradition,” Wilson cajoled when House started digging his heels in just short of the dancefloor.

“Hobbling along to some wretched pop song while a crowd of people stare at the gimp, sure, no wedding’s complete without it.”

“It’s not like I know how to dance either. We’ll be swaying like idiots together. And that’s what marriage is really about.”

Wilson pulled House in close, the toes of their shoes bumping. He arranged House’s arms around his neck and held House’s waist.

“See?” he said as the DJ dropped the needle, “All you have to do is hold on.”

“Whitney Houston,” House recognized as the vocals came in. “I guess a homo wedding wouldn’t be complete without her. Though ‘All The Man That I Need’ seems about as subtle as public sodomy.”

Wilson tilted his head, a soft smile hiding in the curve of his lips, waiting for it to click.

“Wait, this song…you sap,” House gently knocked their foreheads together, “It was playing at the bar when we met.”

Wilson nodded, settling in cheek-to-cheek. “You remembered. That makes you a sap, too.”

The second chorus finished and House murmured sweetly, “Get some other people on this dancefloor right now or I’m gonna start throwing things.”

Wilson inclined his head to kiss House’s jaw, then gestured to Stacy, who took Cuddy’s hand and guided her out on the floor. Wilson’s parents were next, and then that sneaky little photographer Lucas asked House’s mom to dance (House was gonna have to keep an eye on that), and soon the floor was full of couples and trios and enthusiastic singles. House observed Cameron and Chase start swaying in their matching blonde beauty and then trade partners so that Chase was dangling happily off of Foreman’s neck while Thirteen teasingly covered Cameron’s ass with both hands. He watched Kutner sidle up to Adams and not get immediately shot down. He spotted Park approach Masters like she was about to inform her that she’d run over her dog, but Masters smiled shyly and took Park’s hand, so that must not have been it.

House stayed for a second song when he realized it was Mötley Crüe’s “Without You.” “Did you curate the rest of this playlist from my favorites or just my t-shirt collection?”

“Well, the latter helped determine the former. And I got a few favorites of my own in there.”

“Heart. Dixie Chicks. Sinéad O’Connor,” House guessed.

“Remember how many lesbians are in this room before you start hating too loudly on those talented women.”

“Your taste is impeccable,” House course-corrected, “After all, you chose me.”

Wilson buried his goofy grin in House’s neck and House closed his eyes to pretend it was just the two of them.

R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” tempted House to one more dance, cutting loose with the faster beat, giving Wilson a few spins that left him dizzy and laughing.

House’s leg begged off the next dance, which was a welcome excuse to free him from the floor for good—after all, private dances were more his thing. He wished there weren’t so many damn people around. He wished he had Wilson to himself.

Sooner than House thought he would, Wilson asked in his ear, “Time to go? I got Stacy to promise she’d oversee clean-up and getting our parents safely to their hotels.”

House offered first a genuine then an exaggerated expression of surprise. “Jimmy Wilson, fleeing his own wedding?”

“I’ve got my husband. That’s all I really wanted out of the event. And you seem pretty overwhelmed and overstimulated.”

“I’d argue there hasn’t been enough stimulation,” House rejoined.

Wilson’s breath tickled House’s skin, “I agree. That’s why I’m glad you booked such an early flight. Great excuse.”

“Always leave a party at its height,” House quoted, “A murderer from an Agatha Christie novel said that.”

“Good advice. For a murderer.” Wilson kissed him quickly before grabbing his hand. House grabbed his cane in turn and they began to sneak out the back way.

Stacy’s eagle eye caught their escape and House froze like his tux might camouflage well with the beige ballroom walls. But she just blew him a kiss and a wink across the dance floor before putting her arms back around her wife.

They returned to the dressing room to change out of their tuxes and back into comfortable street clothes for travel. House enjoyed the flash of skin he got but mourned the loss of Wilson’s elegant tuxedo as he zipped it back into its garment bag.

House grabbed Wilson by the belt and drew him in. “I’ve been remiss in my husbandly duties. I don’t think I told you even once how fucking delectable you looked in that suit.”

“Was it very?”

“Very very.”

He licked and then bit Wilson’s lower lip, sliding a hand into his hair, the sure precursor to adult activities.

Wilson recognized the signs and separated them slightly. “Not fucking you in this dressing room.”

“Sure you’re not.”

“We’re going to have sex as a married couple for the first time in a beautiful villa overlooking the sea. Not on a bench in an unlocked prep room of the local event center.”

“And are we flying to a foreign country with just the clothes on our back?” House asked, only mildly interested in the answer what with Wilson’s mouth being so close and so friendly to visitors.

Wilson gestured to a small stand of suitcases left in the corner, “Stacy sent one of her elves with a key to your place to pack a bag for you.”

House inspected the luggage distrustfully, “So, that could be full of beef jerky and TP for all you know.”

“I made sure you’ve got your passport and meds. It doesn’t really matter if you’re missing clothes,” Wilson bent close and whispered with a hint of teeth against House’s ear, “I don’t plan on letting you get dressed.” Wilson’s fingers traced a line under House’s shirt along the bare skin above his waistband, teasing out a delicate gasp.

House pulled back abruptly. “Let’s go. The sooner I get you on that plane, the sooner I’ll have you in a big, disgustingly expensive bed, all to myself.”

“That’s not how air travel or time works,” Wilson pointed out.

“Shut it. I wanna blow this pop stand and then I wanna blow you. Got a problem with that?”

“Nope,” Wilson grabbed the handle of their wheeled luggage and House pointed his nose air-wards.

section divider made of canes and entwined wedding rings

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos. 2 AM.

Between Wilson’s good manners and House’s woeful waving of his cane, their travel through the airport and onto the plane was comfortable, speedy, and uneventful. They both passed out cold for the four hours in the air and woke up with the clock having ticked over early onto a new day.

Providenciales was beautiful by sun or stars but House found himself strangely lacking his usual observational tendencies. Wilson couldn’t stop looking at House either.

A taxi took them to the exclusive resort House had researched (“You can find white sand beaches anywhere, but ones not crowded with tourists? This place has got private villas. Infinity pools. Personal chefs.” Wilson had nodded at that last, “And now I know why this was your winner.”) There was a brief confused, “Reservations for…Doctor and Mrs. Wilson?” To which House simply replied, “I’m the missus. And don’t you forget it!” before they were led without issue to their sprawling, silent, glittering villa and left alone.

Wilson dealt with the luggage while House explored their temporary home away from home. Massive French doors let the salty breeze carry through the open floor plan living area and kitchen, spilling into a bedroom with an elaborate master bath that House looked forward to investigating more fully…afterward.

He cracked open the champagne left chilling in an ice bucket at the foot of the—yes, absurdly huge—bed and drank directly from the bottle. “Mmm. Newlywed privileges. Should’ve gotten married sooner.”

“Glad you didn’t,” Wilson slid in behind him, kissing his neck.

House leant his cane against the bed and fell forward to crawl onto the mattress, dragging the champagne with him and leaving a damp stripe of condensation in his wake.

Wilson followed, straddling House once he got on his back, and leaning down to taste the sweet alcohol on his lips. He took the bottle before House could upend it in his laziness and set it on the bedside table. Then he descended on House’s throat, going right for the sweet spot under his jaw that always made his spine go to jelly.

“Long day,” House murmured, stretching languidly. “Awfully tired. Up at 4 AM, you know, for the whole wedding ceremony thing. And acting like a human being for hours on end, you know that takes its toll on me.”

“I’d like to take a toll on you,” Wilson pushed up House’s shirt and started kissing his stomach. House smirked and let his eyes close.

“I suppose it’s in the marriage contract…I have to please my brand-new husband or I’ll be fed to the wolves.”

“Uh-huh. Right under the promise to cherish and the tax breaks, there’s the wolves part. Should’ve read the small print.”

House let his legs fall apart and thrilled when Wilson correctly interpreted the gesture to mean he should move his mouth down and start getting House’s pants out of the way. He pulled open the button and nosed down the zipper, brushing his lips over House’s briefs in a quick tease before grabbing hold of all that fabric and dragging it gently over and past everything sensitive to strip him. Wilson settled back between House’s thighs and sank his mouth down onto his growing erection, lips stretching around him with a contented hum. He worked his head up and down for a few minutes, letting House’s pleasure build until he was really squirming, and then he pulled off. “What do you want? What can I do for you? For our wedding night…”

“Our wedding night,” House murmured up at the ceiling, dizzy with commitment and champagne, “Today’s all about letting you take me. So, take me.”

Wilson surged up to press their mouths together again while he rucked up House’s shirt and got it off his shoulders, leaving him perfectly naked. Vulnerable. Ready to be taken.

He left one last hard kiss against House’s lips and then fled, promising to House’s unhappy whine that he’d only be a minute. He returned quickly, trailing clothes behind him and gesturing an explanation with a packet of lube, “Good thing I packed my own bag with the essentials.”

House took the condom from between his fingers and threw it over Wilson’s shoulder before kissing him messily, “Live a little. You’re my husband now, remember? I want it raw.”

His hips undulated against Wilson’s and Wilson ground back into him. “I fucking love hearing you say that.”

“What, raw?”

“Husband,” Wilson licked along House’s throat, reaching between his legs to start massaging at his hole.

“It’s really not a sexy word,” House panted, “Huzz-bahnd. Too many syllables. Sounds like a kind of progressive rock—yeah, I’m in a huz band. I play acoustic guitar.”

“If you’re on guitar, where am I? Always imagined myself as a drummer.”

“That works,” House played along with the bit as he counseled his muscles to relax, “Solid, steady beat, holding things together. Breaks out wild when you least expect it. People think he’s a loser because he’s stuck sitting behind everyone else, but the girls seducing their way backstage know he’s just as good a lay as the lead singer and a lot easier to get to.”

“Are you a backstage girl in this metaphor?”

“Well, you’re certainly getting into my backstage right now.”

Wilson’s laugh rumbled through his whole body as he hooked his fingers deep until House gasped.

“Yeah, yeah, enough with the foreplay. I think eight years of it’s enough.”

“Eight years, huh? You must have the Guinness World Record of blue balls.”

House nodded sorrowfully. “A deadly case. And for the price of just one fuck, you can save the endangered House from sexual extinction.”

“I feel like there’s a marriage joke about mating for life in there. But you’re making me too hot to think of it.”

“That’s fine,” House breathed, “thinking is overrated. That’s where those eight years of ours got lost.”

“No more thinking,” Wilson agreed, and pressed the swollen head of his cock against House’s tight entrance. House bit his lip and savored the burn, the deep gasps expanding Wilson’s chest as he sank into him and rode out the pleasure of pressure.

“House…” Wilson groaned his name as he bottomed out, “Can’t believe you really married me. That I have you. Forever.”

“Goes…both ways.” House struggled for air as he got used to the fantastic too-full feeling, “You’re mine now.”

“Yes…”

“And I’m never letting you go. I won’t ever let you get away again.”

“Keep telling me—uhh—keep saying it…” Wilson canted his hips and pulled out just a little, only to slide back in deep.

“Maybe this was actually all my…elaborate ploy. To trick you into—oh fuck, just like that—into proposing. To me.” House dug his fingers into Wilson’s back, pliant flesh giving beneath his fingers as the rhythm of their bodies started to take shape. “I just wanted you that badly.”

Wilson kissed him, a wet slide of lips, then hiked House’s legs up higher and began thrusting into him with a purpose and clarity of mind that made House’s whole body feel like it was being chased over by ice and fire.

The bed was an ocean of memory foam. It cradled them silently, the meeting of their flesh and the distant lapping of waves around them the only sounds.

House’s legs tightened around Wilson’s waist and Wilson responded by pulling House’s hips up and nearly off the bed, dragging House’s body inward to meet each thrust. Between the delicious tease of friction against his cock and the striking almost-too-much pleasure of Wilson hitting deep inside him, House felt himself getting close.

“Wilson…” he murmured, barely even a word, just a sound that felt and tasted so good in his mouth.

“House,” Wilson responded in kind, “My House.”

“Yours,” House agreed, eternally suspicious of marriage but never of possession.

“Are you gonna come for me? I love how you look…when I’ve wrecked you.”

House started to pant, extremities clenching and mouth dry with want.

“I’d have married you…just for this,” Wilson whispered, deep and quiet in their private sanctuary, “Just for permission to—to touch you. But you gave me everything else too. And I love you so much, House,” the words were bursting out of him, painful and breathless, “and I love you even more for letting me love you. Fuck, I want to see it, I wanna see you come from what I’m giving you, please, House—”

Pleasure boiled over low in his abdomen and House thrashed with the force of his orgasm, painting their bellies with his release as came with Wilson’s name in his mouth.

Deliciously limp and sated, House went ragdoll loose and let the soft give of the bed hold his body while Wilson pounded into him. The familiar lines of Wilson’s face were an open book and House read desire and want and love and need. He scraped nails up Wilson’s back and kissed what skin he could reach, trying to pull Wilson over the cliff after him.

“What, Wilson? What d’you need?”

“House…”

“You’ve got me.”

Another desperate, incoherent groan.

House decided to play a hunch. “Wilson…” he murmured right in his ear, fingers tracing a delicate path along the nape of his neck like he wasn’t still being fucked within an inch of his life, “I love you.”

Wilson came hard with a shout, thrusting rough and deep as he poured into House. House grinned and held him through it, reveling in the novel sensation of Wilson’s hot release bare inside him, but even more so just utterly and insufferably pleased with his new superpower. He waited until Wilson’s breathing evened out and he slumped alongside House, both of them happily mired in the middle of the quicksand-comfy bed.

“So…” House drawled, fingers tracing invisible patterns on Wilson’s chest, “Are you gonna come every time I tell you I love you?”

Wilson sighed and met House’s eye with a helpless smile. “I hope not. It would be extremely inconvenient.”

“But a hell of a motivator for me.”

“Of course, you’d use your gifts for evil.”

“I could call you when you’re at work…”

“Remains to be seen if it works over the phone,” Wilson pointed out.

“You know I work well over the phone,” House teased Wilson’s spent cock with a fingertip, earning a sharp inhale and a gently slapped wrist. “I could break this out at the grocery store, at restaurants, at the dentist’s office…”

“Have mercy on my dentist. I’m sure you’ll be ruining my mouth enough as is.”

House bent forward to get a jump start on that. When they had to break for breath, House had positioned himself on top of Wilson, taking his wrists and pressing them down so he was a dark-eyed prisoner beneath him.

“I’m glad you did this to me,” House finally said.

“Marriage? More of a ‘with’ than a ‘to,’ isn’t it?”

“Not in my case.”

“No,” Wilson agreed, “not in your very unique case.”

“And you did it with style. Brute force and unflinching subterfuge.”

“You make it sound so romantic.”

“I’m glad you did it,” House repeated, “and I’m glad you did it the way you did. I’m not sure I could’ve stood it any other way.”

Wilson’s lips parted and he struggled for what to say before finally landing with helpless devotion on, “I had to do it. I love you.” He waited breathlessly.

“Sure you want me to say it back?” House asked with false concern, “You did just finish.”

Wilson scoff-laughed and wriggled free of House’s grip to flip their bodies again and crush him into the expensive duvet. “Say it.”

“I love you,” House said it without any further prodding, the words eager to leap free, “And if you ever doubt that…” He lifted Wilson’s left hand from where it was caressing his cheek, “Look at this.” He tapped the golden wedding band. “And know that you turned the world’s most miserable, cynical man into the marrying kind.”

section divider made of canes and entwined wedding rings

EXCERPT: “About the Author”

Greg House is a professional wedding planner and one half of the founding duo of the nationally sought-after event firm House-Warner Wedding Solutions. When he’s not planning weddings or breaking up potential marriages, he enjoys bowling, motorcycles, and really bad TV. He lives in New Jersey with his handsome and patient husband, who loves him very much despite having read this book.

Notes:

can't believe...this is all posted...! what a ride!
I loved writing this AU and I have so so loved getting to chat with all of you as each new chapter was added, and I look forward to chatting more as people shy of incomplete fics hopefully take a chance on this now-complete story.
Know that I'm full up of headcanons and background details for this universe, so if you're at all interested, don't hesitate to ask about what happened between timestamps, with the secondary characters, alternate paths or endings, etc.!
And for everybody who's read this far: thank you. Thanks x a million, y'all readers and commenters are heroes <3
PS - feel free to say hi on Tumblr, I'm ORiley42 over there as well, and you can reblog the post for this fic here

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