Incomplete ficlet in the Threeseome-verse
Dear Beloved F'list: Maybe you noticed I was missing from the interwebs yesterday? Well, maybe not. My laptop crapped out--it's now at Circuit City being repaired; fortunately, I got the super-deluxe-extended warranty with it. It's supposed to cover everything, including drop or spill damage (I asked when I got it if it would cover accidentally running over it with my car, and they said yes), so I should get it back eventually.
However, yesterday, while computer-less, I couldn't work on any of my ongoing projects because I wasn't sure where I left off, so I wrote out this little...thingy...a flclet in the Threesome-verse. Then today I went out and bought the cheapest-ass computer I could find so that I could post it for y'all. And also because it might be two weeks before I get the other one back, and I couldn't stand to be cut of from the larger world for that long. I'm going to point out to the Circuit City people that they ought to add an option on the super-deluxe-extended-warranty where you can get a loaner while they work on yours--isn't that a good idea? Except now I have this cheap-ass desktop, which I hope will sustain me as a backup computer for the next decade or so. My previous desktop computer, a Mac that I got around 1994, is still in perfect working order--it's just too slow to load any of our modern web pages, and the word-rpocessing program that's on it is not supported in the modern world. But I can still totally play tetris on it any time I want. With laptops, on the other hand, I've never had one last more than 15 months. Hence the super-deluxe extended warranty, and now the backup computer. (I really shouldn't have bought it, since I'm out of work--but I just found out I'm eligible for unemployment, so there goes my first week's check! I tell myself it's necessary to have an computer to conduct a 21st-century job search.)
The nice people at Circuit City said I could come in tomorrow and copy my files off of the old computer before they take it apart, so I should be able to pick up with the "Pencils" and "PLOT" stories where I left off--the only problem is that the emergency backup computer only has Microsoft Works, and I can't find my Word disc. Plus it's only supposed to be good for two installations--when I was an undergrad MS had a deal with my college where you could get pretty much all their programs for free--and I don't know if that's on the honor system, or if it actually won't work a third time. I'll know after I find the disk, I guess.
Anyway, you don't care about that! On to the fic. As I said, it's in the Threesome-verse. It's sometime after the chronologically-second, written-first threeseome story, the one where the boys go to House's parents anniversary party. In this story, the boys are visiting House's parents at their home. For some reason. This is the first long scene, from Wilson's POV; there's going to be a middle part, probably in House's POV, and then there's a last scene that I have about half done, in Blythe's POV. Here goes!
*****
Author’s Notes: “Fine ham abounds” is from the KITH sketch. In my family, either my Dad or I says, “Fucking good ham,” every time we have ham (whether it’s especially good or not). The sketch is about a teenage kid (played by Bruce, IIRC) whose father throws him out of the house, over his mother’s protests, for saying “Fuck” at the dinner table. It seems like something House would like.
******
House points at Chase and crooks his finger. “Come downstairs with me. I want to show you something.”
Chase gts up, with a look of mild trepidation on his face.
“Do you want me, too?” Wilson asks.
Wilson joins them, earning a look of gratitude from Chase. They all troop downstairs, House clutching the railing abnd making very slow progress.
Half of the basement is a shabby, obviously little-used rec room, with a lumpy couch upholstered in number plaid fabric, console television, and dusty ping-pong table. The other half is concrete, lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and piled with boxes. Wilson peers at some of the labels on the boxes-- “Xmas decorations Fragile,” “Encyclopedias,” “Greg.”
House points to a foot locker at the bottom of a pile of boxes. “Dig that out,” he tells Chase, and they watch as Chzse shiifts the things that are piled on top of it--a broken ironing board, one box of “photos.” several of “books and magazines,” and two more of “Greg.” Wilson’s temped to open the latter, but knows he’d better be satisfied with whatever House is about to show them. “This isn’t something horrible, is it?” Wilson asks.
“No, it’s just the mummified corpses of my last pair of boys,” House answers.
“Oh, good.”
Once Chase has uncovered the footlocker, House sits down on one of the “Books and magazines” boxes and opens the latches.
The trunk is nearly full of composition books--mostly the old-fashioned kind with black-and-white marble covers. There are at least forty of them. House picks on off of the top of the pile and hands it to Chase. “You’re looking at the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1963 edition, volumes A through W, copied out by hand between 1970 and 1975,” he says, almost proudly. Wilson is on the verge of asking him why the hell hee’d wanted to do that, when he realizes he hadn’t wanted to, as well as why he was showing it to Chase. Early in their relationship, when Chase had been suspended without pay from work, House had had him spend the days copying out journal articles by hand. Wilson had wondered where he’d gotten the idea.
Chase leafs through the notebook he’s holding. “Wow,” he says. “I’m surprised you kept it.”
“I didn’t,” House answers, getting to his feet. “There’s a dictionary in there somewhere, too. I started with that,” he screws up his face, looking at the ceiling “--November of ‘69. A disagreement with a science teacher over whether or not the stuff you see coming out of the spout of a teakettle is steam or not. That got me most of the way through the letter F, and I think the rest of it was fighting. I started on the encyclopedia in 9th grade.”
“Doesn’t look like it worked,” Chase notes.
“No,” House agrees. “You’d think somewhere around E or F he’d have realized that, but my dad’s not one to abandon a perfectly sound strategy just because it’s ineffective. I mean,” he adds, with surprising charity, “it ought to have worked. Even I could grasp that spending seven and a half hours a day in school was better than fourteen hours sitting at the kitchen table copying encyclopedias.”
“I thought eight was plenty,” Chase agrees, with a small shudder.
There was something sad about the way House said, “even I could grasp,” as if some part of him accepted that his stubborn rebelliousness was a failure of intellect. “I think the x-factor is that Chase actually cares what you think of him,” Wilson says.
House glances at him. “There is that. Anyway,” he says briskly, “I thought you’d find it interesting.” He takes the notebook from Chase and throws it back into the trunk, knocking the lid closed with his cane.
“I think I have a new insight into why you hate paperwork so much,” Wilson remarks.
“You think? Well, maybe,” House admits.
In some ways, copying things would have been an appropriate punishment for House--especially for getting thrown out of school, which, even before seeing the evidence, Wilson would have guessed happened a lot. It was reasonable that his parents had wanted to make sure that being out of school was actually a punishment, rather than a vacation, and House, active and curious, would have found sitting still and focusing on a tedious task very aversive, but not actually harmful. But it was typical of his father to have taken it to extremes, and typical of their relationship for House to have turned it into a battle of wills and endurance. It was such a waste.
“I figured it out once. There’s something like three thuosand hours of my life I’ll never get back again, in that trunk,” House says. “Don’t tell Cuddy, or she’ll realize right away why 6 hours a month in the clinic doesn’t make much of an impression.”
“The way you piss and moan about it, I think you’ve got her fooled,” Chase says.
“Well, I don’t like doing it,” House defends himself. “I’m just not sorry for…whatever it was I did.”
“First you didn’t work for three years, while drawing a salary, and then you stole drugs from a dead person,” Wilson reminds him.
“And I’d do either of those things again if the circumstances called for it,” House retorts.
“So that’s what you learned from this whole experience,” Wilson concludes, gesturing at the trunk. “That altering your behavior in light of the consequences is some kind of…moral failing.”
House thinks about that. “Sounds about right, yeah.” Chase looks slightly crestfallen, and House adds quickly, “Not for you. Just for, you know…actual men.”
“Thanks,” Chase says, rolling his eyes. He does look a little happier, though.
They head back upstairs. Up is actually a little easier for House than down, and the trip is accomplished without incident.
House’s mother is standing at the counter by the stove, chopping something. “Did you find what you were looking for, dear?” she asks.
“Yeah.” House leans against the counter in a casual stance designed to conceal that he really needs a rest. “I was just showing Chase some of my old things.”
“Oh, good. You know, if there’s anything down there that you want to take home, you’re welcome to it. We saved a lot more than you’d think--every time we moved, I shipped some crates home to store at Aunt Sara’s.”
House looks surprised. “You never told me that,” he says accusatorily.
“I know, dear. Your father--we thought it would be easier that way. We didn’t want you pestering Aunt Sara, when you were little. Or asking me to ship home a box full of rocks from everywhere we went. And I’d forgotten how much there was, until she sold the old house and we had to have everything moved here.” She glances at House, on her way to the refrigerator. “Don’t be angry, Greg--it’s just sentimental things, you know. Baby clothes, and your school papers, a few of your toys. You wouldn’t have cared about them before, but maybe now that you’re older….” She looks at him, seeking forgiveness.
“Right,” House says tersely. “It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry if you’re upset, honey.”
“I’m not.”
Wilson looks at Chase, to see how he’s taking the transformation of his affectionate and responsible dominant into a sullen teenager. Fortunately, he seems unfazed--of course, he would be familiar with this version of House from his days working for him.
“I didn’t think you’d care about any of those old things,” House’s mother says.
“I don’t.”
“Greg…”
Wilson decides to intervene. “House. Why don’t you try telling her what it is you do care about?” He has an inkling of what it is, and it’s not the specific things that have been in Aunt Sara’s attic for thirty years.
“Why don’t you, since you know everything,” House shoots back.
Wilson chooses to treat the invitation as genuine. “You don’t like people keeping secrets from you,” he suggests.
House--as has been happening more and more lately--seems relieved to have what he’s feeling put into words. He straightens up out of his sullen slouch. “Yeah,” he says. “You could have asked me what I wanted put away for when I was older.”
“You’d have picked everything, dear.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” House retorts.
Wilson thinks she’s probably wrong--House has always, in his experience, done better with more responsibility and autonomy than less. Wilson had had his doubts, for instance, about the amount of power Chase had given him--Wilson had feared he’d end up as little more than a harassed and bullied lackey. But House had adapted to their new understanding, and treated him with surprising respect and sensitivity. Wilson had found himself deferring more and more to House--and now, while Hosue still made fun of him sometimes, the streak of cruelty he had occasionally displayed was gone, as were the “friendship tests,” the manipulation, and attempts to weasel out of his (few) domestic responsibilities. Those things, Wilson suspected, had been attempts--conscious or not--to define the hierarchy of their relationship. As acknowledged leader of their little pack, he’d set himself industriously to the task of ensuring the greatest happiness for the greatest number of their family. Hell, he’d voluntarily done the dishes a couple of times, when he’d decided Chase needed a rest. Wilson thought he might even be treating his new team of subordinates a little better than he had the previous set.
“I’m sorry, Greg,” Blythe says again.
He sighs. “It’s okay,” he says, sincerely this time. Nodding toward the stove, he adds, “Anything we can do to help?”
“Actually, I’d love to have some vanilla ice-cream to go with the strawberries I got at the farm stand this morning,” she says. “Would you mind running to the grocery store?”
It’s a good choice--getting out in the fresh air will help House work off any lingering resentment. “Sure. Do you need the boys? If not, I’ll take them with me.”
“That’s fine. Dinner will be about an hour.”
They take House’s mother’s big old Buick, the one with the back seat the size of a New York City studio apartment. The grocery store is less than ten minutes away; they manage to get back just as House’s mother is putting dinner on the table. House kisses his mother’s cheek and puts the ice-cream in the freezer. Wilson tries not to think too much about where his mouth has just been.
“Could one of you get some ice water on the table?” She nods at the drinking glasses standing on the coutner by the sink. Chase hurries to fill them--he, Wilson is glad to note, washes his hands first.
“Let’s sit down,” Blythe says, once everything is on the table. “John will be here in a minute.”
They’ve just sat down when the basement door bangs open. Blythe and Chase jump visibly; Wilson thinks he managed to hide his startlement, but his pulse speeds up. House pretends to yawn as his father comes into the room.
“You left the basement a mess,” he tells House. “Go clean it up.”
Wilson wonders what he’s talking about, then remembers that they hadn’t put back the boxes they moved to get to the footlocker. They should have put them back--he’d have gone down and done it, if he’d remembered--but a mess strikes him as an exaggeration.
“John, we’re about to eat,” Blythe protests. “Can’t it wait?”
“I’ll do it,” Chase says quickly, starting to get up.
“You will not,” House tells him, his voice as firm as it gets. Wilson is aware of a non-family-friendly sensation in his pants. Chase sinks back into his chair, wide-eyed and slightly flushed. Under the table, Wilson bumps his knee against Chase’s, in what he hopes is a comforting but non-erotically-inflammatory way.
Staring his father in the face, House reaches toward the serving platter in the middle of the table with his fork, and pointedly spears a pork chop and transfers it to his plate. Wilson has never before seen the sentiment Fuck you conveyed through a pork chop, but it is unmistakable.
After a moment of exquisite silence, House’s mother picks up the meat fork and starts serving all of them. His father stares at them for another moment before pulling out his chair and sitting down.
The next few minutes are occupied with passing the side dishes and filling their plates. House takes a large bite of pork and gravy and says loudly, “This is good, mom.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Wilson nudges Chase, who’s still looking shell-shocked, and murmurs, “Fine ham abounds,” a reference to one of House’s favorite Kids in the Hall sketches.
Chase doesn’t look particularly reassured, but he does murmur, “It’s not ham, it’s pork.”
House overhears them from the other side of the table. “It’s all treyf, though.”
Blythe focuses in on the last part of the exchange--probably the only part that made sense to her. “Oh, James, I’m sorry, I didn’t think--”
“It’s fine,” he assures her, sorry he brought it up now. “It’s been at least a decade since I kept kosher even for Passover, let alone the rest of the year.”
“I can fix you something else. A piece of fish, or an egg?”
“Seriously, I had a double bacon cheeseburger for lunch just the other day. It’s not a problem.” He takes a big bite of his pork chop, to emphasize this point.
Wilson notices a few minutes later that Chase still hasn’t touched his food. He’s sitting with his head down, hands in his lap, looking at his plate. Wilson catches House’s eye and directs his gaze to Chase.
“Chase, it’s okay. Eat.”
He nods and starts picking at his food. “I’m not very hungry.”
“Do you know why you’re not hungry?” House asks.
Wilson, for a moment, thinks House is suggesting that the “snack” chase had in the car has spoiled his appetite for dinner. Chase, fortunately, is quicker on the uptake. He stirs and mumbles, “Adrenaline and cortical. Slows down the digestive system.”
“Yep.” House pokes moodily at his portion of carrots. “You see,” he explains, “most people have trouble eating when they’re under stress. Because of the two chemicals Dr. Chase just mentioned, along with a few others that aren’t very important. They slow down the digestive system, just like he said. You see, in the evolutionary environment, stress means either you’re being chased by a sabre toothed tiger, or a bigger proto-human primate is trying to steal your dinner. In the first case, Mother Nature doesn’t want you to stop fleeing for your life because you saw a tasty looking shrub. In the second, you’re better off letting the bigger guy have it--t least you’ll live to eat another day.”
“That’s interesting, Greg,” his mother says politely.
“Is there a point?” his father demands.
“No. I just thought it was interesting,” House lies.
Wilson doesn’t think House’s parents believe him, either. Hut Wilson has the imagination to have at least a vague sense of what he’s getting at. John House strikes him as the kind of father who’d enforce a clean-your-plate rule, as well as the kind who would consider berating his son to be appropriate dinnertime conversation. The two aims were, as House just obliquely pointed out, mutually exclusive.
Wilson isn’t particularly hungry, either.
“James, how are your parents?” Blythe asks, with obviously forced cheer.
“They’re fine.” He searches for some interesting news about them. “They took one of those Alaskan cruises a couple of months ago. Icebergs, whales, the whole bit.” Wilson has been on cruises before, with his wives, and sort of likes them. He’s fairly sure that House would balk at a Caribbean cruise, but has a vague idea that an Alaska, or maybe the fjords, might be within the realm of possibility, someday.
Blythe asks him several follow-up questions. Once he’s answered them, he does feel a bit better--the light conversation took his mind off the uncomfortable company he’s in, and reminded him of the relatively uncomplicated relationship he enjoys with his own parents. His limbic system is tricked into believing that the sabre-toothed tiger is no longer an issue.
He resumes eating. The food really is good--it’s not very fair to Blythe that every time she gets a chance to cook for her son, everybody is too miserable to eat much. Wilson loves cooking for House--and Chase, too, although Chase is so accepting of affection that it doesn’t seem as important. But in the old days, House wouldn’t accept anything from him except food and pills--when he’s in a mood, he still won’t. Blythe is denied even that way of showing that she loves him.
House, of course, knows that she loves him. He just doesn’t think it’s relevant.
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