Type One (PG-13)
Title: Type One
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13 for language
Words: 5,166
Summary: “It’s rational,” House says.
Notes: Set about two years from today. Vague spoilers through episode 5-21. Completed in honor of mer_duff's birthday (it's still her birthday on the West coast of North America!) and to celebrate taiga13's birthday last week. Thanks to Early Readers for the scan, especially nightdog_barks for the medical know-how, but I was in too much of a hurry for a full beta. Concrit welcome!
There are fleas in the basement again.
“I can’t wait for the cat to die,” House says as he leans away to avoid the miasma of flea-spray that must be wafting from your shirt. You wait for revulsion to well up at his horrid, abhorrent, true-and-well-shared words but it doesn’t. Then you expect guilt at your unspoken acquiescence but that doesn’t well up either.
You really hate the damn fleas.
People think that you’re different now that you’re with House, but that’s not true at all. You’re yourself, the real you, more than you’ve ever been. He allows it; no, actually, he demands it.
It’s not his fault that the real you is a reprobate.
You should probably go back on the antidepressants. Screw the effect they have on your libido. Ha, pun. It’s not like you and House are in the red-hot-ball-of-fire phase of the relationship anyway.
Were you ever in that phase? Physically? Mentally you were, way back when, when knocking into each other during one-on-one basketball was the only time you ever touched. Red-hot when you talked, though; House woke you up like a shot of caffeine, like that one time Alex had thought it’d be funny to give you an upper without you knowing (and is there any way in the world House isn’t like one or the other of your brothers?). House woke you up, engaged your mind, made you think and question and wonder in a way you hadn’t in years. If ever. Red-hot, you were, way back then.
Princeton had been where you’d last seen Danny, yes, but if you’re going to be honest - gotta start some time - you followed House to Princeton. Being around him, being able to keep up with him, as much as you could, was a high you weren’t getting anywhere else. Including in your marriage, but oh well. Oh well. Bonnie hadn’t really liked Boston, anyway.
“You stink,” House says, and he’s not being metaphorical. You sigh, just because it feels good - House never gets that, and you have no idea why not - and trudge off to the shower.
After you turn the water off, the miasma washed down the drain in what is probably a very eco-unfriendly manner, you think about putting deodorant on again but decide not to. Eh. When you drape the towel over your head, your body almost entirely dry except your feet, which you never bother to dry, and the small of your back, which you always seem to miss and not notice until the towel is on your hair, you think about getting the blow dryer out but decide not to. You’ll have to shower again in the morning, anyway, because no matter what you do with your hair at night, it always looks like hell after you’ve slept. Sweat or hair gnomes or something. House can get away with just brushing, but you can’t. House can get away with a lot of things that you can’t, and that’s how the world works.
Your favorite flannel sleep pants don’t smell too bad, so you put them on. Your navy Columbia tee has a hole where there didn’t used to be one, but you’re only getting into bed. It’s soft, and who’ll notice?
It takes a couple of minutes to feel settled under the sheets. At first you think maybe you can feel fleas jumping on you, but that’s impossible. Sense memory from the basement - ugh - coupled with the wrinkles that seem to be perma-pressed into the fitted sheet. What the hell? Grr. Eventually you get it, though; head just so, body just so, blankets just so.
And that’s when House turns on the overhead light. You groan, even though you weren’t anywhere near actual slumber-land, because what now?
House heads into the master bathroom, turning on that light, which is harsh and clinical and with the door the way House has it, cuts across your side of the bed in the perfect angle to be right in your face. It wasn’t like that before, but the bed got moved over a few inches three days ago when the service was in for a deep clean, and you hadn’t cared enough to move the bed back. Until now.
“Light’s in my face,” you grumble.
“What?” House asks, leaning out the bathroom doorway. He’s got a mouth full of froth like a rabid dog. Waste of perfectly good toothpaste, but it’s his bubblegum-flavored sparkly SpongeBob kind, so whatever. You adjust your second pillow so it’s away from your mouth but more firmly covering your eyes, and repeat yourself.
“The bathroom light. Is in. My face.”
“So’s the overhead light,” House points out, the consonants slurred and round-edged to slither their way out past the foam. He gargles and spits and pees and splashes, and you lie there with four pounds of cotton over your face and wonder whether he’s let the cat out or you’ll end up having to do it at quarter to three.
There’s a moment of silence before House asks, “Migraine?”
“No thank you.”
He laughs and you peek out to look at him. He looks good. You don’t really want him to look back but he does, catches your eyes, holds them, and a look emerges on his face. All you can tell at first is that it’s not happy. You made him laugh, and then you made him somehow not happy.
In the same instant that you realize it’s disappointment on his face, House says, “Junk drawer,” with a nod like everything’s settled, and then walks out of the room.
You roll over, wishing that he’d turned the light off before he went.
“Hey!” is the next thing you say, as crud pebbles your legs and scatters across, and into, the comforter. “Quit it!” There’s crap everywhere and an almost empty drawer upside-down in House’s hand - the aforementioned junk drawer, no doubt - still sprinkling dirt and food flecks and toenail shavings of the dinosaurs onto your pristine (ish) bed.
“Ugh,” you grunt as you sit up and swat ineffectually at everything inanimate. “I was sleeping, and now I have to clean up all your useless crap.”
Shoving your hands away, shepherding the junk into a loose circle, House says, “It’s ten-fifteen on a Tuesday, and you don’t have to get up until seven. You weren’t sleeping; you were trying to escape.”
Same thing, you want to snap, along with, So what? but you’re distracted by House launching himself onto the bed in a huge belly-flop. Total abandon and no style, and you have to snicker even though you’d rather stay angry. Angry is easier than admitting that he can still make you laugh, and you don’t have any idea why that’s so.
A thud and rattle lets you know the empty drawer made it safely to the floor. House rolls onto his side, head propped on your outstretched thigh. You bend your knee and pull your foot back to provide a better pillow and he… cuddles closer. Curls around to push more of himself against you.
You feel like you can’t breathe. Your eyes must be huge, owl-like, but House is acting like this is normal, everyday stuff, for him to dump trash on the bed and then, in effect, climb into your lap for a snuggle. OK, then. OK.
You can’t breathe.
House isn’t noticing, isn’t even facing you, is - apparently - scanning the junk for something in particular, and then his hand is reaching out for the gem, the jewel of the collection, to present to you.
It’s a stubby red crayon.
“Um, thanks,” you say, when House’s head turns upwards and his eyes meet yours again.
House proffers the crayon again, until you take it. It’s not even new; stubby and scarred, the worn paper flecked with black, blue, brown marks.
“On the trip we took to New York on the train last month,” House says, and you realize why the stick of wax doesn’t feel unfamiliar, “that noisy, frenetic little kid was bugging the shit out of me. He just seemed like a mouthy brat to me, but you said he was probably bored and lonely.”
You remember the kid, and even more than that you remember his parents. They had a look in their eyes, a shell around them, that you know way too well. Shocked, exhausted, overwhelmed: parents of a critically ill child. And the brother - the kid on the train, Ryan - was five. Old enough to understand that something was wrong, but too young to really grasp why it was changing his life so dramatically. Too heavy a burden for such a little kid, and too heavy for his weakened parents to shoulder on top of everything else, but it was so easy for you to sit down next to him and pick up that crayon. To talk about Power Rangers and Spiderman and whether a great white shark could eat a whole grizzly bear. Conclusion: Yes.
“You colored with that kid for forty minutes straight,” House says, “and I got to read in peace, and his parents got to do whatever the fuck they were doing, and -”
“And you bitched at me almost the whole time,” you point out.
House rolls his cheeks in the shrug-substituting gesture he uses sometimes. “It’s what I do. And placating noisy brats is what you do.”
You consider pointing out exactly how often you have to placate a particular noisy brat, but a twinkle in House’s eye gives away that he knows.
“This,” House says, as a scrap of pale yellow paper is thrust too close your face, “I don’t remember at all.” You blink; it’s hard to try to remember when you can’t even properly see the thing. Trying to adjust House’s hand to put the paper at a good distance is no use, so you take the scrap away.
Moving it to the right distance is no help, though, because the lettering has faded away into illegibility. That’s assuming it was ever sharp enough to be read in the first place; the paper has the fuzzy, unpleasant texture of the “customer copy” of a receipt.
“I remember the eighteen kinds of fungi that weren’t killing my patient,” House continues, “but I don’t remember this. Even though my team ate it for dinner, and I had the leftovers for breakfast before finally leaving the hospital.”
Oh. Penang Thai. You still can’t read the receipt, but that’s where it’s from. House caught a case at four in the afternoon, hit Diagnostic Trance by five-thirty, and was still going strong at seven when you left for home, so you ordered a huge batch of Thai food for him and his team. No big deal. House would do the same for you.
Well, actually, House wouldn’t, not his style, but Cuddy would.
Maybe. Possibly.
Come to think of it, you work late into the night at least once every few months on deadlines that she’s counting on you to meet, and she’s never had dinner delivered to you. But she’s busy; she’s the head of the entire hospital, and Rachel’s growing up so quickly, and Cuddy doesn’t have time for things like that. So it doesn’t really have relevance to the point, which is that if you were able to sustain normal friendships, with typical-type people, those typical-type people would order you a dinner if you had to work late saving a life. No big deal. It’s mystifying why House is even mentioning it.
House is looking at you again, obviously expecting something, but you have no idea what. “Um... thank you?” you try, and then the disappointment’s back in his eyes, and it sucks that he’s trying to trap you like this. Dump junk on your lap, and then snuggle you and bring up old nothing moments, and get mad at you when you don’t know what the hell’s going on. He’s got some nerve -
“Hey!” you yell, and snatch the latest bit of refuse from his hand, a crisp white index card covered with the careful curves of well-trained penmanship. “This is my mother’s rugelach recipe! I’ve been looking all over for this.”
“Like you don’t have it memorized,” House scoffs, and you glare at him because that is not the point.
“I was going to -”
“Give it to Mindy the Teen-Bride Candy Striper so she can win the bake-off and impress her mother-in-law and save her marriage to her one true love, Jeff the Pickle-Faced Mama’s Boy.”
Of course House has to put it in the most stupid-sounding light. “‘Pickle-faced’ isn’t even a real word.”
“It’s an accurate description, though.” House’s face contorts in disgust in a way that really ought not to be endearing. “All bumpy and weirdly non-porous, with a green tinge underneath. I swear I’ve smelled brine coming off him.”
It’s not funny. It’s not funny. You tell yourself that five times before the urge to laugh goes away.
“So what if I want to give this to Mindy?” Your head of steam faltered during the attempt to forestall laughing, but you’re back on track now. “It’s not like I wanted to win the stupid bake-off.”
House looks at you, calmly, neutrally, and says, “But you do.”
You look at him. You look at the card. House’s head is on your thigh, and his left arm is pressed against your leg, and his right shoulder is grazing your hip, and you’re mortified by how close you feel to crying. This is all nothing; it’s just stupid; and now’s the time to say it.
“I don’t,” you say. “It’s a chance to raise money and a morale booster for the staff. For them, not me. Department heads shouldn’t even be allowed to enter.”
“Because department heads don’t count as staff? They don’t need their morale boosted?”
His voice sounds a little weird, but you’re not looking at him. You can’t look at him. You’re looking at your mother’s handwriting, feminine and firm and sure. There’s love in the curlicues, in the tiny circles of safe space they create. “Other people need the prize money; I don’t.”
House’s shoulders bump you in what you know is a shrug. “You could always give it to me,” he says, and now you’re back on solid ground. House wants you to enter the contest so that he can get the thousand bucks, plus probably some betting money on the side. OK. This you can handle.
“House,” you start but he rolls right on over you.
“Or give the money to the damn charity; that part doesn’t matter. You want to win, and with this recipe you can win, so don’t give it to Mrs. Pickle-Face. Keep it, and enter, and win. Get what you want.”
Your Adam’s apple feels heavy. “The world doesn’t work like that.”
House snorts, and suddenly he’s rolling away, sitting up, and he ought to be careful, he could strain his leg doing that. “You are such a schmendrik,” he says.
You don’t like it when House presses the ethnic button. You don’t play the card; he shouldn’t push the button. “Would you stop with the Yiddish?”
“I used to think you were a schnook. When you weren’t being a schmuck.”
“Stop. The Yiddish. Please. I feel like I’m at a resort in the Catskills.”
“Dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Point is, I used to think you were a schnook, a patsy, doing shit for other people and not making them do stuff for you.”
Only House could make giving a fault, caring a deformity.
“I -”
“But then I realized,” House steamrolls over you, “that you were getting something back. All those thank-yous and oh-aren’t-you-so-sweets and greeting cards and little presents and gratitude fucks -” You glare at him but he doesn’t even notice, pacing as he is around the room. “- were the payback for doing your thing.”
You sigh. “As I believe I’ve mentioned before, that is the typical response to someone giving to you: you - well, not you, but everyone else - feel gratitude and express thanks. It’s what we all do.” You hold up a hand. “Again, except you.”
“See, that’s what distracted me from getting to the bottom of this.” House is leaning against the dresser now. He’s twirling a set of your cufflinks between his fingers, up and around and back again. “That’s the typical way of things, but your pathology isn’t typical, never has been. And then I got it. You weren’t giving in the hope of future return of the gesture. And you sure as hell weren’t giving selflessly. Nobody does that except religious zealots and hormone-addled mothers. Nope. You were giving for the gratification of your ego. Quid pro quo; you give and people kiss your ass.”
So beyond the pale. So insane. So House. “Yeah. Sure. That’s what giving is really all about. Getting your ass kissed; that’s why everyone does it. Only you could think -”
“You didn’t listen. Again.” House nods, and the cufflinks disappear behind his palm. “I’m not talking about everyone. I’m talking about you. You do things for other people because you need the approbation. You need the pats on the back, the admiration, the warm fuzzy.”
Of course he’s twisting this into you being selfish. He is so -
“Other people want it, like it, but you need it. You’re hooked on the stuff. Can’t live without it.”
You laugh. It sounds harsh, and feels even harsher. “Yeah, it’s like heroin. Exactly like that. What a depraved member of society I am, doing things for others.”
“I’m not mocking you,” House insists, and obviously the look on your face conveys how unbelievable that statement is, because he continues, “This time, OK? For once, I’m not mocking you. You need this in your life to function. I didn’t understand at first because I don’t need it, but you do, and there’s no reason to hassle you for it. Might as well yell at a diabetic person for needing insulin.”
He’s so unbelievably wrong, and a jerk, and a big fat hypocrite to boot. “You told me you yelled at a quote 'drug-seeking idiot' unquote yesterday for wanting medicine for his diabetes.”
House’s face falls into an expression of disgust identical to the one he’d worn telling the story before. “That guy had Type Two, and knew he had Type Two, and refused to get his ass off the couch or change his eating habits to include anything that didn’t come from a vending machine. Hell yeah, I yelled at him for demanding a prescription. Not even insulin; he wanted Glucophage because ‘pills are easier.’”
“Just because you have something against people with obesity -”
“He wasn’t obese. BMI on the low side of normal. Restricting your calorie intake doesn’t do a damn bit of good if you’re inert and all the calories are empty crap.”
“Says the man who used to think balancing a meal meant having both scotch and bourbon.”
House stops then, goes rigid and still, at the blow you’ve just thrown way below his belt. You’d feel guilty, incredibly guilty, say-anything-to-take-it-back guilty if you weren’t so immensely angry with him. He can be an asshole, and you know that, know the exasperation and frustration and embarrassment and stress of every single asshole stunt he pulls, but he’s never stabbed you like this before. He’s betrayed you, let you down, laughed in your face, but it’s never felt this much like a dagger. A dagger turned rib-spreader, cracking your chest, bones splintering as the cool air of outside rushes across places it’s not meant to go.
As you throw yourself back on your pillow, House sits down heavily on his side of the bed, one leg down to the ground, one leg up on the mattress, twisting his neck to look at you. “You’ll go any distance to avoid seeing who you really are, won’t you?”
He’s on top of the covers, so it takes a couple of tugs to get them situated over your shoulder. “Go to sleep, House.”
House gets up, turns out the light, and returns to the bed, but he doesn’t go to sleep. Not even close. Instead he settles on top of the comforter again, lying down this time, stretched out against your back with an arm thrown over you, hand heavy on the covers, pulling them so tight that you can’t move.
Damn him.
“Now, you’ve needed that kind of affirmation ever since I’ve known you,” he says, as if this is a conversation, a calm two-way back-and-forth. “Probably needed it since the first time you threw a toothless smile your parents’ way and got cooed at in return.”
The edge of the sheet has become rolled over, and it’s digging into your upper arm like a band, like a braided cord.
“So I had to ask myself,” House continues, “what’s been different lately, to throw you this far into withdrawal.”
“I’m not -”
“Bullshit, you’re not. You’ve got the fucking DTs, Wilson, so just be quiet and listen to me.”
You shift your hips, and House shifts his leg on top of yours. Heavy. You’d love to be any place but here, but there’s nowhere for you to go.
House is quiet for a moment, waiting for what you don’t know, but then he starts again. “Your job hasn’t been any different. Same interns and nurses looking at you with awe, same butt-kissers wanting to move up the ladder, same distraught families and dying patients who thank you for making their last days a little less crappy.
“Your family’s the same, and I haven’t changed. Not that I was ever a bountiful source for gratitude, but at least I’m not giving you less than I did before.”
He shouldn’t cut himself down like that; you know he cares, in his own unique way. “You -”
“Shush.” House’s leg slides over the comforter, finds the natural dip of your waist, settles in against your hipbone. It’s quiet for a few moments. Quiet and warm and not awful.
Warm breath kisses the back of your neck and you can almost feel the vibration when he says, “People used to thank you for being friends with me, and now they don’t. That’s what changed.”
Fuck. Fuck.
“My bet is they now think the sex is recompense enough for putting up with my derisive bastardry. Not that they’d say that directly to you, of course.” He cranks the rib-spreader wider. “But that’s why appreciation levels have fallen below the minimum RDA for you.”
Fuck. You’re cold and hot at the same time. You have to go. You have to go. “It’s not true,” is all you manage to get out around clenched bicuspids and an aching jaw.
“They are still thanking you? Then I’ll have to go back to the drawing board.”
“It’s - yes, I mean, no, but it’s not like that,” you protest. The covers are tight, trapping you, and House’s leg and House’s arm, and oh fuck, you’re such a bastard. A smug, unfeeling - how could you have ever let anyone say those things to you? How could you have smiled, even once, but you did, and you didn’t mean it, except somewhere inside, you did. You liked it, and now House knows, and he’s hurt. Who wouldn’t be? Fuck.
“Wilson,” House breathes. His right arm tightens around your arm and chest, and his left arm is pushing under your pillow to come back up the other side. You want to run away, but all you can do is try to relax your body. You’re not going to insult him further by lying stiff inside his embrace.
He whispers, “It’s OK.”
“It’s not like that,” you protest again, because even though he knows, you don’t have to confirm it. You don’t have to kick him after being the one who knocked him down.
“I’m glad they thanked you.”
You - You have no idea what to think about that. None.
He huffs a short laugh and goes on, “I sure as shit wasn’t going to do it, and we’ve already established you need it, so... yeah. I’m glad they did.”
“It’s...” You’re struggling for the words to make this right. You’d prefer it just go away, but now that House has his jaws in it, that’s not going to be possible. So, make it right. Make it right. You make all kinds of things right for all kinds of people, but this is House. It’s more important. He’s more important. And you shouldn’t pass up this opportunity to get to tell him. “I’m friends with you because of you, who you are. Not because of anyone or anything else.”
“I know,” he says - you revel in the warm acceptance in his tone - “but that still leaves the issue of finding you another source. I can’t be it; we’ve proved that tonight.”
You try to roll over to face him, but you’re still wedged in your position. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not an appreciation guy. Just not. Sometimes I don’t even notice what you’re doing. Sometime I notice, like the things I talked about tonight, but forget to say something to you. Sometimes I think you’re being an asshole for one reason or another and don’t deserve to get a pat on the back from me.”
Your eyes roll of their own accord, and either House can feel it or he can guess what’s happened, because a chuckle rumbles from his chest into your back.
“So we have to find another way. Easiest way is to pay someone, but I don’t think there’s a top-quality geisha guild in Princeton so -”
“Geisha?” You get about seventy percent of House’s references, but this one has you stumped.
“Only profession I know of whose sole purpose is to bolster men’s egos. Well, that and lobbying, but you’re not a Congressman.”
“House.”
“So you’re just going to have to volunteer.”
A groan tries to make its way up out of your diaphragm, but you stifle it immediately. You’re already on three non-compensated committees at work, and heading up the funding drive, and you don’t get enough time away from the hospital as it is.
As if sensing what you’re thinking (it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility), House continues, “Not at work. And not anything thankless, because hello, man running on empty here. I’m thinking something at a school. They’re always bitching about not having enough positive adult influences around, especially male positive influences. You might not want to mention the ‘doing a dude’ thing, but other than that, give it a month and you’ll be rolling in the hugs and hand-drawn pictures and cheap printed certificates.”
It’s a nice picture. The parent volunteers at your elementary school were always so fun - new and exciting in a way your boring old everyday teacher couldn’t be, and you remember looking up to the field-trip chaperones and reading coaches and class parents.
Who were parents. Flaw in the plan. “A childless guy volunteering at a school is going to look creepy, don’t you think?”
House pauses for a minute, and his limbs shift. His embrace has loosened; you’re free to go... but now you don’t want to. You scoot back a hair instead, closer to him. The snort that blows through your hair tells you he’s noticed.
“Cuddy’s kid is going to be in preschool soon. Sucking up to your busy boss by taking her volunteer shifts in the school is a pretty good excuse. Or I’m sure there’s some dying local person who’d nominate you for sainthood if you kept an eye on his or her kid at the school while the patient’s puking up a lung at the hospital.”
The fact that you can name three patients off the top of your head who’d be thrilled with this doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. “What you’re saying is so... mercenary.”
“It’s rational,” House says, and apparently that’s his trump card, because he pulls back from you. His arm ripping out from under you dumps your head on the pillow, and you almost lose your balance and get tangled in the covers, but you don’t.
You’re smiling in the dark, where he can’t see you, until the overhead light suddenly comes on. Then you’re blinking and smiling, but maybe this once it’s all right that you no doubt look like a complete idiot. House hasn’t been in the mood to tease you tonight.
You sit up as House lies down on the bed again, and you’re distracted by glints off the comforter where your feet were. Oh. The junk drawer stuff. You’d forgotten about that.
In the light, the atmosphere has shifted. Back to normal, back to what the two of you are used to, so instead of anything nicer you say to House, “Are you going to clean up all this crap?”
“No,” he says while rolling away.
Wonderful. After bending low to inspect the crud, you’re considering whether it’s worthwhile to try to sweep everything into a pile with your hand, or if you should just go get the vacuum cleaner, when House rolls back, empty drawer in hand.
“I’m going to save the things that mean something to me.”
The yellow receipt goes into the drawer, and another receipt, the rugelach recipe and half a movie ticket, and the crayon stub - and that’s all you see clearly before your vision starts to blur.
“Are you crying?” House asks, with an undertone of gleeful teasing smugness.
“No,” you insist. “Something from the comforter got in my eye.”
“You are such a - whoa.” House tilts your head and pulls down on your cheek. “If that was a diamond, it’d be like a quarter carat.”
“Told you,” you reply and then hold as still as you can as House deftly plucks the intruder from your sclera.
He flicks the item onto the rug and goes back to re-packing the drawer. “What would you do without me?”
You’re afraid to tell him the truth, afraid that he’ll laugh and disregard it. Afraid that he won’t believe you. So you scan your brain for a phrasing that won’t bounce off his shell, won’t wither in the heat of his scorn, and fortunately you’re pretty good at this when you try, because you come up with: “Nobody’s ever loved me the way that you do, House.”
“Hm,” he says, eyes gleaming, and you know he’s analyzing, assessing, puzzling through everything that could mean. You love giving him presents he appreciates.
The full junk drawer is lowered gently to the floor, and House rolls himself under the covers, and this time you get up to turn the light off. You jump a little, pretending the floor (the carpeted floor) is cold under your feet. House could call you on it, but he doesn’t; just lets you have the excuse for tucking yourself closer to him under the covers than you normally do.
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13 for language
Words: 5,166
Summary: “It’s rational,” House says.
Notes: Set about two years from today. Vague spoilers through episode 5-21. Completed in honor of mer_duff's birthday (it's still her birthday on the West coast of North America!) and to celebrate taiga13's birthday last week. Thanks to Early Readers for the scan, especially nightdog_barks for the medical know-how, but I was in too much of a hurry for a full beta. Concrit welcome!
There are fleas in the basement again.
“I can’t wait for the cat to die,” House says as he leans away to avoid the miasma of flea-spray that must be wafting from your shirt. You wait for revulsion to well up at his horrid, abhorrent, true-and-well-shared words but it doesn’t. Then you expect guilt at your unspoken acquiescence but that doesn’t well up either.
You really hate the damn fleas.
People think that you’re different now that you’re with House, but that’s not true at all. You’re yourself, the real you, more than you’ve ever been. He allows it; no, actually, he demands it.
It’s not his fault that the real you is a reprobate.
You should probably go back on the antidepressants. Screw the effect they have on your libido. Ha, pun. It’s not like you and House are in the red-hot-ball-of-fire phase of the relationship anyway.
Were you ever in that phase? Physically? Mentally you were, way back when, when knocking into each other during one-on-one basketball was the only time you ever touched. Red-hot when you talked, though; House woke you up like a shot of caffeine, like that one time Alex had thought it’d be funny to give you an upper without you knowing (and is there any way in the world House isn’t like one or the other of your brothers?). House woke you up, engaged your mind, made you think and question and wonder in a way you hadn’t in years. If ever. Red-hot, you were, way back then.
Princeton had been where you’d last seen Danny, yes, but if you’re going to be honest - gotta start some time - you followed House to Princeton. Being around him, being able to keep up with him, as much as you could, was a high you weren’t getting anywhere else. Including in your marriage, but oh well. Oh well. Bonnie hadn’t really liked Boston, anyway.
“You stink,” House says, and he’s not being metaphorical. You sigh, just because it feels good - House never gets that, and you have no idea why not - and trudge off to the shower.
After you turn the water off, the miasma washed down the drain in what is probably a very eco-unfriendly manner, you think about putting deodorant on again but decide not to. Eh. When you drape the towel over your head, your body almost entirely dry except your feet, which you never bother to dry, and the small of your back, which you always seem to miss and not notice until the towel is on your hair, you think about getting the blow dryer out but decide not to. You’ll have to shower again in the morning, anyway, because no matter what you do with your hair at night, it always looks like hell after you’ve slept. Sweat or hair gnomes or something. House can get away with just brushing, but you can’t. House can get away with a lot of things that you can’t, and that’s how the world works.
Your favorite flannel sleep pants don’t smell too bad, so you put them on. Your navy Columbia tee has a hole where there didn’t used to be one, but you’re only getting into bed. It’s soft, and who’ll notice?
It takes a couple of minutes to feel settled under the sheets. At first you think maybe you can feel fleas jumping on you, but that’s impossible. Sense memory from the basement - ugh - coupled with the wrinkles that seem to be perma-pressed into the fitted sheet. What the hell? Grr. Eventually you get it, though; head just so, body just so, blankets just so.
And that’s when House turns on the overhead light. You groan, even though you weren’t anywhere near actual slumber-land, because what now?
House heads into the master bathroom, turning on that light, which is harsh and clinical and with the door the way House has it, cuts across your side of the bed in the perfect angle to be right in your face. It wasn’t like that before, but the bed got moved over a few inches three days ago when the service was in for a deep clean, and you hadn’t cared enough to move the bed back. Until now.
“Light’s in my face,” you grumble.
“What?” House asks, leaning out the bathroom doorway. He’s got a mouth full of froth like a rabid dog. Waste of perfectly good toothpaste, but it’s his bubblegum-flavored sparkly SpongeBob kind, so whatever. You adjust your second pillow so it’s away from your mouth but more firmly covering your eyes, and repeat yourself.
“The bathroom light. Is in. My face.”
“So’s the overhead light,” House points out, the consonants slurred and round-edged to slither their way out past the foam. He gargles and spits and pees and splashes, and you lie there with four pounds of cotton over your face and wonder whether he’s let the cat out or you’ll end up having to do it at quarter to three.
There’s a moment of silence before House asks, “Migraine?”
“No thank you.”
He laughs and you peek out to look at him. He looks good. You don’t really want him to look back but he does, catches your eyes, holds them, and a look emerges on his face. All you can tell at first is that it’s not happy. You made him laugh, and then you made him somehow not happy.
In the same instant that you realize it’s disappointment on his face, House says, “Junk drawer,” with a nod like everything’s settled, and then walks out of the room.
You roll over, wishing that he’d turned the light off before he went.
“Hey!” is the next thing you say, as crud pebbles your legs and scatters across, and into, the comforter. “Quit it!” There’s crap everywhere and an almost empty drawer upside-down in House’s hand - the aforementioned junk drawer, no doubt - still sprinkling dirt and food flecks and toenail shavings of the dinosaurs onto your pristine (ish) bed.
“Ugh,” you grunt as you sit up and swat ineffectually at everything inanimate. “I was sleeping, and now I have to clean up all your useless crap.”
Shoving your hands away, shepherding the junk into a loose circle, House says, “It’s ten-fifteen on a Tuesday, and you don’t have to get up until seven. You weren’t sleeping; you were trying to escape.”
Same thing, you want to snap, along with, So what? but you’re distracted by House launching himself onto the bed in a huge belly-flop. Total abandon and no style, and you have to snicker even though you’d rather stay angry. Angry is easier than admitting that he can still make you laugh, and you don’t have any idea why that’s so.
A thud and rattle lets you know the empty drawer made it safely to the floor. House rolls onto his side, head propped on your outstretched thigh. You bend your knee and pull your foot back to provide a better pillow and he… cuddles closer. Curls around to push more of himself against you.
You feel like you can’t breathe. Your eyes must be huge, owl-like, but House is acting like this is normal, everyday stuff, for him to dump trash on the bed and then, in effect, climb into your lap for a snuggle. OK, then. OK.
You can’t breathe.
House isn’t noticing, isn’t even facing you, is - apparently - scanning the junk for something in particular, and then his hand is reaching out for the gem, the jewel of the collection, to present to you.
It’s a stubby red crayon.
“Um, thanks,” you say, when House’s head turns upwards and his eyes meet yours again.
House proffers the crayon again, until you take it. It’s not even new; stubby and scarred, the worn paper flecked with black, blue, brown marks.
“On the trip we took to New York on the train last month,” House says, and you realize why the stick of wax doesn’t feel unfamiliar, “that noisy, frenetic little kid was bugging the shit out of me. He just seemed like a mouthy brat to me, but you said he was probably bored and lonely.”
You remember the kid, and even more than that you remember his parents. They had a look in their eyes, a shell around them, that you know way too well. Shocked, exhausted, overwhelmed: parents of a critically ill child. And the brother - the kid on the train, Ryan - was five. Old enough to understand that something was wrong, but too young to really grasp why it was changing his life so dramatically. Too heavy a burden for such a little kid, and too heavy for his weakened parents to shoulder on top of everything else, but it was so easy for you to sit down next to him and pick up that crayon. To talk about Power Rangers and Spiderman and whether a great white shark could eat a whole grizzly bear. Conclusion: Yes.
“You colored with that kid for forty minutes straight,” House says, “and I got to read in peace, and his parents got to do whatever the fuck they were doing, and -”
“And you bitched at me almost the whole time,” you point out.
House rolls his cheeks in the shrug-substituting gesture he uses sometimes. “It’s what I do. And placating noisy brats is what you do.”
You consider pointing out exactly how often you have to placate a particular noisy brat, but a twinkle in House’s eye gives away that he knows.
“This,” House says, as a scrap of pale yellow paper is thrust too close your face, “I don’t remember at all.” You blink; it’s hard to try to remember when you can’t even properly see the thing. Trying to adjust House’s hand to put the paper at a good distance is no use, so you take the scrap away.
Moving it to the right distance is no help, though, because the lettering has faded away into illegibility. That’s assuming it was ever sharp enough to be read in the first place; the paper has the fuzzy, unpleasant texture of the “customer copy” of a receipt.
“I remember the eighteen kinds of fungi that weren’t killing my patient,” House continues, “but I don’t remember this. Even though my team ate it for dinner, and I had the leftovers for breakfast before finally leaving the hospital.”
Oh. Penang Thai. You still can’t read the receipt, but that’s where it’s from. House caught a case at four in the afternoon, hit Diagnostic Trance by five-thirty, and was still going strong at seven when you left for home, so you ordered a huge batch of Thai food for him and his team. No big deal. House would do the same for you.
Well, actually, House wouldn’t, not his style, but Cuddy would.
Maybe. Possibly.
Come to think of it, you work late into the night at least once every few months on deadlines that she’s counting on you to meet, and she’s never had dinner delivered to you. But she’s busy; she’s the head of the entire hospital, and Rachel’s growing up so quickly, and Cuddy doesn’t have time for things like that. So it doesn’t really have relevance to the point, which is that if you were able to sustain normal friendships, with typical-type people, those typical-type people would order you a dinner if you had to work late saving a life. No big deal. It’s mystifying why House is even mentioning it.
House is looking at you again, obviously expecting something, but you have no idea what. “Um... thank you?” you try, and then the disappointment’s back in his eyes, and it sucks that he’s trying to trap you like this. Dump junk on your lap, and then snuggle you and bring up old nothing moments, and get mad at you when you don’t know what the hell’s going on. He’s got some nerve -
“Hey!” you yell, and snatch the latest bit of refuse from his hand, a crisp white index card covered with the careful curves of well-trained penmanship. “This is my mother’s rugelach recipe! I’ve been looking all over for this.”
“Like you don’t have it memorized,” House scoffs, and you glare at him because that is not the point.
“I was going to -”
“Give it to Mindy the Teen-Bride Candy Striper so she can win the bake-off and impress her mother-in-law and save her marriage to her one true love, Jeff the Pickle-Faced Mama’s Boy.”
Of course House has to put it in the most stupid-sounding light. “‘Pickle-faced’ isn’t even a real word.”
“It’s an accurate description, though.” House’s face contorts in disgust in a way that really ought not to be endearing. “All bumpy and weirdly non-porous, with a green tinge underneath. I swear I’ve smelled brine coming off him.”
It’s not funny. It’s not funny. You tell yourself that five times before the urge to laugh goes away.
“So what if I want to give this to Mindy?” Your head of steam faltered during the attempt to forestall laughing, but you’re back on track now. “It’s not like I wanted to win the stupid bake-off.”
House looks at you, calmly, neutrally, and says, “But you do.”
You look at him. You look at the card. House’s head is on your thigh, and his left arm is pressed against your leg, and his right shoulder is grazing your hip, and you’re mortified by how close you feel to crying. This is all nothing; it’s just stupid; and now’s the time to say it.
“I don’t,” you say. “It’s a chance to raise money and a morale booster for the staff. For them, not me. Department heads shouldn’t even be allowed to enter.”
“Because department heads don’t count as staff? They don’t need their morale boosted?”
His voice sounds a little weird, but you’re not looking at him. You can’t look at him. You’re looking at your mother’s handwriting, feminine and firm and sure. There’s love in the curlicues, in the tiny circles of safe space they create. “Other people need the prize money; I don’t.”
House’s shoulders bump you in what you know is a shrug. “You could always give it to me,” he says, and now you’re back on solid ground. House wants you to enter the contest so that he can get the thousand bucks, plus probably some betting money on the side. OK. This you can handle.
“House,” you start but he rolls right on over you.
“Or give the money to the damn charity; that part doesn’t matter. You want to win, and with this recipe you can win, so don’t give it to Mrs. Pickle-Face. Keep it, and enter, and win. Get what you want.”
Your Adam’s apple feels heavy. “The world doesn’t work like that.”
House snorts, and suddenly he’s rolling away, sitting up, and he ought to be careful, he could strain his leg doing that. “You are such a schmendrik,” he says.
You don’t like it when House presses the ethnic button. You don’t play the card; he shouldn’t push the button. “Would you stop with the Yiddish?”
“I used to think you were a schnook. When you weren’t being a schmuck.”
“Stop. The Yiddish. Please. I feel like I’m at a resort in the Catskills.”
“Dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Point is, I used to think you were a schnook, a patsy, doing shit for other people and not making them do stuff for you.”
Only House could make giving a fault, caring a deformity.
“I -”
“But then I realized,” House steamrolls over you, “that you were getting something back. All those thank-yous and oh-aren’t-you-so-sweets and greeting cards and little presents and gratitude fucks -” You glare at him but he doesn’t even notice, pacing as he is around the room. “- were the payback for doing your thing.”
You sigh. “As I believe I’ve mentioned before, that is the typical response to someone giving to you: you - well, not you, but everyone else - feel gratitude and express thanks. It’s what we all do.” You hold up a hand. “Again, except you.”
“See, that’s what distracted me from getting to the bottom of this.” House is leaning against the dresser now. He’s twirling a set of your cufflinks between his fingers, up and around and back again. “That’s the typical way of things, but your pathology isn’t typical, never has been. And then I got it. You weren’t giving in the hope of future return of the gesture. And you sure as hell weren’t giving selflessly. Nobody does that except religious zealots and hormone-addled mothers. Nope. You were giving for the gratification of your ego. Quid pro quo; you give and people kiss your ass.”
So beyond the pale. So insane. So House. “Yeah. Sure. That’s what giving is really all about. Getting your ass kissed; that’s why everyone does it. Only you could think -”
“You didn’t listen. Again.” House nods, and the cufflinks disappear behind his palm. “I’m not talking about everyone. I’m talking about you. You do things for other people because you need the approbation. You need the pats on the back, the admiration, the warm fuzzy.”
Of course he’s twisting this into you being selfish. He is so -
“Other people want it, like it, but you need it. You’re hooked on the stuff. Can’t live without it.”
You laugh. It sounds harsh, and feels even harsher. “Yeah, it’s like heroin. Exactly like that. What a depraved member of society I am, doing things for others.”
“I’m not mocking you,” House insists, and obviously the look on your face conveys how unbelievable that statement is, because he continues, “This time, OK? For once, I’m not mocking you. You need this in your life to function. I didn’t understand at first because I don’t need it, but you do, and there’s no reason to hassle you for it. Might as well yell at a diabetic person for needing insulin.”
He’s so unbelievably wrong, and a jerk, and a big fat hypocrite to boot. “You told me you yelled at a quote 'drug-seeking idiot' unquote yesterday for wanting medicine for his diabetes.”
House’s face falls into an expression of disgust identical to the one he’d worn telling the story before. “That guy had Type Two, and knew he had Type Two, and refused to get his ass off the couch or change his eating habits to include anything that didn’t come from a vending machine. Hell yeah, I yelled at him for demanding a prescription. Not even insulin; he wanted Glucophage because ‘pills are easier.’”
“Just because you have something against people with obesity -”
“He wasn’t obese. BMI on the low side of normal. Restricting your calorie intake doesn’t do a damn bit of good if you’re inert and all the calories are empty crap.”
“Says the man who used to think balancing a meal meant having both scotch and bourbon.”
House stops then, goes rigid and still, at the blow you’ve just thrown way below his belt. You’d feel guilty, incredibly guilty, say-anything-to-take-it-back guilty if you weren’t so immensely angry with him. He can be an asshole, and you know that, know the exasperation and frustration and embarrassment and stress of every single asshole stunt he pulls, but he’s never stabbed you like this before. He’s betrayed you, let you down, laughed in your face, but it’s never felt this much like a dagger. A dagger turned rib-spreader, cracking your chest, bones splintering as the cool air of outside rushes across places it’s not meant to go.
As you throw yourself back on your pillow, House sits down heavily on his side of the bed, one leg down to the ground, one leg up on the mattress, twisting his neck to look at you. “You’ll go any distance to avoid seeing who you really are, won’t you?”
He’s on top of the covers, so it takes a couple of tugs to get them situated over your shoulder. “Go to sleep, House.”
House gets up, turns out the light, and returns to the bed, but he doesn’t go to sleep. Not even close. Instead he settles on top of the comforter again, lying down this time, stretched out against your back with an arm thrown over you, hand heavy on the covers, pulling them so tight that you can’t move.
Damn him.
“Now, you’ve needed that kind of affirmation ever since I’ve known you,” he says, as if this is a conversation, a calm two-way back-and-forth. “Probably needed it since the first time you threw a toothless smile your parents’ way and got cooed at in return.”
The edge of the sheet has become rolled over, and it’s digging into your upper arm like a band, like a braided cord.
“So I had to ask myself,” House continues, “what’s been different lately, to throw you this far into withdrawal.”
“I’m not -”
“Bullshit, you’re not. You’ve got the fucking DTs, Wilson, so just be quiet and listen to me.”
You shift your hips, and House shifts his leg on top of yours. Heavy. You’d love to be any place but here, but there’s nowhere for you to go.
House is quiet for a moment, waiting for what you don’t know, but then he starts again. “Your job hasn’t been any different. Same interns and nurses looking at you with awe, same butt-kissers wanting to move up the ladder, same distraught families and dying patients who thank you for making their last days a little less crappy.
“Your family’s the same, and I haven’t changed. Not that I was ever a bountiful source for gratitude, but at least I’m not giving you less than I did before.”
He shouldn’t cut himself down like that; you know he cares, in his own unique way. “You -”
“Shush.” House’s leg slides over the comforter, finds the natural dip of your waist, settles in against your hipbone. It’s quiet for a few moments. Quiet and warm and not awful.
Warm breath kisses the back of your neck and you can almost feel the vibration when he says, “People used to thank you for being friends with me, and now they don’t. That’s what changed.”
Fuck. Fuck.
“My bet is they now think the sex is recompense enough for putting up with my derisive bastardry. Not that they’d say that directly to you, of course.” He cranks the rib-spreader wider. “But that’s why appreciation levels have fallen below the minimum RDA for you.”
Fuck. You’re cold and hot at the same time. You have to go. You have to go. “It’s not true,” is all you manage to get out around clenched bicuspids and an aching jaw.
“They are still thanking you? Then I’ll have to go back to the drawing board.”
“It’s - yes, I mean, no, but it’s not like that,” you protest. The covers are tight, trapping you, and House’s leg and House’s arm, and oh fuck, you’re such a bastard. A smug, unfeeling - how could you have ever let anyone say those things to you? How could you have smiled, even once, but you did, and you didn’t mean it, except somewhere inside, you did. You liked it, and now House knows, and he’s hurt. Who wouldn’t be? Fuck.
“Wilson,” House breathes. His right arm tightens around your arm and chest, and his left arm is pushing under your pillow to come back up the other side. You want to run away, but all you can do is try to relax your body. You’re not going to insult him further by lying stiff inside his embrace.
He whispers, “It’s OK.”
“It’s not like that,” you protest again, because even though he knows, you don’t have to confirm it. You don’t have to kick him after being the one who knocked him down.
“I’m glad they thanked you.”
You - You have no idea what to think about that. None.
He huffs a short laugh and goes on, “I sure as shit wasn’t going to do it, and we’ve already established you need it, so... yeah. I’m glad they did.”
“It’s...” You’re struggling for the words to make this right. You’d prefer it just go away, but now that House has his jaws in it, that’s not going to be possible. So, make it right. Make it right. You make all kinds of things right for all kinds of people, but this is House. It’s more important. He’s more important. And you shouldn’t pass up this opportunity to get to tell him. “I’m friends with you because of you, who you are. Not because of anyone or anything else.”
“I know,” he says - you revel in the warm acceptance in his tone - “but that still leaves the issue of finding you another source. I can’t be it; we’ve proved that tonight.”
You try to roll over to face him, but you’re still wedged in your position. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not an appreciation guy. Just not. Sometimes I don’t even notice what you’re doing. Sometime I notice, like the things I talked about tonight, but forget to say something to you. Sometimes I think you’re being an asshole for one reason or another and don’t deserve to get a pat on the back from me.”
Your eyes roll of their own accord, and either House can feel it or he can guess what’s happened, because a chuckle rumbles from his chest into your back.
“So we have to find another way. Easiest way is to pay someone, but I don’t think there’s a top-quality geisha guild in Princeton so -”
“Geisha?” You get about seventy percent of House’s references, but this one has you stumped.
“Only profession I know of whose sole purpose is to bolster men’s egos. Well, that and lobbying, but you’re not a Congressman.”
“House.”
“So you’re just going to have to volunteer.”
A groan tries to make its way up out of your diaphragm, but you stifle it immediately. You’re already on three non-compensated committees at work, and heading up the funding drive, and you don’t get enough time away from the hospital as it is.
As if sensing what you’re thinking (it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility), House continues, “Not at work. And not anything thankless, because hello, man running on empty here. I’m thinking something at a school. They’re always bitching about not having enough positive adult influences around, especially male positive influences. You might not want to mention the ‘doing a dude’ thing, but other than that, give it a month and you’ll be rolling in the hugs and hand-drawn pictures and cheap printed certificates.”
It’s a nice picture. The parent volunteers at your elementary school were always so fun - new and exciting in a way your boring old everyday teacher couldn’t be, and you remember looking up to the field-trip chaperones and reading coaches and class parents.
Who were parents. Flaw in the plan. “A childless guy volunteering at a school is going to look creepy, don’t you think?”
House pauses for a minute, and his limbs shift. His embrace has loosened; you’re free to go... but now you don’t want to. You scoot back a hair instead, closer to him. The snort that blows through your hair tells you he’s noticed.
“Cuddy’s kid is going to be in preschool soon. Sucking up to your busy boss by taking her volunteer shifts in the school is a pretty good excuse. Or I’m sure there’s some dying local person who’d nominate you for sainthood if you kept an eye on his or her kid at the school while the patient’s puking up a lung at the hospital.”
The fact that you can name three patients off the top of your head who’d be thrilled with this doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. “What you’re saying is so... mercenary.”
“It’s rational,” House says, and apparently that’s his trump card, because he pulls back from you. His arm ripping out from under you dumps your head on the pillow, and you almost lose your balance and get tangled in the covers, but you don’t.
You’re smiling in the dark, where he can’t see you, until the overhead light suddenly comes on. Then you’re blinking and smiling, but maybe this once it’s all right that you no doubt look like a complete idiot. House hasn’t been in the mood to tease you tonight.
You sit up as House lies down on the bed again, and you’re distracted by glints off the comforter where your feet were. Oh. The junk drawer stuff. You’d forgotten about that.
In the light, the atmosphere has shifted. Back to normal, back to what the two of you are used to, so instead of anything nicer you say to House, “Are you going to clean up all this crap?”
“No,” he says while rolling away.
Wonderful. After bending low to inspect the crud, you’re considering whether it’s worthwhile to try to sweep everything into a pile with your hand, or if you should just go get the vacuum cleaner, when House rolls back, empty drawer in hand.
“I’m going to save the things that mean something to me.”
The yellow receipt goes into the drawer, and another receipt, the rugelach recipe and half a movie ticket, and the crayon stub - and that’s all you see clearly before your vision starts to blur.
“Are you crying?” House asks, with an undertone of gleeful teasing smugness.
“No,” you insist. “Something from the comforter got in my eye.”
“You are such a - whoa.” House tilts your head and pulls down on your cheek. “If that was a diamond, it’d be like a quarter carat.”
“Told you,” you reply and then hold as still as you can as House deftly plucks the intruder from your sclera.
He flicks the item onto the rug and goes back to re-packing the drawer. “What would you do without me?”
You’re afraid to tell him the truth, afraid that he’ll laugh and disregard it. Afraid that he won’t believe you. So you scan your brain for a phrasing that won’t bounce off his shell, won’t wither in the heat of his scorn, and fortunately you’re pretty good at this when you try, because you come up with: “Nobody’s ever loved me the way that you do, House.”
“Hm,” he says, eyes gleaming, and you know he’s analyzing, assessing, puzzling through everything that could mean. You love giving him presents he appreciates.
The full junk drawer is lowered gently to the floor, and House rolls himself under the covers, and this time you get up to turn the light off. You jump a little, pretending the floor (the carpeted floor) is cold under your feet. House could call you on it, but he doesn’t; just lets you have the excuse for tucking yourself closer to him under the covers than you normally do.