The Sister-Son (3/?)

[resm]

Author: resm
Title: The Sister-Son
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: do not own
Summary: Companion piece to His Hateful Best Friend, in which Wilson was abused as a minor. How will he cope when his offender turns up in his life again? Set around season 2.
Warning: This chapter contains a frank discussion about child abuse (House) / child sexual abuse (Wilson) -- thanks srsly_yes for the reminder lol ;)

Unbeta'd so please forgive me. Hopefully not too OOC


Previous chapters: one, two

“We don't talk about your past,” Wilson said defensively, even as House uncapped the whiskey and poured it slowly into the clean glasses. He replaced the bottle on the table and pushed the tumbler intended for Wilson towards him, then lifted his own drink as if in salute, waiting for Wilson to join him. “Fine. You want to get drunk? Fine.”

House studied Wilson over the rim of his glass silently as he took his first sip, and Wilson, in kind, knocked his whiskey back immediately. Slamming the glass back down on the table between them, the remainder of his alcohol sloshed about but didn't spill. House considered briefly that he should top the drink up already but he didn't want to be too obvious about it.

“Let’s talk about our childhoods then,” Wilson sneered. “Because I'm dying to know what makes little Greggy tick.”

“I'll tell you anything you want to know.”

“What, like a question for a question?”

“If that'll settle you, sure,” House shrugged nonchalantly, although there was no way in hell was he prepared to bleat his little heart out about anything and all he thought about his own family. “What do you want to know?”

“Oh, this is rich,” Wilson laughed humourlessly. “This - even for you! - this is rich.”

“You think I'll lie to you?”

“I know you'll lie to me!”

“Fine, I'll start,” House said, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible. “What exactly happened? What did he do to you?”

Wilson's eyes clouded over and he shook his head, “Look, I don't owe you any explanations. And contrary to popular belief, you can't find out everything about me. Hell, until Manny rocked up, I was doing well enough to keep you separate from that part of my life. That doesn't have to change.”

House nodded understandably, swishing his alcohol around in his glass, “My father was a strict man when I was growing up. He's still... you've met him,” he caught Wilson's eye and his friend half-nodded tiredly and then suppressed a yawn, pretending to be uninvolved in the story and thus the conversation in general. But, in truth, he was hanging on House's every word, and House knew it. “When he wanted me to toe the line, he didn't ground me or... whatever. You could say his punishments... constituted as...”

Wilson found himself sitting forward, and his hand unconsciously reached for his glass again, “What did he...?” He let the question hang between them and cupped around his drink contemplatively.

“He'd lock me out in the yard,” House shifted and Wilson could have sworn he'd heard him shudder, “Sometimes overnight. He... used to strip me, throw me into an ice bath. Make me wait out the cold while he proceeded to lecture me about whatever the hell I'd apparently done wrong.”

“John House?” Wilson gasped.

“John House,” House shrugged, taking a nip of his whiskey.

Some time passed between them before even a throat was cleared; the ticking of the old clock on the mantle piece that House had acquired from his late grandmother's home was now a dominating force that cut through the thick silence that usually hung about a revelation or a period of denial.

“Manny...” Wilson started nervously. He sighed and dropped his head, “Manny didn't touch my brothers.”

“But he did touch you?” House asked cautiously, not wanting to waste his question on any “Are you sure?” when he knew it would only prod Wilson further into himself.

“I was his favourite,” Wilson said almost casually, although his voice was a little ragged. “We were always joined at the hip.”

“And that didn't... that didn't bother you?” House tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. The last thing he wanted was for Wilson to think that he was judging him; he didn't want him to think that him keeping his mouth shut almost justified the wrong-doings, insecurities that House himself had grown up with and added to his own self-loathing.

“Of course it bothered me! But I... I was four. I didn't know that-” Wilson sighed, “I know how it sounds,” he shook his head, his voice cracking again, “but I swear I didn't...”

“Well, how could you? It's all you ever knew. It must have been normality,” House churned out automatically. He doesn't even listen to himself and can't expect Wilson to do much of the same. All he heard, and still hears, is a broken loop of “I was four” running tirelessly through his already-plagued mind. “I was four, I was four, I was four.”

When Greg was four, he was pretty sure he still believed in faeries and Santa Claus and other happy anomalies. Jeez, when he was four he even had faith in his dad. Wilson-at-four wasn't supposed to know this kind of violence. Maybe a scraped knee or a nasty spill from climbing a tree, but not Manny.

He was only meant to be afraid of the dark and of the monsters Michael promised were under his bed for him; only worry about a wobbly tooth and their neighbourhood's resident bully cornering him outside of his own garden; only be embarrassed by wetting the bed and by getting himself caught in his zipper. He wasn't meant to shield that kind of shame, that kind of cruelty. Not Wilson.

“Yeah, well,” Wilson dismissed quietly and polished off the rest of his glass. He had already poured himself another by the time he was ready to fire his next question, “Did your mother know?”

House withdrew into himself and tried to choose his words carefully. He knew that beneath the question, Wilson had a hell of a lot more riding on it than mere curiosity. He wanted to know for his own piece of mind, possibly help clarify in his head why his own parents chose to blatantly ignore what had happened to him at the hands of his uncle.

“She... it wasn't something we ever talked about,” he answered slowly, never taking his eyes from Wilson's face, if even for a moment. “I don't know,” he finished at last. “To be honest, I... I doubt it.”

“Mm,” Wilson bobbed his head, worrying his left hand over his kneecap. “My...” he paused to take a breath and then, biting his top lip and looking deliberately down into the amber contents of his glass, found the strength to continue. He smiled a deplorable kind of smile, and shook his head a little, “I can't believe we're even having this conversation... not even with my wives, but Greg House...?” he muttered as if to himself, and there was a humourless quality that tickled his words, like a sort of anti-laugh.

“Jimmy.”

“My parents knew,” he swallowed hard. “We never - talked - never...” he wiped his knuckles under his nose and then lifted his drink to his lips, sipping leisurely.

“Then what makes you so sure?”

Wilson brought the glass back down into his lap and was rubbing in earnest over lengthening stubble about his chin as he mused, “Because of how it all stopped. One day... one day he was in my life. Then the next time... he shows up at my office. Too big a gap there to be coincidence. Logically, I mean, they had to have suspected, right?”

“Was there evidence of any...?”

“They never gave me a physical. I'd have remembered if there had been a physical. Maybe, I dunno, maybe they...” Wilson took another shot, quick, and grimaced as it burnt all the way down his throat. He ran a hand over the top of his head and House leant over the coffee table to top up his tumbler for him.

He tipped the glass towards him obligingly, and notorious for not being able to hold his alcohol well, Wilson was already beginning to slur. The random syllables being omitted from every other word were falling away and forever lost on the hazy, lonely road to Inebriation.

“Maybe they noticed something when they were bathing you. Bruising... tearing...” House closed his eyes, wishing away the burden of having an over active mind. “Nightmares. You don't know, Wilson. Even your behaviour.”

“We weren't a rich family. Not by a long shot,” Wilson said seemingly out of the blue. House caught his eye and held the contact for a good five seconds. It was Wilson with those incredibly soft brown eyes, even though they appeared blackened tonight with raw memories, who broke away first. He didn't want to give up too much.

At least if he was talking, babbling, he could owe his loose tongue to the alcohol. But he couldn't hide anything when he was looking back into the cool, calculating stare of one Gregory House. Imploring him to find meaning within his own story, trying to dig out the answers just from a simple penetrating glare. He knew he couldn't look at House because he knew the man had the capacity to strip him of his cleverly-composed façade he'd taken decades to build upon. He couldn't sit and have this conversation with him and allow him to see the naked truth and have to stare into that face while he judged him. Saw him for the cripplingly weak coward that he truly was. So he cast his eyes downwards and took another breath, even as his eyes moistened.

“And Danny's nursery doubled up as our bedroom. Me and Michael's. We used to have bunk beds but my dad disabled 'em. They must have gotten bored of Michael pushing me off the top bunk one too many times, I don't know,” Wilson laughed wryly, using the opportunity to take a long pull of the whiskey and then quirked an eyebrow when his laughter bubbled away into a pitying sigh. He lifted a shoulder indifferently. “So there was a cot and two beds stuffed into this... this little box room and...”

He was gesturing with his hand now, trying to discern the layout of the room from memory and commit it to thin air. House watched the unsteady rise and fall of his friend's chest and then spoke up, “That where it happened?” he asked softly, surprising even himself at how soft he came off.

Wilson glanced up at him and there was a feral kind of look in his eye, like he was some frightened little puppy shut out in the cold too long and was now being boxed into the corner by a wilder animal or a group of moronic youths.

“And... and you know, it's funny,” Wilson continued, without confirming nor denying House's prompt, “I always thought Michael was the one who tortured me.”

“Stands to reason, he's a little prick,” House shot back distastefully. “The bedroom, Wilson...”

“Yeah, that's where it happened,” he said immediately, thinking he'd be more detached from the situation if he didn't put too much effort into his words, if he didn't sound too stunned or emotional. “I think that's...” the lines around his eyes tightened as he considered everything. “That's probably how everything came to light. That room. Someone must have heard me whimpering over Danny's baby monitor or something.”

And just when House thought that he'd prepared himself, read up on all the possible ways how not to be shocked, Wilson had managed to break his heart all over again.

“Heard me whimpering, heard me whimpering, heard me whimpering.”

“And no one...” House swallowed hard, his ears ringing and his heart pumping madly against the inside of his chest, “No one even tried? You don't remember anyone running upstairs? Putting a stop to it?”

“No,” Wilson said altogether too innocently for House's liking and, damnit, he wanted to shake him for it. He wanted him to get angry. Lash out again. At anything, at him. He didn't care in this instant if he took a swing at him, because if he felt better for it then by all means... “He just... stopped visiting.”

“And no one ever mentioned it to you? They didn't send you to a counsellor or anything?”

“House, I - I'd have remembered,” he sounded panicked, wanting House to believe him. “Maybe they figured I didn't understand so-”

“Of course you didn't understand! That's the point! You weren't two years out of diapers and you were already exposed to-”

“I loved him!” Wilson snapped hotly. “Okay? And if I was given the choice, I'd have taken him back in a heartbeat. He wasn't like Michael or my old man. He had time for me, House, and I loved him for it.”

“Yes,” House nodded slowly, “and you trusted him and you idolised him and he abused that. He abused that trust and exploited it and you don't get to feel sorry for him. You don't get to hate yourself here, Wilson. That's meant to be his job. And your parents? Well, screw them. How - how are they any better? They protected him. All these years, their little vow of silence, they damn well protected him.”

“If they'd have addressed the issue,” Wilson admitted, shame-faced, “I'd probably have lied through my teeth to keep him around. How sick is that?”

“You didn't love what happened to you, you loved the attention he gave you because of it. You loved that he compensated for everything he put you through. You loved that you mattered to someone.”

“What did you hope to achieve from this conversation, huh?” Wilson was suddenly on the defensive. “You don't care. You don't give a crap. You just need to stick your nose into everything, that's all this is. I'm your new little puzzle you can fixate over until the next thing comes along.”

“This isn't for my benefit,” House swore, “You - you need to-”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Did you want to hear about him pushing my pyjama bottoms down and how I felt suffocated under his weight?” Wilson decided to be brutal about it. He felt like he'd accomplished something in an odd sort of way when he noticed House squirming, clearly uncomfortable with the blunt route he was taking now.

“How he made me bite down into my pillow and me, lying there, taking it, not even fighting him anymore? Trying not to gag when he was hurting me in a way I didn't even know possible and at the same time moving his hands up and down my body so gently it almost tickled?”

House raised a hand to stop him, short of retching as he was sure his whole stomach had dropped away beneath him. He tried to will the pain in his thigh to burst into a poker-hot blaze and encapsulate his entire leg, if it meant that he wouldn't have to acknowledge the heavy wave of nausea that came with Wilson's imagery.

“Or did you want to hear that some days he had me play other games and it was him dropping his pants?”

“Wilson, I don't need to hear any of that,” House assured, knowing what Wilson was trying to do - he was trying to shock him into submission so that their conversation can become one of those non-topics never to be discussed again. “I just want to know that you're processing everything. You bottled it up long enough, seeing him again must have... I know you.”

“You thought you did,” he corrected him. “And now that your little lackeys know and, I'm guessing, Cuddy by now, you're all going to assume that you know me even more. I'm no different to the guy you knew five years ago. Four months ago. Last Tuesday. And I'm probably no different to the guy two weeks from now either. I still like tuna sandwiches. I still like monster trucks. I still hate nurse Brenda and the colour orange. I haven't changed. You have.”

“Wilson, I haven't-”

“No. Sorry. Just your opinion of me has.”

Chapter Four