Wilson and House are not mine in any way, shape or form. Damn.

This is for Alice. I will always choose you; always. Till death do us part.

It was raining.

Of course it was raining, thought House, bitterly; why would it be doing anything else?

He leant his head back against the wall in the alley behind the restaurant, sheltering himself with the gutter. The stone was cold and damp against his back, sending shivers up his spine.

Would he come? He had to: he always came.

"You should be in there, not out here." Wilson said, stepping out through the kitchen doors.

"Forgive me if I don't want to watch you make the biggest mistake of your life...again." He added.

Wilson ran his hand through his hair, the moisture sticking it back in place. All House had had to do was walk surreptitiously through the dining room, briefly catch the oncologist's eye, before exiting through the back door.

And without a second thought, Wilson had followed him.

Now in the rain, he glanced down at his jacket and frowned at the drops falling there. He moved under the guttering next to House, still avoiding looking straight at him; instead focussing on a spot halfway up the other wall of the alley.

"It's my engagement party, House – as best man I wanted you to be there."

"So I could smile and laugh as you make love to Betty?" House asked sarcastically, still not looking at Wilson, "I don't think so."

"Bonnie" The oncologist corrected automatically.

"That's what I said." Counteracted House, not missing a beat.

They stood a few seconds listening to the rain falling on the roof above them. House slid his hand across the wall, closer to the other doctor, and then sighed quietly as he dropped it back down by his side, asking,

"What's she like?"

"Please don't, House" Wilson replied, in barely a whisper.

"Tell me."

"If you go in there you can find out for yourself." He was snapping. He wasn't meaning to, but he felt like he had no control over his words – as if he was a complete stranger to himself.

"Do you love her?" House buried his hands in his pockets.

"I'm marrying her."

"That's not what I asked."

"I deserve better than this," Wilson yelled, throwing his hands in the air and finally turning to look at the taller man. "I deserve a chance to be happy – I'm an oncologist House! Being happy isn't something I experience often!"

"Fuck, Wilson!" House interjected, angrily, pushing himself off the wall. "What about me? I thought we had something."

Wilson looked at the floor and kicked his shoe into the puddle by his feet.

"It didn't mean anything." He muttered.

House thought back to the first time he had seen Wilson across a crowded room. Remembered the look on the younger doctor's face as he had hurled the bottle through the window.

He had then satisfyingly registered the surprise on Wilson's face when House had bailed him out of jail that evening.

And not four hours later, saturated with alcohol, they had stumbled into the nearest motel room to partake in the best sex House had ever experienced.

Just by the morning, Wilson was gone. And House had rolled over to the other side of the bed, and pulled the pillow to him until long after the smell of the oncologist had faded.

It had taken a lot of carefully laid plans – and a strategic sacking – but House had finally managed to persuade the Dean of Medicine to hire Dr. James Wilson as the new head of oncology at Princeton Plainsborough hospital.

And on the first morning, pretending he wasn't shaking from the top of his cropped head to the sole of his trade-mark trainers, House had flounced into Wilson's office announcing,

"Why! What a coincidence! Look who it is! You're buying me lunch today by the way."

At first the younger doctor had looked at him in shock, and then embarrassment, before hurrying off into the nearest elevator without any recognition of the diagnostician's statement.

And just when House was cursing himself, and drinking that one-too-many, there had been a knock at his door.

"House! Open up! We need to talk."

House had staggered over and pulled the door towards him, but before he had the chance to say anything, Wilson had launched himself on him – his hands exploring House's face and his tongue probing into his mouth; licking his teeth and brushing across his lips.

"I thought you wanted to talk?" House had said between kisses, pushing the door closed and removing Wilson's shirt.

"Everybody lies." Wilson had murmured into the stubble on the other man's neck, his fingers trailing down the diagnostician's torso.

House would remember that.

He remembered that in the here and now, soaked to the bone; shivering from the cold or the threat of tears.

"We fight and we fuck, House." Wilson said, defeatedly. "We're no good for anything else."

House set his jaw and lifted his head.

"You're right." He responded, with a steady voice. "It didn't mean anything."

Wilson gave a gruff nod and turned to leave, but House fell forward and trapped him against the wall with his arms on either side, his hands flat on the damp bricks. He was so close that Wilson could see the water as it glistened down his face.

"It didn't mean anything," House repeated. "Not the first time, not the time after that. Not every night you would show up at my door. Not in the elevator, the janitor's closet or Cuddy's office. It meant nothing."

He was breathing in Wilson's face now, and was not unaware of the tears forming in the oncologist's eyes.

"Does she make you feel the way I make you feel?" He asked, his warm breath passing over Wilson's lips. "Do you scream her name until your throat is hoarse?"

He moved closer, slipping his hand down to the front of Wilson's trousers, pressing on the material there and whispering,

"Can she make you come with ecstasy, using only her touch – or her tongue?"

At this point he slipped his into Wilson's mouth, forcing the doctor hard against the wall, snaking his other hand up along Wilson's jaw and through his soft, damp hair.

Wilson didn't push him away; but he didn't kiss him back either.

House broke away enough to speak.

"Kiss me, Goddamnit!"

Wilson grabbed House's wrist, and pulled it away from his face – his fingers lingering longer than was really fair.

Then he finally looked the diagnostician straight in the eyes.

"I made my choice, House. And it wasn't you."

Wilson turned and walked back into the restaurant, half hoping House would stop him again.

He didn't. He let him go.

He was beyond caring now, he told himself.

Everybody lies, added the voice in his head.