Count Your Blessings
TITLE: Count Your Blessings
AUTHOR: nightdog_writes
PAIRING: Wilson and House
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: None.
SPOILERS: Yes, for general goings-on in Season 4, up through episode 4.08, "You Don't Want to Know."
SUMMARY: One is the loneliest number ...
DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Never will.
AUTHOR NOTES: For more information about a typical U.S. Thanksgiving dinner, look here. Also, information on "heritage turkeys" can be found here.
BETA: My always-awesome First Readers, with especial thanks to bironic, who knew instantly there was a missing scene.




Count Your Blessings


Wilson stabbed disconsolately at the thin slice of turkey on his plate and tried once again to convince himself this had been a good idea.

The hotel restaurant was practically deserted -- his dining companions were mostly men at tables for one, business travelers caught on the road on this most familial of American holidays. They looked with long faces at their own plates of turkey and dressing, cranberries and green beans, and seemed to sigh with longing for their families.

At least they have families, Wilson thought, and immediately rebuked himself for his self-pity. It had been his own fault, getting caught like this. Last year, he had made sure to take extra clinic duty this day, but in a sardonic twist of irony, he'd been too busy this year to remember. He hadn't wanted to intrude on anyone else's plans at so late a date, so he'd simply engaged in a shell-game subterfuge -- he'd told his parents he was at the hospital again this year, and the hospital that he was at his parents'. And then, deciding it would be worse than pathetic to hide in his room, he'd come here, to the quiet restaurant and the low murmur of hushed voices.

He took another bite of turkey and chewed slowly. It wasn't bad, but the chefs in the kitchen were obviously taking the safe route, preparing the blandest food possible for the lowest possible denominator.

Like you, his brain informed him helpfully. Wilson ignored it and thought instead about how he would have prepared the turkey.

Free-range. Better yet, heritage. Stuffed with onions, sage, fresh breadcrumbs. Basted with real butter.

He smiled a little, thinking of the rich scent that would fill the kitchen ... and then his face fell. Whose kitchen? Not the tiny one in his room -- the equipment was Lilliputian and the oven seemed hardly big enough for a Cornish hen, let alone a small turkey. House's?

No. He wasn't sure how (yes you are) and he didn't know when (yes you do) but it had become abundantly clear of late that House preferred to devote his attention to his multitude of applicants jockeying for a limited number of positions, bizarre quests for Cuddy's underwear, and a relentless testing of the limits of human mortality.

It was the last that bothered him especially, and he didn't particularly want to be around the next time House stuck something metallic in a wall socket or did a reasonable imitation of a leech and absorbed some truly tainted blood.

Wilson rested his cheek in his right hand and pushed at the mashed potatoes with the fork in his left, creating a channel in the White Cliffs of Dover and allowing the watery gravy to seep out onto the rest of his plate.

Might as well go back to my room. See if I can catch the rest of the Jets game.

He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and laid it beside the plate.

A shadow fell over the table. Wilson looked up, startled, as the empty chair across from him scraped across the floor.

"Garçon!" House yelled, and all movement in the restaurant ceased as the other patrons froze, forks halfway to their open mouths, and stared.

A waiter, one of the bored kids who'd drawn the short straw for working on a holiday, appeared.

"Sir, my name is Michael and I'll be your waiter tonight. Can I get you -- "

"I'll have what he's having," House interrupted. "Extra dry dressing and don't hold the salt."

"Uh ... sir?"

"Never mind; that's the way it'll come anyway. What are you waiting for? Go!"

The waiter retreated, and slowly the clatter of silverware and other restaurant noises resumed.

"House!" Wilson hissed. "What are you doing here?"

House settled himself more comfortably in his seat. "What's it look like?" he said. "Having Thanksgiving dinner."

"Yes, but why here? I thought you had a dying patient."

"Why not here? Patient's not dying anymore, and this as good a place as any." House's eyes narrowed. "Unless you know something about the food here that I don't."

"No! I mean yes! I mean -- " Wilson's hands seemed to rise into the air of their own accord, and he forced them back down.

The waiter reappeared; a plate, piled high with turkey and crumbled dressing and quivering with jellied cranberry sauce, appeared with him. He set it with a dull plop in front of House, who wrinkled his nose for a moment and then picked up a fork.

Which he immediately set down.

"I almost forgot!" he cried, and Wilson stared at him apprehensively. He grabbed Wilson's left hand.

"House ... what -- "

House, who had bowed his head, peered up at him from under lowered brows.

"It's Thanksgiving," he said. "We're supposed to give thanks."

Wilson's mouth opened and closed. "No," he said, trying to pull his hand away. "Oh, no. House, come on ... " But House simply tightened his grip and lowered his head again.

"Dear GOD," House intoned, and Wilson squirmed as everyone around them snapped to attention again. "Thank you for the food, mediocre as it is, that we're about to receive. Thank you for the human reasoning and intelligence to know that it's mediocre. Thank you for puppies and kittens and rainbows, and that really good hooker I had last Saturday -- you know the one, Lord. The screamer."

"Are you done?" Wilson could feel his face flushing, but still House held on.

"But most of all, God, thank you for my friend Jimmy. His puppy got run over by an 18-wheeler and he's paying three -- no, two alimonies so he can't afford another one right now. He's been a little unhappy this year, Lord -- you think that hooker might help him too? And maybe get him some better friends while you're at it."

Wilson's throat closed up. House raised his head.

"'Cause God knows he needs them."

"House, no ... "

"Amen."

The hotel restaurant was silent. Wilson's hand was suddenly cold as House finally let go, and he found himself missing the warmth. Someone a few tables away coughed discreetly, and slowly the ambient noise of the dining room reasserted itself.

"House," Wilson said softly. "I -- "

"Eat."

"But -- "

"I said, eat."

Wilson looked down at his plate. The gravy had cooled and congealed into a glazed, muddy mass. The jellied cranberry sauce was liquefying, bleeding into the mashed potatoes and coloring them a hideous shade of pink. He picked up his fork, speared a small piece of turkey, and put it in his mouth.

It was dry and fibrous. Tough and chewy. He'd be lucky if he didn't choke on it.

It was the best turkey he'd ever had.




~ the end.