It's a long one...
AUTHOR:
feanix PAIRING: House, Wilson
RATING: T (just for the violence)
WORD COUNT: 2,680
WARNINGS: Child abuse, secrets, dizzying flashbacks.
SUMMARY: Wilson finds something unexpected.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own House or any related characters. I just pray every night that one day I will.
NOTES: I got a little bit complacent towards the end, so if there are any inconsistencies as far as tense and things like that are concerned, I apologise in advance. I've been sitting on this fic for months now and I'm so happy to finally have it finished.
“Goodnight, House”, Wilson muttered tiredly after dragging his friend’s alcohol deadened body onto the couch. They’d been having their “beer and porn friday” at House’s apartment and usually House could hold out far longer than Wilson when it came to crashing, but on this night he’d taken one too many Vicodin and passed out in the living room. Wilson threw a blanket over the long limbed man, made sure his cane was nearby and turned out the lights.
The oncologist was pretty happy - just quietly - that House passed out first. This meant that the only available sleeping space in the living room was filled and so, tragically, Wilson would have to take House’s comfortable, spacious bed. Wilson smiled to himself - after having slept on that godawful couch, House would never pick on Wilson again for bitching about how horrible it was.
Wilson took his weary, nearly drunk body to House’s bedroom where he kicked off his shoes and pants. He stripped off his shirt and took a token look at the sheets upon which he’d be sleeping. They looked OK, but truthfully, Wilson didn’t care too much what condition they were in - after all, he’d slept dozens of occasions on the couch that House had undoubtedly jerked off on a million times and where he had given it a good go once or twice himself. The brunette poured himself between the sheets, pulled up the crinkled bedspread and tried to drift off to sleep.
But he couldn’t. He tried to change his position and roll over or lay on his back, but that didn’t work either. Nor did trying to count sheep or recall the bones of the human skeleton. Finally, though, Wilson worked it out - something was wrong with the bed. He sat up, puzzled; the mattress was fine and the sheets weren’t scratchy...It was the damned pillow - it was lumpy or something. The doctor picked up the pillow to give it a good hard shake and and a bit of a thrashing, and then, with the offending piece of bed ware in hand, Wilson paused.
There, laying where the pillow had been, was a stuffed bear. Even though it was missing both eyes, an ear and was almost ratty beyond recognition, it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. Wilson had made the discovery of a lifetime - Gregory House, that curmudgeonly old bastard, had a teddy bear. And, not only did he have a teddy bear in his bedroom, it was in his bed...He slept with it.
Wilson chuckled to himself and lay down, and this time managed to get comfortable. For kicks, he tucked the bear under his arm and tried to imagine House doing the same. Frankly, he couldn’t see it happening, but it must - and fairly regularly - for the bear was in pretty poor condition and had a terribly uneven stuffing distribution.
Absentmindedly stroking the bear’s patchy head, Wilson lay there and wondered about his friend’s plush companion. The man had spent a lot of time with House over the years. Sometimes more time than he cared to recall. Between wives - and, if he’d admit it, during his marriages - House kept Wilson company. They’d shared countless meals together, watched nauseating amounts of television together and spent far too many hours together tormenting Cuddy as a twisted sort of Dynamic Duo. But amid all of the hilarity and food eating, the diagnostician and the oncologist talked. They had shared much of their personal histories and compared stories, but the brunette knew that there were certain things that House wouldn’t even touch on, let alone completely divulge.
Things that Wilson was almost positive that this scratchy, barely-there bear had seen.
Nestled next to the warm body of Dr. James Wilson, the bear knew it was true. Having been with House from birth, the stuffed animal had seen it all.
(~)
The teddy bear was well loved and his fur started to mat in places. Even though it’d lost an eye, the bear, sat on Greg’s blue bedspread, saw what happened.
Greg’s bedroom door banged open and the lanky blonde boy was forced into the room followed by his father hot on his heels. John House was a big man with a small temper and it didn’t take much for him to be stretched to his limits and push his son around.
John grabbed the child by the shirt and shook him fiercely. He was yelling at such a volume that neither Greg nor the bear could understand what was being said. The boy stood defiant - his feet firmly planted on the ground - and dry-eyed despite the shaking.
The boy with blue eyes hated to cry because it made him feel weak; It made him feel like he’d lost the battle. But the trade-off was that if he did cry, it would all be over. John would leave feeling triumphant and leave Greg alone for a while.
However, amid the barrage of insults, Greg stood tall. It didn’t matter what his father thought of him. It didn’t matter that he’d be sleeping outside for a week, and it didn’t matter that it was winter and the odds of getting an outdoor ice bath were high. He’d had enough.
Unfortunately, so had his father. John House had screamed at the child until he was hoarse and his face had completely changed in colour - it had turned a sort of puce, Greg supposed. He shook with rage, an almost imperceptible tremor, at the mere sight of the insolent boy standing before him.
They locked eyes, a dark angry blue burning into an intense vibrant blue, and in one fell movement, John gripped Gregory’s left arm and snapped it through both bones. Upon hearing the sickening crack he dropped the boy’s mangled limb and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Greg crawled, pale faced and shaking, onto his bed beside the brown bear and lay down. He cradled his broken arm and waited, still tearless, for his mother to take him to the hospital.
(~)
Wilson held the long decrepit bear in his hands and turned it over and over, trying to get a feel for its odd shape. He held it briefly before his face and inhaled his friend’s scent. The toy really was a sad looking thing - it was a sort of brown, a rather handsome chestnut colour at one time or another, Wilson guessed, and the remaining ear had almost completely come away from the head. The doctor wondered about what had happened to the eyes and laughed aloud for a moment at the vision of a very young House chewing them off.
Wilson wasn’t yet sure about what he was going to do with this new teddy bear information. There were a million and one possibilities, including, but not limited to, “borrowing” the stuffed animal and taking photos of it doing strange things: sitting in the elevator of PPTH, wearing a lab coat and examining charts, hanging precariously over the balcony of Wilson’s office. Or perhaps, the oncologist thought evilly, he could just cut the plush up into small pieces and send them to House one by one.
(~)
The bear, if you could still call it that, was sitting on Gregory’s desk in his bedroom amid boxes and piles of the young man’s belongings. Its ear had been missing for some time now (an incident with a lawn mower some years ago) and the other eye was absent (something to do with Blythe’s cat...No one knew what) but ever vigilant, the bear knew something was afoot.
Yelling and screaming stormed up the stairs and poured into the bedroom. Greg, now as tall as John, was yelling at his father. John was shouting back and both men were on the rug in the centre of the room, shoulders square and feet set. Yet another argument about college. The elder House wanted his son to join the military, to do something meaningful with his life - fight for his country, be a man - and the younger House was insisting, pleasantly at first and then not so much, that he was going to do something meaningful with his life. He was going away to become a doctor - surely saving lives was more important than ending them.
It didn’t matter to John; it was tradition, all House men became military men. Those were the only type of men and anything Greg wanted or said was completely irrelevant.
“I’m going, and it doesn’t matter what you think about it. It doesn’t matter what you want or what you say. I’m going to become a doctor”, again Greg was defiant. Over the years his attitude had cost him dearly; first the broken arm, then the repeated ice baths and beatings, after that came being locked outdoors and being made to hold his bladder...And being humiliated when he couldn’t. This time, it was different, he was going away to college to start his life the way he wanted - the way it should be.
John yelled some more about how Greg should fall in line, that he’d make a shitty doctor because of his attitude and lack of discipline - both of which would be improved by time in the services.
Greg rubbed his hand over his face and then something inside of him gave way.
His hand formed a fist and flew away from his roughened cheek, landing perfectly on the point of his father’s chin. John’s head snapped back and he was rocked out of place. He staggered against Greg’s desk and regained his balance. For the first time since Gregory was a very small boy, John had no criticism. He had no words. He stood dumbly in the middle of the room and watched his son angrily and wordlessly clear his childhood bedroom of his things.
That afternoon Greg House packed up his car and returned to his room. It was awfully empty and a pang flashed through him - he was sad, almost, to leave. Horrible as it was, this was his home and this was the only space that, while not always secure, the junior House could call his own. The blue-eyed man inhaled deeply, trying to carry that scent of his younger self with him, and grabbed the ratty bear off the desk.
Greg kissed his mother goodbye, got into his car and left without wondering what would have happened if he became a marine or soldier - he didn’t have to wonder. He knew he’d have turned out just like his father.
(~)
Wilson lay on his side, his body curled around the bear. He felt odd; guilty, really. He knew he shouldn’t have found the teddy. He should have made House go to bed in his own room and Wilson should have taken the couch, as always. The dark eyed man worried that House would chew him out for invading his space - maybe he could put the bear back and no one would ever be the wiser. The doctor scoffed at the thought; of course House would know - he always knew. He always knew everything about everything. The oncologist crushed the bear’s middle in his hand - God, that was irritating.
Dr. Wilson folded his arms over his chest, the plush laying beside him beneath the sheets.
Stupid bear.
(~)
The bear was brought out into the stark lamp light one night and it couldn’t fathom why. It had been shut up in a closet for the longest time. Its must have taken an event of some magnitude to prompt the now grizzled and greying man to bring the teddy out of the stuffy air. The teddy wondered what that event was.
House hurt now in a lot of different ways. He was sitting on the couch, his right leg stretched out with the new cane resting beside it. How the man hated that damned thing. The man was lonely, angry and afraid. The bear was squished into House’s left hand while his right hand tried to massage away the pain in his right thigh.
A rustling sound made him stay stock still and hold his breath. It was her. “Greg, are you out here?”. House didn’t move or reply. She saw him, though, “are you alright? Do you want me to call the doctor? Do you need more meds?”. House grunted noncommittally. “Greg...?”. The doctor exhaled raspily “go back to bed, Stacy” “look, I can massage it for you...Or maybe a hot bath will help”. House’s grip on the very tattered bear tightened, “I said go back to bed. I can handle it”. He heard her hesitate in the doorway to the bedroom - it wasn’t their bedroom in his mind anymore - and then softly turn back into the darkness, closing the door quietly behind herself.
It wasn’t Stacy he turned to since the infarction. It wasn’t her he cried on when he was shaking and terrified by the new pain - when he felt like he was dying from the thigh up. Every time a fresh wave of pain thundered through him, it wasn’t Stacy House clung to.
He smoothed out what he could of the bear’s fur and stroked its remaining ear. This ratty creature who had seen better days comforted the tired man through his painful childhood and it would comfort him here too. A hot tear fell onto the place where the bear’s right eye should have been and House quickly wiped it away.
The diagnostician couldn’t do it anymore; he couldn’t just “ride it out” or “breathe through it”, as Stacy so seemingly nonchalantly put it. She had no idea. He hated every second of his life now - he hated the pain, he hated that stupid, goddamned cane. He hated the way that people looked at him post infarction and he hated the way she looked at him now, too. House hated the sour, twisting feeling in his stomach that came up every time he thought about Stacy taking advantage of being his medical proxy, but most of all, Greg House hated himself.
(~)
It was a little after three in the morning and Wilson was wide-eyed in the darkness. The bear rested in the crook of his elbow, the covers pulled up to its chin.
It was an odd thing, this bear business. He couldn’t believe that he didn’t know this about House, but he was more shocked at himself. Wilson couldn’t believe that it had never occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, House might need some kind of comforting from time to time. He decided he wouldn’t mention this to other people - he knew that the ducklings would have a field day. House needed some things to be private and Wilson had accepted that a long time ago.
Tiredness overcame the oncologist suddenly and, as his eyes fell closed, he wondered what other things he was yet to know about his friend. That night James Wilson dreamed about phobias House might have and the secret hobbies he might enjoy. Until birdsong, the brunette’s head was filled with small crawling spiders and cross-stitched pillows.
(~)
A distinctive ceramic clatter forced House to wake long before he was ready. He could smell booze and himself. He added ‘have a shower’ to his “things I might want to do today” list. House trailed his long fingers along his torso and felt the itchy edge of a woolen blanket and, as an afterthought, his fingers dipped to the floor and came across the rigid wood of his cane. The doctor inhaled deeply: the scent of fresh coffee permeated the air and was warmly accompanied perfectly by equal proportions of crispy bacon and salty eggs.
House’s eyelids forced themselves groggily open and took their own sweet time focussing. When they’d managed that apparently difficult task, the man’s blue eyes grew wide.
There, seated comfortably on his blanketed stomach, was the worn out teddy bear House was sure that no one else knew he had.
Wilson was about to be twelve shades of very, very dead. .