Keeper (Agnates in Elysium), 9/10 (R)
posted to house_wilson and betteronvicodin
Title: Keeper (Agnates in Elysium), Part 9/10
Author: Dee Laundry
Rating: R
Summary: House & Wilson’s son Jack passes one of life’s crossroads and makes an unexpected connection.
Note: Part One began in June 2033. Sequel to My Fathers’ Son, set in an AU that crosses over with simple__man’s Churchverse, which began with Brilliant. Grateful appreciation to daisylily for beta and to simple__man for creating something wonderful and letting me play with it.
Special Note: Miriam and her mother are the creation of thedeadparrot (in stories that have spoilers for this section): here and then here.
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven -
Part Eight
It was a slow Tuesday evening at the pharmacy. Church was pretending to stock gum; Jack was trying to convince himself he was taking inventory, but really he was shooting the shit with Church. What might have been the store’s only customers were on aisle seven.
They were a well-dressed couple in their mid- to late-thirties; she was white, and he was black, and they were very, very ordinary. The only reason Jack noticed them was that the woman was ranting, and occasionally her voice would get loud and high at the same time.
“She’s driving me crazy, Aaron. Absolutely nuts.” The woman was picking up bottles of pain relievers, reading the labels, and putting them back again. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Miriam, she’s your mother.” Aaron sighed and drew a hand down the woman’s back.
“She’s a bitch,” Miriam insisted vehemently. Aaron’s hand stiffened on her back, and he looked around as if to gauge who might have heard. Jack ducked his head before Aaron turned in his direction, and pretended to be reading something on the counter in front of him. Church, of course, didn’t bother with subtleties and kept staring at the couple, ignoring Aaron’s glare.
“I have no idea why I agreed to let her come on this vacation with us,” Miriam continued, and Aaron returned his gaze to her.
He began to stroke her back again and replied, “Because you knew your father wouldn’t leave her behind.”
Miriam sighed. “Oh, Dad. He’s a saint. How’s he done it all these years, putting up with her? Any clue?”
“Regular nookie breaks with sweet, vulnerable nurses,” declared the elderly woman who had suddenly appeared in the aisle, a small girl of about four clinging to her left hand and a cane clasped heavily in her right. “Even if he wasn’t a Jew and therefore a killer of Christ, he still wouldn’t be eligible for canonization. Stop being such a Daddy’s girl.”
Miriam’s jaw clenched; Aaron appeared to be holding back a smirk. His face fell, however, when the little girl piped up, “Mommy, what does ‘octoroon’ mean?”
“Where did you hear that word?” Miriam demanded, snatching the girl away and bringing her up onto her hip.
“Grandma,” the girl and Aaron said at the same time.
Smiling, Grandma stepped forward and tugged gently at one of the girl’s braids. “It means, Esther-Bo-Bester, that you have a gorgeous skin tone, much nicer than your Mommy’s pale freckly epidermis.”
“I like Mommy’s skin,” Esther protested, stroking gently at her mother’s cheek. Miriam smiled and stroked a hand across her daughter’s head.
“Of course you do,” Grandma noted, although she had already turned and was looking the other way down the aisle. “You’ll like everything about your mother until you’re eleven or so. Then the hormones will start to kick in and every single thing she does and says will irritate you, grating on your nerves until eventually you’re calling her a bitch behind her back in a run-down pharmacy in Podunkville.”
Miriam tucked the little girl’s head closer into her shoulder and opened her mouth to respond, but was run over by Grandma’s sudden shout of “Wilson!”
Jack and Church exchanged knowing glances as they heard the faint reply from the other side of the store, “Coming! Hold your horses.”
Not waiting, Grandma approached the counter. “Prescription for James Wilson, called in this morning,” she said, and then tilted her head toward Church. “What are you looking at?”
“You, Sexy,” Church replied, licking his lips.
“Church,” Jack warned in a low tone, because there was inappropriate and then there was incest. He was completely ignored by both parties.
The woman’s chin tilted up as she regarded Church. “You’re not bad. A little young to have decent experience, but I’d be telling you what to do anyway. Sure, why not? My husband owes me one for that diner in Schenectady.”
“House, I was not flirting with that waitress,” her husband insisted as he came up behind her. He looked almost exactly like Pop had before Dad died. A few more wrinkles, a little bit thinner, but quite obviously the same person. Church was agog, but neither one of them seemed to have noticed yet.
The little boy who’d been holding Wilson’s hand gave the woman - House - a quick hug around the waist and ran back to his mother.
“Sure, you weren’t,” House replied to Wilson, and then snapped her fingers in Jack’s face. “Prescription?”
He had to turn away to look for the bag - the morning shift didn’t seem to use the same alphabet everyone else did - but could hear every word of their conversation.
“Even if I was flirting, which I wasn’t, how would you having an affair be equivalent?”
“A,” House said, her tone turning wry, “a quick boff in the back room is not exactly an affair. And B, how is you having multiple affairs equivalent to me having none?”
“It’s been years, House,” Wilson replied through clenched teeth. “Are you ever going to let it go?”
“Are you ever going to quit thinking with your -”
“It was a terrible period in our lives. You hated me. I needed a little time with someone who didn’t hate me.”
“You apparently needed time with more than one someone who didn’t hate you.”
“I love you, House,” Wilson replied fiercely as he snatched the prescription from Jack’s hand, signed the pharmacy log, and threw down cash. “Torture me all you want, but I’m never leaving you.”
Jack watched Church and House as they watched Wilson stalk back to his daughter’s family and herd them toward the front door. A smile started to creep across House’s face, softening her craggy features. “He’s cute when he gets all needled, isn’t he?” she said to no one in particular, and walked out after her family.
For a few seconds more Jack contemplated Church, who kept looking in the direction the House-Wilson clan had gone. “You’re not freaking about this?” he asked.
Church shrugged. “Once you accept the universe in which you grew up isn’t the only one in existence, it doesn’t matter how many more there are. Our sister was hot for an older gal, wasn’t she?”
“Well, she lucked out and got both our parents’ genes, so it’s not surprising.” Chuckling, Jack put the money in the cash register and straightened the pharmacy log. If he could look back at the logs throughout the past few decades, he wondered if he’d find more J. Wilsons and G. Houses, and maybe even a Cuddy or two.
It should have been a freaky concept, Jack thought, but it wasn’t. He was puzzling over that contradiction when he heard a “thwip” sound and the edge of his ear started to sting. Making a face, he pressed his palm to his ear to lessen the pain where Church had flicked him.
“You think too much,” Church admonished, and hoisted a crate of gum to his hip.
“You don’t think enough,” Jack retorted.
“Makes us perfect for each other,” Church called over his shoulder as he sauntered off toward the storeroom.
***
Jack was practically twitching. He’d been putting this conversation off for days but he couldn’t delay any more. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t right.
What was driving him the most crazy was that he couldn’t predict how the conversation would go, what Church’s reactions would be. Which was stupid. It wasn’t like the world was coming to an end. A simple thing, not much in the grand scheme of things, and if he could just open his mouth, just say the words, Church would be fine, and he would be fine, and this wouldn’t affect -
He heard a “thwip” sound and his ear started to sting.
“You think too much,” Church said as he dropped into the chair next to Jack and pulled Jack’s Tupperware container over in front of himself.
Jack took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
“When did you and I get married?” Church said around a mouthful of corned beef. “Mary’s going to be pissed that all that wedding planning she’s doing is for naught.”
“Be serious.”
Church swallowed his food and pulled the most over-exaggerated serious face Jack had ever seen. Given the way Jack’s Dad liked to make the same face, that was saying a lot.
“Mr. Wilson,” Church intoned, “I beseech thee, do continue.”
There would never be a better time. Jack imagined a parachute drill sergeant from an old war movie shouting Go, go, go, go!, opened his mouth, and said it.
“I’m going.”
“Excuse me?” Church replied, and took another bite of sandwich.
Wrong words, damn. “I mean, Mary got a call recently, and she’s been offered a job in New Jersey, and we’re going to take it. Um, she’s going to take it. We’re moving.”
Church dropped the sandwich and pushed back his chair, turning to more directly face Jack. “Why now? Mary had a job offer three months ago and turned it down. The new pharmacy assistants used to be total buffoons but you whipped them into shape. You bitched about the weather all winter long in this frigid craphole but made it through. Why move now that spring’s finally on the way?”
“It’s not any of that. It’s -” Jack pulled his sandwich out of Church’s hand and took a bite to buy himself a moment. He couldn’t believe how hard it still was to talk about his family. “Pop’s not doing that well lately. Seeing your Dad last fall, it just brought back to him how alone he is. He was okay for a while, but now I’m really starting to get worried.”
Looking at the table, he continued, “Pop needs to get reconnected to the world. I think if Mary and I are there, in the same town, it’ll help.”
“Same town? You’re moving to Princeton? No.” When Jack looked up, Church was shaking his head. “What about Manhattan or Philadelphia? Bigger places, more job opportunities.”
“Mary’s job offer is in Princeton, and I can work anywhere. Besides, the whole point is to be close to Pop, not over an hour away.”
“What about Edison, then, or Trenton? Or I hear Hopewell Township’s nice.”
This was getting weird. Jack had no clue where this was coming from. “What is your problem?” he asked.
Church’s glare clearly conveyed You are an idiot. “If you move to Princeton, I won’t be able to visit you.”
“What?” Jack hadn’t expected to hear that. “Why not? I could help you with the gas money.”
“That’s not it. Remember Jimmy’s speech? We were in the same room but couldn’t see each other? Your Princeton’s not my Princeton. I won’t be able to see you in that town.”
Jack pushed up out of his chair and walked over to the vending machine. What was that snack Church liked? Funyuns, that was it. “Maybe that’s not how it works.”
“Who the hell did you get your intelligence genes from? Doesn’t sound like Dad from the way you’re talking now. Look, was there a guy in your high school named Eddie Blakeman?”
“Yeah, a band geek.” Smiling, Jack threw the snack to Church, who immediately set it on the table. “Wow, I haven’t thought of him in ages. On the way back from this class trip, he was chewing on a bassoon reed and got it stuck in the back of his throat -”
“I know, and Dad had to trache him in the parking lot of the high school,” Church said, eyes boring into Jack’s. “So he’s definitely going to remember Dad. Do you think if you asked him, he’d remember me? If I asked him, would he remember you?”
No was the only answer, and Jack had to close his eyes for a moment. “Are you sure Hopewell would be any better?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know,” Church said. “I just know Princeton’s hopeless.”
Jack told himself, over and over, all throughout the packing and the farewell party and the last trip to skip stones and the last dinner with Jer and the hugs goodbye and the wave from the moving truck, that Church was wrong. It just couldn’t be, that doing the thing his heart told him was right would mean sacrificing the brother he’d had hardly any time to enjoy.
Church wasn’t wrong.
(Continued)
Title: Keeper (Agnates in Elysium), Part 9/10
Author: Dee Laundry
Rating: R
Summary: House & Wilson’s son Jack passes one of life’s crossroads and makes an unexpected connection.
Note: Part One began in June 2033. Sequel to My Fathers’ Son, set in an AU that crosses over with simple__man’s Churchverse, which began with Brilliant. Grateful appreciation to daisylily for beta and to simple__man for creating something wonderful and letting me play with it.
Special Note: Miriam and her mother are the creation of thedeadparrot (in stories that have spoilers for this section): here and then here.
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven -
Part Eight
It was a slow Tuesday evening at the pharmacy. Church was pretending to stock gum; Jack was trying to convince himself he was taking inventory, but really he was shooting the shit with Church. What might have been the store’s only customers were on aisle seven.
They were a well-dressed couple in their mid- to late-thirties; she was white, and he was black, and they were very, very ordinary. The only reason Jack noticed them was that the woman was ranting, and occasionally her voice would get loud and high at the same time.
“She’s driving me crazy, Aaron. Absolutely nuts.” The woman was picking up bottles of pain relievers, reading the labels, and putting them back again. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Miriam, she’s your mother.” Aaron sighed and drew a hand down the woman’s back.
“She’s a bitch,” Miriam insisted vehemently. Aaron’s hand stiffened on her back, and he looked around as if to gauge who might have heard. Jack ducked his head before Aaron turned in his direction, and pretended to be reading something on the counter in front of him. Church, of course, didn’t bother with subtleties and kept staring at the couple, ignoring Aaron’s glare.
“I have no idea why I agreed to let her come on this vacation with us,” Miriam continued, and Aaron returned his gaze to her.
He began to stroke her back again and replied, “Because you knew your father wouldn’t leave her behind.”
Miriam sighed. “Oh, Dad. He’s a saint. How’s he done it all these years, putting up with her? Any clue?”
“Regular nookie breaks with sweet, vulnerable nurses,” declared the elderly woman who had suddenly appeared in the aisle, a small girl of about four clinging to her left hand and a cane clasped heavily in her right. “Even if he wasn’t a Jew and therefore a killer of Christ, he still wouldn’t be eligible for canonization. Stop being such a Daddy’s girl.”
Miriam’s jaw clenched; Aaron appeared to be holding back a smirk. His face fell, however, when the little girl piped up, “Mommy, what does ‘octoroon’ mean?”
“Where did you hear that word?” Miriam demanded, snatching the girl away and bringing her up onto her hip.
“Grandma,” the girl and Aaron said at the same time.
Smiling, Grandma stepped forward and tugged gently at one of the girl’s braids. “It means, Esther-Bo-Bester, that you have a gorgeous skin tone, much nicer than your Mommy’s pale freckly epidermis.”
“I like Mommy’s skin,” Esther protested, stroking gently at her mother’s cheek. Miriam smiled and stroked a hand across her daughter’s head.
“Of course you do,” Grandma noted, although she had already turned and was looking the other way down the aisle. “You’ll like everything about your mother until you’re eleven or so. Then the hormones will start to kick in and every single thing she does and says will irritate you, grating on your nerves until eventually you’re calling her a bitch behind her back in a run-down pharmacy in Podunkville.”
Miriam tucked the little girl’s head closer into her shoulder and opened her mouth to respond, but was run over by Grandma’s sudden shout of “Wilson!”
Jack and Church exchanged knowing glances as they heard the faint reply from the other side of the store, “Coming! Hold your horses.”
Not waiting, Grandma approached the counter. “Prescription for James Wilson, called in this morning,” she said, and then tilted her head toward Church. “What are you looking at?”
“You, Sexy,” Church replied, licking his lips.
“Church,” Jack warned in a low tone, because there was inappropriate and then there was incest. He was completely ignored by both parties.
The woman’s chin tilted up as she regarded Church. “You’re not bad. A little young to have decent experience, but I’d be telling you what to do anyway. Sure, why not? My husband owes me one for that diner in Schenectady.”
“House, I was not flirting with that waitress,” her husband insisted as he came up behind her. He looked almost exactly like Pop had before Dad died. A few more wrinkles, a little bit thinner, but quite obviously the same person. Church was agog, but neither one of them seemed to have noticed yet.
The little boy who’d been holding Wilson’s hand gave the woman - House - a quick hug around the waist and ran back to his mother.
“Sure, you weren’t,” House replied to Wilson, and then snapped her fingers in Jack’s face. “Prescription?”
He had to turn away to look for the bag - the morning shift didn’t seem to use the same alphabet everyone else did - but could hear every word of their conversation.
“Even if I was flirting, which I wasn’t, how would you having an affair be equivalent?”
“A,” House said, her tone turning wry, “a quick boff in the back room is not exactly an affair. And B, how is you having multiple affairs equivalent to me having none?”
“It’s been years, House,” Wilson replied through clenched teeth. “Are you ever going to let it go?”
“Are you ever going to quit thinking with your -”
“It was a terrible period in our lives. You hated me. I needed a little time with someone who didn’t hate me.”
“You apparently needed time with more than one someone who didn’t hate you.”
“I love you, House,” Wilson replied fiercely as he snatched the prescription from Jack’s hand, signed the pharmacy log, and threw down cash. “Torture me all you want, but I’m never leaving you.”
Jack watched Church and House as they watched Wilson stalk back to his daughter’s family and herd them toward the front door. A smile started to creep across House’s face, softening her craggy features. “He’s cute when he gets all needled, isn’t he?” she said to no one in particular, and walked out after her family.
For a few seconds more Jack contemplated Church, who kept looking in the direction the House-Wilson clan had gone. “You’re not freaking about this?” he asked.
Church shrugged. “Once you accept the universe in which you grew up isn’t the only one in existence, it doesn’t matter how many more there are. Our sister was hot for an older gal, wasn’t she?”
“Well, she lucked out and got both our parents’ genes, so it’s not surprising.” Chuckling, Jack put the money in the cash register and straightened the pharmacy log. If he could look back at the logs throughout the past few decades, he wondered if he’d find more J. Wilsons and G. Houses, and maybe even a Cuddy or two.
It should have been a freaky concept, Jack thought, but it wasn’t. He was puzzling over that contradiction when he heard a “thwip” sound and the edge of his ear started to sting. Making a face, he pressed his palm to his ear to lessen the pain where Church had flicked him.
“You think too much,” Church admonished, and hoisted a crate of gum to his hip.
“You don’t think enough,” Jack retorted.
“Makes us perfect for each other,” Church called over his shoulder as he sauntered off toward the storeroom.
***
Jack was practically twitching. He’d been putting this conversation off for days but he couldn’t delay any more. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t right.
What was driving him the most crazy was that he couldn’t predict how the conversation would go, what Church’s reactions would be. Which was stupid. It wasn’t like the world was coming to an end. A simple thing, not much in the grand scheme of things, and if he could just open his mouth, just say the words, Church would be fine, and he would be fine, and this wouldn’t affect -
He heard a “thwip” sound and his ear started to sting.
“You think too much,” Church said as he dropped into the chair next to Jack and pulled Jack’s Tupperware container over in front of himself.
Jack took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
“When did you and I get married?” Church said around a mouthful of corned beef. “Mary’s going to be pissed that all that wedding planning she’s doing is for naught.”
“Be serious.”
Church swallowed his food and pulled the most over-exaggerated serious face Jack had ever seen. Given the way Jack’s Dad liked to make the same face, that was saying a lot.
“Mr. Wilson,” Church intoned, “I beseech thee, do continue.”
There would never be a better time. Jack imagined a parachute drill sergeant from an old war movie shouting Go, go, go, go!, opened his mouth, and said it.
“I’m going.”
“Excuse me?” Church replied, and took another bite of sandwich.
Wrong words, damn. “I mean, Mary got a call recently, and she’s been offered a job in New Jersey, and we’re going to take it. Um, she’s going to take it. We’re moving.”
Church dropped the sandwich and pushed back his chair, turning to more directly face Jack. “Why now? Mary had a job offer three months ago and turned it down. The new pharmacy assistants used to be total buffoons but you whipped them into shape. You bitched about the weather all winter long in this frigid craphole but made it through. Why move now that spring’s finally on the way?”
“It’s not any of that. It’s -” Jack pulled his sandwich out of Church’s hand and took a bite to buy himself a moment. He couldn’t believe how hard it still was to talk about his family. “Pop’s not doing that well lately. Seeing your Dad last fall, it just brought back to him how alone he is. He was okay for a while, but now I’m really starting to get worried.”
Looking at the table, he continued, “Pop needs to get reconnected to the world. I think if Mary and I are there, in the same town, it’ll help.”
“Same town? You’re moving to Princeton? No.” When Jack looked up, Church was shaking his head. “What about Manhattan or Philadelphia? Bigger places, more job opportunities.”
“Mary’s job offer is in Princeton, and I can work anywhere. Besides, the whole point is to be close to Pop, not over an hour away.”
“What about Edison, then, or Trenton? Or I hear Hopewell Township’s nice.”
This was getting weird. Jack had no clue where this was coming from. “What is your problem?” he asked.
Church’s glare clearly conveyed You are an idiot. “If you move to Princeton, I won’t be able to visit you.”
“What?” Jack hadn’t expected to hear that. “Why not? I could help you with the gas money.”
“That’s not it. Remember Jimmy’s speech? We were in the same room but couldn’t see each other? Your Princeton’s not my Princeton. I won’t be able to see you in that town.”
Jack pushed up out of his chair and walked over to the vending machine. What was that snack Church liked? Funyuns, that was it. “Maybe that’s not how it works.”
“Who the hell did you get your intelligence genes from? Doesn’t sound like Dad from the way you’re talking now. Look, was there a guy in your high school named Eddie Blakeman?”
“Yeah, a band geek.” Smiling, Jack threw the snack to Church, who immediately set it on the table. “Wow, I haven’t thought of him in ages. On the way back from this class trip, he was chewing on a bassoon reed and got it stuck in the back of his throat -”
“I know, and Dad had to trache him in the parking lot of the high school,” Church said, eyes boring into Jack’s. “So he’s definitely going to remember Dad. Do you think if you asked him, he’d remember me? If I asked him, would he remember you?”
No was the only answer, and Jack had to close his eyes for a moment. “Are you sure Hopewell would be any better?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know,” Church said. “I just know Princeton’s hopeless.”
Jack told himself, over and over, all throughout the packing and the farewell party and the last trip to skip stones and the last dinner with Jer and the hugs goodbye and the wave from the moving truck, that Church was wrong. It just couldn’t be, that doing the thing his heart told him was right would mean sacrificing the brother he’d had hardly any time to enjoy.
Church wasn’t wrong.
(Continued)