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Some things, you just don’t expect. Like this.
They’ve finished packing everything into the saddlebags, done a last check of the motel room, the usual morning routine. House has pulled his jacket on and is just about to pick up his helmet, when Wilson walks casually toward him, leans in, and kisses him. Not just a quick peck – a full-on kiss on the mouth. Then he turns away, puts his helmet on, kicks up the stand, swings a leg over his cycle and he’s gone.
What the – ?
House just stands there, his own helmet dangling from his hand by the strap. Wilson’s nearly out of sight when he comes to and jams it onto his head, swearing as he takes off to catch up.
Helmets and engine noise make pretty effective barriers to conversation when it comes to travel by motorcycle, so it’s not as if he can ask Wilson what in god’s name he thought he was playing at back there. He thinks for a moment of riding up next to the other man and indicating that they should pull over, but they’ve merged onto a larger road now, and traffic is too heavy to make that a safe idea. They don’t plan on stopping until they get to . . . to . . . to wherever it was they’d decided they were going to have lunch today, unless Wilson spots something he wants to visit along the way.
All he can do, really, is ride his motorcycle and turn the experience over and over in his mind, searching for an explanation. The simplest one, the easiest and most likely, is that Wilson is pranking him. House had short-sheeted Wilson’s bed two nights ago; yesterday morning he’d taken all the coffee packets but one from the in-room coffee maker and emptied them into Wilson’s helmet while Wilson was in the shower, covering up the odor by using the last packet to brew a carafe full of coffee-colored water. He’s due for some retaliation, Wilson has retaliated, that’s all there is to it.
Mystery solved.
He spends the next several dozen miles alternately telling himself that that has to be all there is to it, and wondering if that’s all there is to it. He replays the memory because he’s looking for clues, not focusing on the sensation of Wilson’s lips pressed against his. Not.
More miles unwind behind them, and now the doubts start crowding in. Sure, it’s likely that Wilson’s pranking him, but what if he’s not? What if there’s supposed to be some kind of meaning to the kiss, some message House was supposed to get from it? He looks at it from every possible angle, but if there is a message he can’t figure out what it might be: there are too many possibilities. And he still can’t stop Wilson and ask, because they’ve left the larger road and the one they’re on now winds up into the Blue Ridge Mountains. He’d like to spend more time appreciating the showy profusion of spring flowers, but between watching for oncoming traffic, handling the curves, keeping an eye on the less-experienced Wilson, and obsessing about the kiss, his attention is fairly fully occupied.
They’re well up into the mountains when it occurs to him that he’s not even sure why they’re on this road, or if there’s going to be any place to stop for lunch. And then he thinks about what it’s going to be like when they do stop for lunch, and he leaves off obsessing about the kiss in favor of obsessing over how he should act then. Instantly demanding an explanation doesn’t seem right; it’s been hours now since they left the motel, and it would look as if he’s spent those hours thinking about the kiss. (Okay, he has, but there’s no reason to let Wilson know that.)
On the other hand, not saying something about it would just be weird, because Wilson kissed him, for god’s sake, and Wilson knows how House thinks and how he won’t be able to let something like that go without getting some kind of explanation.
So either he should say something, or he shouldn’t say something. He bounces back and forth between the two options while they switchback their way up another thousand feet or so, and finally decides he’ll just observe what Wilson does when they stop, and take his cue from that.
And it’s at just that moment that Wilson slows down, signals, and makes a turn up what would have looked like a private driveway if House hadn’t just barely seen the Welcome-to-Something-or-Other-State-Park sign half-buried in a clump of mountain laurel. There’s probably a Scenic View – they’re high enough up, and he’s already discovered that Wilson has a thing for Scenic Views. As far as House is concerned, if you’ve seen one tree-encrusted ridge of mountains in the distance you’ve seen them all, but if Wilson wants to look at Scenic Views, then Scenic Views there shall be.
It’s the middle of the week in late spring; the park is pretty much deserted. Not that it seems to be all that heavily used at the best of times: the condition of the road indicates that this place is pretty far down the list when it comes to regular maintenance. House watches Wilson keenly: the potholes here are large and frequent and the other man is still new to riding on uncertain surfaces, especially on an upgrade. But he seems to be doing all right, picking his way carefully around the worst of the craters in the pavement, taking it slowly around the tight curves. The road is narrow and graded a bit more steeply than modern traffic engineers would find ideal; stretches of stone retaining wall here and there along the route give House a fairly good idea as to when the park first opened.
When they finally reach a flat and gravelled parking area his suspicions are immediately confirmed: there’s an uneven flight of stone steps leading down to a series of rock-walled stone terraces overlooking the predictible Scenic View of a river gorge. Sure enough, the terraces are all the sturdy, deliberately rustic-looking work of the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps. When the place was built, the View was probably a lot more Scenic: during the intervening decades enough trees have grown up that it’s largely obscured by greenery. But there are some rock benches on the first, highest terrace, and at some point a modern wheelchair ramp was installed to allow access for people without two working legs.
Wilson dismounts, takes his helmet off and runs a hand through his hair, smiling easily at House, then starts strolling toward the ramp. House hesitates, then catches up. When they get down to the terrace, Wilson stands for a few minutes, leaning against the stone wall to gaze out at the trees and the glimpses of blue-green distances beyond. House sits down on one of the stone benches; there’s been enough sun this morning that the bench isn’t as cold as he’d feared. Privately he decides he’s got the better scenery at the moment: Wilson’s includes trees and mountains and sky, but House’s has all of that, plus Wilson.
Neither of them has said a word. The kiss is still very much on House’s mind, but he’s no closer to knowing how to bring the subject up than he was while riding.
After another minute or so, Wilson turns away from the wall and comes to join House on the bench, sitting close enough that House can feel the warmth of him. House looks at him out of the corner of his eye. Wilson’s profile has a clean-cut outline that he likes, even with the new moustache.
Quiet wraps itself around them: the stillness of a high place away from traffic and industry, a silence so pure that when Wilson starts speaking the words have a kind of special clarity about them.
“I fell in love with you in New Orleans,” Wilson says. His tone is calm and steady, as if he’s just continuing a conversation they’ve already been having. He’s still staring out at the View.
House, caught completely unprepared, feels suddenly as if all the oxygen has been pulled out of the air around him.
“Of course, I didn’t know that it was love at the time,” Wilson goes on, “I just thought you were . . . the most amazing person I’d ever met.” He smiles a little. “I still do.”
House is trying to figure out how to make his lungs work again. Luckily, Wilson doesn’t seem to expect an answer.
“It’s taken me all these years to figure out what it is that keeps pulling me back to you, no matter what happens, no matter what you do. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Bonnie, or Julie, or even Sam: it was just that I loved you more. With – with Amber . . .”
House goes from trying to breathe to holding his breath.
“I loved her. I . . . I still love her. But . . .I originally fell in love with her because she was so much like you. You were right when you told me that, you know.” Wilson chuckles softly. “The look on your face . . . I wish I’d had a camera.”
There’s a stretched-out pause during which House wonders if he can get his voice to work. He’s not sure.
“All these years . . .” Wilson says again, so softly House can barely hear him even in the deep silence surrounding them. “I don’t know why I didn’t – couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it. It was stupid. We lost so much.”
He’s still looking out over treetops, but any second he’s going to turn and look at House, and House still can’t come up with a word to say and if he could he wouldn’t be able to get it out past whatever it is in his chest that’s making his heart race like this. But if he doesn’t say something, Wilson will think it’s some kind of rejection and start to apologize and then House will fumble and say something stupid, and –
And so when Wilson does turn and look at him, House does the one thing he can think of that doesn’t involve talking.
He sees Wilson’s eyes go wide with surprise at the kiss just before his own eyes close, and he hopes desperately that he got it right, and maybe he did because Wilson isn’t pulling away, no, he’s kissing back. They’re sitting here, alone in the mountains, kissing like there’s no tomorrow – and maybe there won’t be, you never know – and he’s feeling it: he’s feeling every single, stupid, clichéd thing you’re supposed to feel at a time like this, the fireworks, the waterfalls, the earth moving, heaven opening up, and it’s ridiculous and he’d be righteously pissed with himself if he had the attention to spare for it, but he’s too busy kissing Wilson.
Long, long moments later they pull back and look at each other, and House realizes there’s something he needs to say, right now, before Wilson gets the wrong idea.
"This doesn’t mean you have to—”
“House, I’ve decided I want to—”
They both stop.
Then Wilson tilts his head back and makes a kind of breathless laughing sound, and suddenly House knows. He looks at Wilson and sees years stretching out in front of them instead of months, and he wants them all, wants every minute, every second that has Wilson in it. He’ll have them, he knows it – because now Wilson wants them, too.
“Come on,” he says, standing up, “let’s get off this stupid stone bench before our asses freeze off. What’s next?”
He’s thinking about lunch, but there’s an uncertain look on Wilson’s face when he answers. “We have to get over the mountain first.”
“Rough ride,” House acknowledges, “but we’ll do it.” He stretches out a hand, and Wilson takes it.
"We will,” he agrees.
From where House stands, the view has never been more scenic.