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Wilson jiggled his key in the lock of 221B and shouldered the door open.
"House?" he called into the depths of the apartment, then stopped short.
The sleek black lid of the piano was open and Wilson could see someone sitting at the bench, a hand snaked inside and fiddling with the instrument's guts. A low note emanated repeatedly from the piano, followed by grumbling from the player and some adjustments with a tool that looked a bit like a screwdriver. Then came the same note again with some more satisfied-sounding mumbles.
"Hi Claire," Wilson said, and the piano noise stopped. A woman poked her head around the side of the piano lid and beamed.
"Hi James! Long time no see."
Claire was a friend of Stacy's that House had inherited. House and Stacy had actually bought the piano together, but when she'd moved out House had kept it, under the sole stipulation of Stacy's that Claire be the only one allowed to tune and maintain the instrument. Wilson didn't know much about her except that she taught music in some capacity at the university and had an absolutely wicked backhand that she had used to great effect in many Saturday afternoon tennis matches, partnering Stacy against himself and House. He thought back to her past visits.
"Don't you normally come right around Christmas?"
Claire nodded and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but unfortunately I swore an oath to protect this thing, and so when House calls me and demands I reshuffle my entire schedule for November because the bottom octave is out of whack, I can't say no."
"Wrong," House said, limping in from the kitchen with a mouth full of toast. "You can't say no because you secretly have the hots for me. It's why Stacy made you Guardian of the Piano. She knew you'd pine away to nothing without an excuse to hang out with me."
"Keep on dreaming, House," Claire grunted, wrenching the tuning tool viciously inside the piano.
"I do. Frequently." House gave an exaggerated wink. "If you know what I mean."
Wilson wanted to laugh, but he could see the steam starting to seep from Claire's ears as she presumably began to weigh the importance of keeping her vow to Stacy to look after the piano against the satisfaction of seeing genuine tears in House's eyes if she carved "fuck off" into the lacquer with the tuner.
"You want a ride in, House?" he asked, getting the conversation back on track.
"Huh?" House turned away from the piano to look at him.
"Do you want a ride in to work?" Wilson sarcastically over-enunciated. "Come on, let's go. I'm already late."
"Didn't ask you to come," House muttered under his breath, but obediently gathered up his backpack and coat anyway. The weather was at the halfway to winter stage where House pretended that riding his bike to work didn't cause him enormous discomfort and result in him taking twenty minutes to peel his frozen body off the machine every morning and evening. Wilson in turn pretended he didn't know about this, and "coincidentally" stopped by House's apartment on his way to the hospital on average three times a week, until the first real snowfall hit and House had to concede defeat and go back to driving his horrible old Dodge Dynasty until the thaw in mid-April.
Safely ensconced in the car and on the way to the hospital, House turned to Wilson.
"You're gonna have to stop doing this."
"What?"
"Driving me to work."
"Why?"
"People are gonna talk." House waggled his eyebrows meaningfully, but Wilson didn't rise to it.
"And say what? 'Oh, look at poor long-suffering Doctor Wilson, having to chauffeur His Royal Highness Gregory, Prince of Stubborn Jerkdom, to work every day.'"
"People are not saying that."
"They are," Wilson assured him, nodding.
"Are not."
"Are too. And they'll keep saying it until you put that damned bike away for the winter."
There was a blessed beat of silence filled only by road noise that stretched just long enough for Wilson to think that he might've actually successfully made his point, before House huffed a complaint, mournful blue eyes turned accusingly on Wilson.
"Only the Prince of Stubborn Jerkdom? Who do I have to service around here to become king?"
One week and a ten degree drop in temperature later saw Wilson at House's apartment again. Surprisingly, when he opened the door, he found Claire once more at the piano. She was slowly plunking out scales and looked up when he came in, but didn't stop.
Wilson was no musician but he'd listened to House play often enough. The piano didn't sound any different than usual.
"Out of tune again?" he asked.
Claire frowned, fingers running down the keys.
"House is still convinced there's something wrong with the bottom octave," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the couch. House was slumped down with his feet on the coffee table and his eyes fixed on the piano. His face was pensive.
"Is there?"
"No. It's perfectly fine, exactly how I left it last week."
Wilson glanced at House, expecting a biting riposte, but none was forthcoming. The drive to work passed in unusual silence, and Wilson didn't see House for the rest of the day.
November creaked into December. House seemed to be in a worse mood than usual, Wilson noticed. More often than not he would hear raised voices through the dividing wall between his office and the diagnostics conference room, and House seemed to be deliberately avoiding him at work. He guessed it was a combination of House finally having to put the bike away, and the increased pain that came with the cold weather.
Halfway through a particularly long evening on the ward with a deteriorating patient, Wilson bumped into Chase in the men's locker room.
"Hey, Chase." Wilson headed to his locker for his spare shirt.
Chase's hair was wet from the shower, and he didn't look up from where he was rummaging in his own locker.
"Hi," he mumbled in reply. His voice was thick.
"Everything ok?" Wilson asked cautiously.
"Fine." Chase slammed the door of his locker, still not making eye contact with Wilson.
Wilson's heart sank. "What did House do?"
"He didn't do anything." Chase sighed. "He's in pain. I got on his nerves."
"He's always in pain." Wilson stated flatly. "It's not an excuse."
"I know," Chase said wearily. "Look, has he… talked to you about it, recently?"
"Come on," Wilson snorted. "House? Trying to discuss his health with him is like trying to… well, actually I can't even think of a suitable analogy."
Chase was unmoved. "Talk to him," he said. "Please. I'm — we're worried about him."
Wilson frowned. "Ok. I will."
Chase nodded once, and left the room.
As Wilson pulled on his spare shirt, he was struck by the realisation that House was almost a week overdue on his Vicodin prescription. If he was in more pain than usual — and given how upset Chase was, Wilson was perfectly ready to believe it — he would have expected House in his office eight or ten days ago, asking for the scrip early. Since he hadn't, that could only mean one thing: House was getting his fix somewhere else.
Viciously re-knotting his tie, Wilson steeled himself for the conversation with House to come. The last time House had had a protracted episode of breakthrough pain, he'd managed to convince him to have an MRI to check the leg; maybe he could do the same this time. House wasn't stupid, after all. Just stubborn. Wilson could work with that.
The following day, the diagnostics department was suspiciously quiet. The conference room remained empty all morning, and after eating his lunch alone in his office, Wilson headed down to the clinic. Sure enough, Cameron was there.
"Hey," Wilson greeted her as she filed a patient's chart and collected the next one. "Is House around?"
"He called in sick today," Cameron answered. "He didn't tell you?"
"No."
"You know he's not actually sick," Cameron said, lowering her voice in a way that annoyed Wilson just because he knew House would hate it. "It's the pain. He's been really hurting for a couple of weeks now. I think you should –"
Wilson held up a hand to stop her. "I know."
Cameron nodded. "Good."
Wilson was putting the finishing touches to his charting for the day, and trying to tell himself that he wasn't putting off going to see House in the process, when he was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.
"Come in," he called, and was not particularly surprised to see Foreman enter the room.
"Doctor Foreman. It seems I'm three for three on my monthly House-needs-an-intervention bingo."
As expected, Foreman didn't smile.
"I know Chase and Cameron already spoke to you," he started.
"Yes," Wilson said. "I'm going to see House tonight. I'll browbeat him into getting an MRI, or even an angio if I can manage it, get him on morphine for a couple of days and he'll be back to his usual, jolly self in no time."
"I don't think he'll agree to that," Foreman said.
"The tests? Maybe not."
"I meant the drugs." Foreman frowned. "Have you noticed how little Vicodin he's been taking recently?"
Wilson coughed. "He's late on his refill, but that's not that unusual." Which wasn't really a lie – House was sometimes two or three hours overdue in asking for a new scrip, more if he was really engaged in a case. In those situations though, Wilson usually just brought the prescription and the filled bottles straight to him at his desk.
"He hasn't been as focused on cases, either," Foreman persisted. "He's having trouble following differentials; Chase had to repeat himself three times yesterday before House understood him."
Wilson swallowed. "You're thinking something neurological?"
"All I know is I've seen House in pain plenty of times. I've never seen him absent-minded."
Wilson silently agreed. Ordinarily, House had superhuman powers of focus. Wilson was sure that working through a diagnosis actually helped him manage his pain, or at least, distract himself from it.
"So… whatever's going on," Wilson reasoned out loud, "If something's going on. House thinks it's caused or aggravated by opioids. And so he's cut back on the Vicodin."
"Which has increased the pain," Foreman finished the train of thought.
Wilson felt an ounce of relief, tempered by a healthy dose of trepidation. Talking to House about his overall health was difficult; talking about the pain was nigh on impossible. At least, if they were right, the pain was not in itself a symptom.
"I'm going to see him," Wilson said, stacking his charts and tossing his keys and phone into his briefcase.
"Let us know how he is," Foreman said awkwardly, and they bade each other good night.
House's apartment was dark and quiet when Wilson opened the front door half an hour later. House was stretched out on the couch, the floor lamp nearby casting a sickly orange glow over the side of his face. He glanced up as Wilson entered.
"Hey," Wilson said cautiously, draping his coat over the back of House's desk chair. "Missed you at lunch today."
"Hm?" House's voice was low. He kept his eyes on Wilson's face.
"Missed you at lunch," Wilson repeated, heading into the kitchen and pulling a beer out the fridge. "Want one?"
House seemed to deliberate for a second before nodding.
Wilson handed over the bottle and plunked himself down in a chair. He ran a quick mental differential on House. He was hurting, that much was clear. He looked tired and tense, his right hand running doggedly up and down his thigh. His clothes told the rest of the story: on his top half he was wearing the soft grey hoodie that he reserved for when he was feeling particularly miserable. On his bottom half, however, he was wearing his usual work jeans, and — Wilson glanced down to check – socks, but no shoes.
The picture painted itself quickly and clearly in Wilson's mind. House, waking up in pain but determined to go to work anyway. House, managing to get his pajama bottoms off, and his jeans on, following the routines he'd developed with the occupational therapist after the infarction. House, defeated by the pain after getting his socks on, and retreating to the comfort of the hoodie and the couch, no strength left to take the jeans off and get back into his pajamas or sweatpants.
Wilson's heart clenched.
"How many pills have you taken today?" he asked softly.
House rolled his eyes. "I take enough to deal with the pain, you bitch. I decide to cut down, you bitch. Is there any scenario in which I win, here? Or is my disability just too inconvenient for you?"
Wilson set his jaw.
"How many pills, House?"
"Not enough to make this conversation tolerable." Wilson didn't miss how hard House was pressing his thumb into the meat of his thigh.
"Fine, then let me ask a different question: how many times do you have to make Chase cry before you acknowledge that randomly dropping your dose so that you're in twice as much pain as usual is a bad idea?"
"I didn't make Chase cry." House was attempting to scoff, but his voice was uncertain. Then, he let out a sudden gasp and thudded his head back against the arm of the couch, his hand tight on his leg.
Wilson moved to sit on the coffee table next to the sofa, reaching out to take House's pulse at his neck. House's breathing was fast and he was sweating freely. Wilson resisted the urge to run a hand through House's hair.
"Even on the Vicodin, you'd be going for the morphine right now, wouldn't you?"
House in his turn said nothing, tiredly meeting Wilson's gaze for a moment and then looking away. Wilson stood up.
"It's still up on the bookshelf, right? I'm getting it for you."
"No!" House's voice was an unexpected shout.
Wilson turned back to look at him. House's eyes were red-rimmed and pleading with him.
"House. Why not?"
House was silent.
"If you won't tell me, will you at least let me do something else for the pain? You want your heating pad?" Though House would have probably already got that for himself if he thought it would help. "A bath?"
House let out a long breath and then nodded.
Wilson waited for House to sort his legs out and get himself sitting up, then offered him a hand off the couch.
Wilson helped him along the hallway, out of his clothes and into the tub, but House waved him away after that. After ten minutes, loud but tuneful singing started to emanate from the bathroom, indicating a significant improvement in House's mood. After another ten minutes, silence fell again, punctuated first by the sounds of the water draining from the bath, then House limping into his bedroom. Five minutes after that, he appeared in the living room again, moving fluidly and clad in a clean set of pajamas.
"Better?" Wilson asked, redundantly.
House nodded, and sat back down on the sofa, collecting his half-drunk beer from where he'd left it on the coffee table and taking a healthy gulp.
"So what's the plan?" Wilson asked, having determined not to let the matter drop. "One-to-one substitution of baths for Vicodin? Your skin is gonna prune like hell."
House huffed out a smile and Wilson ruthlessly pressed home his advantage.
"Will you please just tell me what's going on, House?"
House's answer, when it finally came, was mumbled into his chest.
"I can't hear."
"What?"
House shot an ungrateful look in his direction.
"I can't hear, ok?" he said, with more force.
Wilson was nonplussed. That was not at all what he'd been expecting. "You mean… you mean you've gone deaf?"
"No," House grunted, and scraped a frustrated thumbnail across his forehead. "Not completely. Moderate hearing loss. Worse at lower frequencies. I think."
"What's the cause?" Wilson asked, and then stopped himself, all the puzzle pieces suddenly slotting into place. "Oh. The Vicodin."
House nodded.
"It's not a typical presentation," he said, his voice clinical. "Sudden sensorineural hearing loss usually occurs after overdoses. Tends to be severe and bilateral. Guess now we know it's not just in cases of overdose."
"What's the prognosis?"
House, fiddling with the label on his beer bottle, picking and peeling the edge, didn't answer. Wilson watched his hands and fingers, ever dextrous and delicate, moving over the polished glass of the bottle.
"You haven't been to an audiologist, have you?" Wilson realised.
"Got all the confirmation I need right here," House said, nodding in the direction of the piano.
"Confirmation isn't enough, House! What about treatment?"
"Already trying it," House replied evenly.
"You mean cutting the Vicodin? Is it working?"
House shrugged. "It's not getting worse."
"Unlike the pain."
"Yeah." House's voice was bitter. "Just another shitty choice this thing –" his hand clenched on his thigh "– is forcing me to make. Live in half-agony, or keep one of my senses intact."
"At least go to see Chang and get a proper exam done." Wilson didn't know the head of audiology at the hospital well, but he knew she had a good reputation. "There must be something else you can try."
House shrugged. "High dose prednisone. The hearing loss is caused by vasoconstriction in the inner ear, induced by sustained hydrocodone ingestion. Prednisone is supposed to open the blood vessels back up..."
"So let's try that," Wilson interrupted.
"... but it's never been shown to work," House finished. "Oh et al. and Friedman et al., 2000. Two studies of patients who'd been taking Vicodin for up to nine years. None of those who lost their hearing regained it after pharmacological intervention."
"Did they discuss if the patients continued to take the Vicodin?"
"What?"
Wilson repeated the question and House nodded. "No significant correlation found between continued use and worsening hearing loss."
"Well, that's good news." Wilson tentatively reached out and touched House's shoulder. "Why don't you try going back to your usual dose? At least for a day or two, and see how it goes. You can't function like this."
"I know." House dropped his chin to his chest, not meeting Wilson's eyes. "I'm seeing Chang on Monday. Wanna come with?"
House had been surprisingly subdued and cooperative at the appointment with Dr Chang. He'd answered her questions with minimal sarcasm and submitted himself to a physical examination of his ears with only a small amount of bitching. The last part of the appointment was a hearing test. House took a seat in the soundproofed booth, and Wilson stayed with Chang in the control room.
"Ok, Dr House," Chang spoke through the microphone. "You're going to hear a series of tones rising in pitch and volume, first in your left ear, then in your right. Press the button in front of you when you hear a tone."
Wilson watched as Chang cycled through the tones, House's audiogram building up on the screen in real time. The line was curved, with the centre hovering around 40 decibels, except for below 500 Hertz and above 8000, where it dropped closer to 60 decibels. Chang had House switch to the bone conduction headphones and repeat the test. A similar audiogram resulted.
Wilson was no audiologist, but he could tell that House's own diagnosis was confirmed.
Chang said the same thing when she called them back into her office, the print-out of House's audiogram now stapled into his chart.
"The air and bone conduction curves are almost identical," she said, indicating the different markers on the graph. "That's classic sensorineural loss. Your loss is moderate across all frequencies, and a little worse at the lowest and highest we tested."
House nodded. He was clearly not surprised by the result.
"With this kind of hearing loss, you'll generally get a good outcome with hearing aids," Chang said. When House said nothing, she continued. "Is that something you'd be interested in?"
"What I'd be interested in is not being deaf," House growled.
Chang looked unphased and her tone remained sympathetic. "I know you've read the literature, House, since you asked me for it. Opioid-induced hearing loss has not yet been shown to be reversible in a clinical setting."
House's gaze was fixed on his cane, and Wilson could almost read his thoughts.
"I can let you try a few different styles now to figure out what's most comfortable," Chang said. "And I can make you an appointment for later in the week for a full fitting and programming."
House nodded his assent, and Chang fetched the sample hearing aids. She explained the pros and cons of each style, and let House try them on to assess the comfort. He picked a simple behind-the-ear style, and as Chang packed the other models away, Wilson watched him as he turned the aids over and over in his hands, his brow furrowed.
When Chang came back, House held up the plain silver hearing aid.
"Are these customisable?" he demanded.
"Of course, we make sure the fit is good and obviously program the aid to amplify the right frequencies."
"No, I mean… are there like, decals and stuff?"
Wilson had to suppress a grin as he cottoned on to House's train of thought.
Chang looked surprised. "Um… some of my younger patients decorate their hearing aids. Let me see…"
She turned to her computer and, after a minute of searching, turned the screen to show them.
"This is the site. They sell all kinds of accessories, including stickers," she said.
"Scroll down," House said. "Oh yeah, there we go. I think I can work with that."
Wilson snorted. On the screen was a pair of crescent-shaped stickers suitable for all hearing aid styles, the design pure black with a burst of orange flame.
Wilson did not care for how the infarction had robbed House of many pleasures in life, nor how the Vicodin had joined in to cripple him still further. There was, however, a single, significant upside to the whole hearing loss situation.
This upside occurred about six months after House had got his hearing aids. It had taken House a couple of weeks to adjust to using them, but Wilson had realised things were going to be ok the moment he'd caught sight of Cuddy accosting House outside the clinic. She'd been yelling at him about charting or clinic hours or something, and in response, House had simply pulled his hearing aids out of his ears and walked away with a smirk, leaving Cuddy gaping in frustration behind him. Since then, things had returned near enough to normality that Wilson had felt it safe to leave PPTH for a three week lecture tour of the west coast. It had been a good trip, but by the time he landed back at Newark all he wanted was to sit on House's couch, drink crappy beer and catch up on all the hospital gossip.
Wilson hauled his suitcase over the threshold of 221B, catching sight of House in the kitchen.
"Hey," he called, dumping his bag and coat and heading across the living room. "I'm back. Miss me?"
House, turning towards Wilson, didn't answer. There was a slight frown on his face, quickly chased off by something that Wilson nearly didn't recognise thanks to its rarity: apprehension.
"Really?" House asked, somewhat nonsensically.
Wilson huffed out a laugh. "Uh… yes?"
Leaving his cane behind, House took two quick steps towards him and kissed him.
Wilson felt House's strong left hand gripping his waist, and his right – oh, his right was cupping his jaw and Wilson opened his mouth easily to it and, what the hell, that was what House's tongue felt like.
It was undeniably nice, but Wilson couldn't help but think he'd missed a page or two of the script. He swallowed and reluctantly pulled away. Sucked in a breath. House's face was an inch from his. Wilson could trace every line, every mole, every follicle of hair.
"House – what are you doing?"
House's throat bobbed and he drew back. "You said – kiss me."
Wilson shut his eyes and then opened them again. He wasn't sure if he should be trying to suppress the idiotic grin that was threatening to burst across his features. He caught House's hand where it had dropped from his waist and held it.
"No, I said – I said 'miss me?'."
"Oh." House's jaw worked, and then he frowned, indignant. "Why the hell did you say 'yes', then?"
"Because I said 'I'm back' and you said 'Really?' Yes, I'm really back. Honestly, it was touch and go, escaping the wilds of California."
House gave a rare smile. Wilson watched as his gaze fell to their hands, still joined.
"How long have you wanted to do that?" Wilson asked.
House shrugged and glanced up at him briefly.
"Since about two seconds after a bottle of Maker's Mark shattered thirty square feet of antique leaded glass over a bar full of boring doctors with terrible jukebox etiquette."
Wilson did grin then.
"I don't want to talk about it," House warned. "In fact, talking is banned from now on."
And with that, he bent and kissed Wilson again.