ficlet: War Wounds
Title : War Wounds
Author: Waylandsmithy
Characters: House, Blythe (House POV)
Rating : None
Comment: Call back to late Season Six. A spoiler for "Paranoia." House receives an unwanted delivery.
“Sign, you gotta sign” said the UPS driver and held out the track pad to House, who was leaning heavily against the doorjamb and blinking in owlish fashion against his unreasonably early awakening.
He looked at the neatly taped, oddly cruciform package and recognised his mother’s handiwork. He was pretty sure he knew the contents and more than certain he didn’t want them. He hesitated.
“It’s your name, buddy,” said the driver, impatiently as he jiggled the stylus on its cord; “I been here plenty times.”
House grabbed the stylus, scribbled an approximation of his signature on the screen and retreated into the apartment. He put the parcel on the coffee table, stared at it balefully for a long moment and returned to bed, where he slept fitfully for the rest of the morning.
Only the likelihood of a visit from Wilson and the certainty that a whole load of intrusive questions would follow, induced him to unwrap the parcel later that day. It was too awkward a shape to jam into one of his already overflowing closets, so open it he must, and, he supposed, read the letter which undoubtedly accompanied it.
First the dress sword, glinting within its sheath. He’d been caught playing with it once. That had not gone down well. It was less the danger, his father said, than the disrespect.
Then the service pistol, nestled in its box; much more familiar to him. His father had maintained it lovingly; lavishing on it all the warm attention he failed to pay to his son. “This is your best friend”, he’d said. “But neglect it and it may let you down when you need it most.”
House appreciated the skilled engineering of the weapon but its deadly beauty only moved him to remember the feel of bullets tearing into his flesh when he had been on the wrong end of one used in anger. Even he did not need such a friend. He put it aside and opened the familiar thin paper his mother had used ever since he could remember.
“Before you return these saying you don’t want them” wrote Blythe, “I’d like to remind you of what I said to you at John’s funeral; ‘the war is over.’ I know that your father would want you to have these as a reminder of him and what was important to him even if you didn’t have much in common.“
Like genes? House, not for the first time, pondered the depths of his mother’s self-denial.
“I’m moving out of the house, as you’d know if only you ever called (and yes, I know you’re “busy”). This place is just too much for me to keep up now. Some new duplex apartments closer to the mall and my classes have finally been finished and I’ve bought one with a nice view of the golf course. Betsy and Caroline -you remember them, Greg, -will be only a few blocks over, so I shan’t miss my old neighbours.”
He remembered that these two women were his mother’s only friends outside the Corps’ wives and as such were faintly disapproved of by his father. Perhaps she was at long last coming out from underneath the mantle of the Marines.
“I’ll have no space for these, and really I’ve no love for such things, reminders of violence.
As for his medals, John was so proud of them, they are buried with him. I didn’t need to ask you.”
So she remembered the ‘medal drill’ John had imposed on his resisting young son. It was a strange catechism; that need for word-perfect recall. One of the more useful things his father had done for him, in retrospect.
“Put them away, never look at them if that’s what you want but please don’t destroy them. You never know; you may want them. By the way, the cigar box was a present from 'the Padre'.”
Trust his mother to drop a bomb like that right at the end. A hint without the faintest suggestion of being such. An innocent comment without the faintest shadow of ambiguity. Except that it wasn’t. Without incriminating herself in any way, she had inveigled into his home a memento of his real father as well as his supposed one.
Lately, since his father’s death and his self-described unproductive sessions with Nolan, he’d begun to toy with lifting the very edge of the plaster on that suppurating wound. He was fully aware of what he was doing, or contemplating doing and he feared it even more than re-treading his path to Mayfield.
What if the answer to the puzzle that was him was that he was “just an ass”, just “a jerk”? Born a little monster like that chess-playing kid; albeit one with a genius level I.Q. Tolerable only as an intellectual freak.Loneliness was corrosive.Wilson was an exception, but he had his own problems. Even his friendship was conditional.
A quick rap on the door alerted him to the fact that his conditional friend stood outside, laden, he hoped, with his favourite takeout. He shoved the weapons to the far recesses of his bedroom closet, closing the doors with his body weight.
“It’d better be good, this new place,” he said as Wilson carried the food sack to the coffee table. “It cost you seventy five dollars.”
Author: Waylandsmithy
Characters: House, Blythe (House POV)
Rating : None
Comment: Call back to late Season Six. A spoiler for "Paranoia." House receives an unwanted delivery.
“Sign, you gotta sign” said the UPS driver and held out the track pad to House, who was leaning heavily against the doorjamb and blinking in owlish fashion against his unreasonably early awakening.
He looked at the neatly taped, oddly cruciform package and recognised his mother’s handiwork. He was pretty sure he knew the contents and more than certain he didn’t want them. He hesitated.
“It’s your name, buddy,” said the driver, impatiently as he jiggled the stylus on its cord; “I been here plenty times.”
House grabbed the stylus, scribbled an approximation of his signature on the screen and retreated into the apartment. He put the parcel on the coffee table, stared at it balefully for a long moment and returned to bed, where he slept fitfully for the rest of the morning.
Only the likelihood of a visit from Wilson and the certainty that a whole load of intrusive questions would follow, induced him to unwrap the parcel later that day. It was too awkward a shape to jam into one of his already overflowing closets, so open it he must, and, he supposed, read the letter which undoubtedly accompanied it.
First the dress sword, glinting within its sheath. He’d been caught playing with it once. That had not gone down well. It was less the danger, his father said, than the disrespect.
Then the service pistol, nestled in its box; much more familiar to him. His father had maintained it lovingly; lavishing on it all the warm attention he failed to pay to his son. “This is your best friend”, he’d said. “But neglect it and it may let you down when you need it most.”
House appreciated the skilled engineering of the weapon but its deadly beauty only moved him to remember the feel of bullets tearing into his flesh when he had been on the wrong end of one used in anger. Even he did not need such a friend. He put it aside and opened the familiar thin paper his mother had used ever since he could remember.
“Before you return these saying you don’t want them” wrote Blythe, “I’d like to remind you of what I said to you at John’s funeral; ‘the war is over.’ I know that your father would want you to have these as a reminder of him and what was important to him even if you didn’t have much in common.“
Like genes? House, not for the first time, pondered the depths of his mother’s self-denial.
“I’m moving out of the house, as you’d know if only you ever called (and yes, I know you’re “busy”). This place is just too much for me to keep up now. Some new duplex apartments closer to the mall and my classes have finally been finished and I’ve bought one with a nice view of the golf course. Betsy and Caroline -you remember them, Greg, -will be only a few blocks over, so I shan’t miss my old neighbours.”
He remembered that these two women were his mother’s only friends outside the Corps’ wives and as such were faintly disapproved of by his father. Perhaps she was at long last coming out from underneath the mantle of the Marines.
“I’ll have no space for these, and really I’ve no love for such things, reminders of violence.
As for his medals, John was so proud of them, they are buried with him. I didn’t need to ask you.”
So she remembered the ‘medal drill’ John had imposed on his resisting young son. It was a strange catechism; that need for word-perfect recall. One of the more useful things his father had done for him, in retrospect.
“Put them away, never look at them if that’s what you want but please don’t destroy them. You never know; you may want them. By the way, the cigar box was a present from 'the Padre'.”
Trust his mother to drop a bomb like that right at the end. A hint without the faintest suggestion of being such. An innocent comment without the faintest shadow of ambiguity. Except that it wasn’t. Without incriminating herself in any way, she had inveigled into his home a memento of his real father as well as his supposed one.
Lately, since his father’s death and his self-described unproductive sessions with Nolan, he’d begun to toy with lifting the very edge of the plaster on that suppurating wound. He was fully aware of what he was doing, or contemplating doing and he feared it even more than re-treading his path to Mayfield.
What if the answer to the puzzle that was him was that he was “just an ass”, just “a jerk”? Born a little monster like that chess-playing kid; albeit one with a genius level I.Q. Tolerable only as an intellectual freak.Loneliness was corrosive.Wilson was an exception, but he had his own problems. Even his friendship was conditional.
A quick rap on the door alerted him to the fact that his conditional friend stood outside, laden, he hoped, with his favourite takeout. He shoved the weapons to the far recesses of his bedroom closet, closing the doors with his body weight.
“It’d better be good, this new place,” he said as Wilson carried the food sack to the coffee table. “It cost you seventy five dollars.”