Fic: Fault Lines

[mer_duff]

Title: Fault Lines
Author: Mer
Characters: House, Wilson
Prompt: 100_situations #89 - Flood
Word Count: 1830
Rating: PG
Summary: Living with House isn't easy; sometimes it's not even safe.
Author's Note: Thanks to elynittria for an amazing beta job - the subjunctive is our friend!
Disclaimer: The characters of House belong to David Shore, Heel and Toe Films, and Bad Hat Harry Productions, in association with NBC Universal Television Studio.


It was Wilson's fault that the laundry room flooded. Just because he was in surgery at the time, miles away, didn't absolve him of the responsibility. If he hadn't been spending so much time at work, the laundry wouldn't have piled up, and House wouldn't have been forced by cold feet and colder floors to do it himself.

And it was Wilson's fault that he lived in an apartment building with a crappy plumbing system that couldn't handle two machines running simultaneously. House didn't have time to hang around waiting for the whites to run for three minutes before he started the darks. Commercial breaks only lasted so long. And really, Wilson should have learned from history that instituting a system of apartheid could only lead to trouble. House had existed happily with integrated clothing for years.

In hindsight, the state of the laundry room floor might have had something to do with the amount of detergent House had used, but no one could read the lines on those stupid little cups, and his hand only slipped a little during the free pour. It was Wilson's fault for buying the extra concentrated liquid stuff that you couldn't just scoop back into the box like powder.

So it really wasn't House's fault that when he went to put the clothes in the dryer, he was confronted by a cloud covering of bubbles on the laundry room floor. Canes and soap suds don't mix, so House just turned around, went back upstairs, put Family Guy, Volume 7, into the DVD player, and waited for Wilson to get back and deal with the mess.

And it definitely wasn't his fault that Wilson came home, saw that the laundry basket was missing, and went straight to the basement in search of his favourite jammies. He might have asked House one or two times if the laundry was done, but most of what came out of Wilson's mouth was just white noise. If he'd waited another eight minutes until the episode was over, House would have told him what had happened. It was Wilson's fault for being so impatient.

As it turned out, dress shoes and soap suds didn't mix very well either. When Wilson stalked back into the apartment an episode later, he was damp, red-faced, and doing an excellent impression of David Banner about to go green.

"It didn't occur to you to warn me that I was walking into a domestic disaster zone?" he demanded, standing in front of House, arms akimbo.

House craned his neck to see the screen. "It was just a little overflow. It's not like the levees broke."

"The floor was like a skating rink," Wilson retorted. "I'm lucky I didn't crack my head open."

Judging by the damp patches on Wilson's pants and shirt, he had slipped, pin-wheeled, and landed on his side. "No harm, no foul," House said and turned up the volume. "You're blocking my view."

Wilson narrowed his eyes. "You did this on purpose. Wasn't putting salt in the sugar bowl enough fun for one day?"

"That was aversion therapy. All that sugar in your coffee isn't healthy." Wilson never appreciated anything House did for him.

"And a teaspoon of salt is?"

Wilson was in denial if he thought he was only adding a teaspoon of sugar to his morning coffee, but House supposed he had a point about the salt. Putting him into a hypertensive state probably wasn't the best idea. "It was an accident," he placated. "The laundry room, not the salt. It's not my fault this building has inadequate plumbing. What kind of tenement are we living in?"

"Don't start." Wilson pointed a warning finger, but then all the fight in him took flight, and his shoulders slumped like Taub's investment portfolio. "I'm taking a shower and getting into some dry clothes. Don't destroy anything else."

It sounded like a challenge, but part of being a genius was knowing which challenges would beat back the shadows a little longer and which ones would result in Wilson droning on until House longed for the darkness. But when Wilson retreated into his bedroom straight from the shower and didn't re-emerge to start puttering in the kitchen, House realized he'd traded droning for shunning, which was infinitely worse. House did the ignoring; he wasn't the ignoree.

When Wilson still hadn't surfaced by the end of the next episode, House decided the least he could do -- and the least was all he was willing to do -- was bring up the laundry.

He could hear the hum of the dryers -- a button or zipper clicking against the side on each tumble -- as he opened the laundry room door. The floor was shiny, but dry, the mop propped in the corner as evidence of Wilson's industry. House could guess what must have happened. The suds had evaporated by the time Wilson went to check the laundry, but the residue had left the floor deceptively slick. Wilson was right; he could have been seriously hurt. And yet he'd picked himself up and mopped the floor, instead of charging back immediately to yell at House. He'd even taken the time to hang up the clothes that couldn't be machine-dried. Sometimes, House wasn't sure that Wilson was actually human.

The drying cycles ended with an annoying buzz, one after another, and House pulled out the clothes and dumped them into the laundry basket. He even cleared the lint traps, because he was all about fire safety, and not because Wilson would check and complain if he didn't.

The bedroom door was still closed when he returned to the apartment, the laundry basket precariously tucked under one arm. House rolled his eyes and dumped the basket on the table to sort and fold the clothes. As domestic chores went, it was tolerable. Matching socks was almost like piecing together an abstract jigsaw puzzle, since Wilson owned an endless array of black socks in varying shades, sizes, and styles. He grabbed Wilson's clothes -- minus a pair of the warmer socks -- and let himself into Wilson's room without knocking.

"Do you have any respect for boundaries?" Wilson demanded, putting down the book he was reading. His hair was damp and he'd changed into a dark grey t-shirt and sweatpants, which made him look about as threatening as a toddler with a teddy bear.

"Do you actually have any boundaries?" House countered. He dumped the clothes on the end of Wilson's bed. "You know, most people would be grateful to have a little help around the house, but you always have to look at the negative."

"Grateful?" Wilson swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. "I'm supposed to be grateful that you tried to kill me? Or grateful that you didn't succeed? Because I'm starting to think you should just put me out of my misery."

House took a moment to admire Wilson's expression of righteous indignation. Provoking it was one of the few pleasures he had remaining, now that Vicodin was verboten, alcohol was on short rations, and Wilson had banned smoking in the apartment. "I didn't try to kill you, though men of lesser patience would have strangled you years ago."

"Maybe not deliberately," Wilson conceded, "but you didn't do anything to prevent it. I realize it's too much to expect you to clean up after yourself, but a word of warning would have been nice."

"But then you would have been deprived of the opportunity to get all pissy at me, and I know how important a part of your daily routine that is."

Wilson glared at him, but his irritation was already sputtering out. He sighed and started to put his clothes away. "You're right. I know you're trying and I should be more appreciative."

As apologies went, it was as pathetic as Wilson's matrimonial record, but House had been aiming for guilt, not contrition, and he never missed that target on Wilson. Satisfied, he was just turning around to leave when he noticed Wilson was opening the underwear drawer with his right hand. "Did you hurt your arm when you fell?" he asked, the guilt boomeranging back at him.

"It's just bruised," Wilson said, flexing his left arm a few times to prove that he was all right. It would have been more convincing if he hadn't winced when he did it.

"Let me see." House forced Wilson to sit down on the side of the bed, but he was gentle when he lifted Wilson's arm to examine it. The elbow was already turning Technicolor, and Wilson flinched when House probed carefully around the joint, but he couldn't feel any breaks or dislocations. "You banged your elbow pretty good," he said. "You should take some ibuprofen to knock back any inflammation in the bursa sac."

"Already done," Wilson said. "I am a doctor, you know."

House had his doubts some days, but this wasn't the time to mention that. Nolan would be pleased that he'd exercised self-control. "I thought maybe we could order in pizza tonight," he suggested. He considered offering to cook, but that might give Wilson the mistaken impression that he really was sorry, and Wilson was the only one who was supposed to be giving grudging apologies.

"Pizza's good," Wilson said, which either meant his arm really was hurting or he was humouring House. It didn't take a genius to parse that one out. A bruised elbow wasn't nearly enough to keep Wilson out of the kitchen. "No anchovies," Wilson added, naming his price for forgiveness.

"No anchovies," House agreed. He didn't like them anyway. "I'm watching one more disc before you turn on the news," he added, just in case Wilson thought that one concession meant a complete surrender.

"I read the New York Times on my iPhone while you were seeking wisdom from a talking dog."

"If you think that makes you sound like anything other than a pretentious jerk, you're wrong. And Stewie's the only one worth listening to on the show." The dog was almost as tiresome as Wilson. Voices of reason in any species were a pain.

Wilson frowned, but followed House out to the living room and slumped down on the couch while House phoned in the order. "You've got it on uncensored audio, right?"

"Duh," House replied. As if there were any other way to watch. He snatched up the remote control before Wilson got any ideas about who was in control.

Wilson didn't fight him for it, probably because the bastard knew he was in control in so many other ways. "If you're bored tomorrow, the bathroom needs cleaning."

"Nobody is ever that bored," House retorted. The kitchen could use tidying, however; the spice rack, in particular, needed reorganizing. And if the ground cinnamon somehow got into the paprika bottle, and the allspice switched places with the peppercorns, then Wilson had no one but himself to blame.