Title: What A Fool Believes
By: karaokegal
Pairing: Mac Taylor/James Wilson (CSI: NY/House)
Wordcount: 730
Rating: PG13
Summary: Written for the Kiss Meme.

Another late-night phone call and Wilson goes running, this time all the way to New York, where House has ended up in jail (again) because he pissed someone off (again) and Wilson has made bail (again.)

This time one thing is different. Instead of the police being represented by a malevolent force like Tritter, there’s an eminently reasonable, nearly scholarly detective who identifies himself as Mac Taylor.

Wilson knows he shouldn’t trust any policeman after what happened last year, knows that House will take any cooperation on his part as an act of betrayal, but they’ve been through this before and Wilson thinks he can tell the difference between a vindictive bastard and a man of science.

It takes nearly 24 hours to get things sorted out. Something about cat fibers and dust mites. Wilson watches Taylor and his team do their job, with both humor and professionalism. It reminds him of House and his team, including some of the emotional dynamics between the younger members. Taylor has the same charisma, the same conviction that he knows what he’s doing and they will find the answer with enough tests and questions. He wonders if Mac actually believes what people tell him or he shares House’s conviction about the essential perfidy of human nature.

He also wonders why he’s talking to Mac nearly two weeks after House has been released and gone back to work. On the other hand, Mac’s come pretty far out his way to drink the hospital cafeteria’s wretched excuse for coffee, just because Wilson called and asked him to. It doesn’t matter exactly what they talk about, usually their various “cases,” Wilson’s patients to healed and Mac’s crimes to be solved. Wilson likes the sound of Mac’s voice, as he talks about the trace evidence and compounds and even the gorier details of things found in the digestive tract of victims, or vics as he casually calls them.

The more they talk, at PPTH, over the phone, at a diner somewhere between Princeton and Manhattan, the more Wilson feels a connection, the way he used to feel with House. There’s something there, he knows it, wants to believe it, evidence to the contrary, because who would ever have thought it would happen with him and House, until it did.

“So then Danny tracks down the shampoo that the vic had in his hair to just two hotels on the upper east side, and from there we figured out that the concierge was having an affair with one of the accountants and they had a scam going to fleece the guests, when management found out they turned on each other and one of them ended up dead.”

Wilson is more interested in Mac’s cadences than the words themselves, but he does pick up one point of interest in the story.

“The concierge and the accountant, they were both men?”

“Yeah.”

Wilson let’s the answer sit between them, taking Mac’s neutral tone as a good sign. He doesn’t need to know everything, not yet, just one thing.

“Mac?”

“Yes, James?”

“You know my friend House?”

“Like I’d forget him after only two weeks?”

“He thinks everybody lies.”

“He might have a point. I hear plenty of bull-shit in my line of work.”

“But do you believe anybody?”

“When they’re telling the truth.”

“How do you know?”

Mac smiles and shakes his head, with a gentle amusement that Wilson feels privileged to see.

“Why don’t you tell me something and see if I believe it or not.”

It’s Wilson’s turn to nod and smile, even though something is boiling up inside.

“What if I told you I wanted to kiss you?”

He waits. He wonders. He can almost envision the clouds coming over Mac’s face as he gets up and walks away. It’s nearly ten years since he had a similar conversation with House. Two years since, Julie kicked him out. Six months since the last time he and House touched. Three months since Robin. Less then three hours since he touched himself thinking abut Mac Taylor.

“I definitely believe that.”

He leans over the table and whispers something in Wilson’s ear, which Wilson barely registers because Mac’s lips are so very close to his skin that it might actually be a kiss, even if it isn’t, it’s enough because somehow he realizes what Mac has just said.

“Me too.”