The hallway was too bright. Too many eyes, too many nurses with sideways glances, too much of Wilson’s voice still echoing in House’s ears.

He had barely spoken to you all day. Every interaction clipped, filtered through sarcasm and challenge. A wall. You’d felt it.

But when you brushed past him near radiology—your hand grazing his wrist, casual, unintentional—he broke.

“Come with me.”

You blinked. “Where—?”

He didn’t answer.

Just grabbed your hand, firm and fast, and tugged you toward the nearest stairwell door.

It slammed behind you. The fluorescent hum died, replaced by silence and cement and a single flickering bulb above.

You barely had time to speak his name before he was on you—backing you against the wall, one arm braced beside your head, the other gripping your hip like you might vanish. His mouth crashed to yours in something closer to desperation than romance. No warning. No preamble.

Just heat.

His stubble scraped. His breath tasted like coffee and something bitterer. His cane clattered somewhere near the landing, forgotten.

Your fingers dug into his shirt. His hands were rough and searching—thumbs skimming skin under your waistband, like he’d thought about this a thousand times and finally stopped saying no.

He pulled back just an inch, lips brushing yours as he breathed out:

“Tell me to stop.”

You didn’t.

You kissed him harder.

And in that dark, echoing stairwell, it wasn’t about logic, or timing, or fear of consequences. It was just him, and you, and the weight of too many things unsaid.