House Boys: Wilson's worried about his best friend's recent behavior, so he decides to check on him. So let's see, alternate universe, out of character, and I played with the time span a little, oh yeah, and House has a kid...
"Good day doesn't
have to be a Friday
Doesn't need to be your birthday
The next
one then you won't survive
Sing along hold my life
A good day
is any day that you're alive," Paul Westerberg
When House limped out of the baby store, I couldn't help but worry about him. Something had been off for the last couple of weeks, and I knew his father's death had hit him harder than he seemed willing to admit. So, I smiled at Lisa, and she gave me a look as if to say, go ahead, be with him. I stepped outside, looking for his bike, or car, only to discover the guy, a few feet away, leaning on his cane, cell phone pressed to his ear.
"I'm on my way home; don't…no you can't have the leftover pizza in the refrigerator…I know…Yeah, well, you can't live on nothing but Pizza, believe me, I tried…Okay, I'll pick it up on my way home…About half an hour. I had to run an errand….No, I'm not….did you finish your--hang on a sec. Some weirdo's bothering me…no it's fine. I know him…okay, I'll see you then…yeah, me too…bye." Greg hung up, pocketing his cell. "And here I thought it was rude to listen in on other people's phone calls," he said, turning around to face me.
"Who were you talking to?" I asked, fully prepared for him to blow it off as a joke, or completely ignore the question, and steadied myself for a battle. Instead, he just sighed, and pointed to my car.
"You can come back to my apartment, but we have to stop off for chicken before we go back to my apartment," he told me, climbing into the front passenger seat. "I took a cab here." At the drive through he ordered nearly twice as much as usual, murmuring something about a human garbage disposal to the guy at the window.
"What's with all the secrecy?" I asked, even though the man had been unusually quiet, and I realized that—knowing him the way I did—I wouldn't actually get a clear answer on this.
"It's hard to explain, and even if I could, you would never believe me." He expressed this quietly, staring out the window, and then felt compelled to add, "It's not a hooker…at my apartment."
"Well, no kidding," I chuckled. "Who buys food for a prostitute, let alone, leaves them alone in their apartment, with all their stuff? Are you alright?" I asked, patting his knee cautiously.
"Yeah, you're just never gonna believe this." That was all he world say. When Greg opened the front door, and we stepped inside, I heard the TV—cartoons—I realized that I hadn't been in House's apartment for almost four months, and part of me believed that he may have lost it. I half expected to find the place empty, his voice speaking to itself on the answering machine, along with women's clothing, and a bloody knife poorly hidden in the bedroom closet. There were a few other possibilities, in the back of my mind, but what I did see was the only thing I had never considered. Sitting on the sofa, and dressed in jeans, a dinosaur t-shirt, and light up sneakers, was an eight year-old boy, with soulful, blue eyes, and light brown hair.
"Hey," he said, nodding at the kid as though he were an ordinary roommate.
"What are you…babysitting?" I asked, my mind already throwing out the most obvious possibility. No way could he have hidden a kid from the world for this long. They both laughed, and the physical similarities between their faces, and sort of in their bodies, were just flooring.
"Yeah," the boy said, regaining his composure faster than Greg did, and smiling at me. "He's gonna be babysitting for the next thirteen years." I knew instantly that this comment was not born out of the child's mind. He was repeating something he'd already heard someone else say.
"Go set the table," Greg said, mostly—I thought—to get him out of the room. I watched the little one try and stare at him defiantly for a moment, knowing like I did that an explanation was coming. "Don't worry, I'm just gonna tell Jimmy how the stork dropped you off on my doorstep in May." The kid failed to suppress a smile, and walked off, little red lights flashing under his feet.
"You remember that chick I went out with right before Stacy?" I nodded, giving House room to tell his story. "Turns out she was about two—well almost two months pregnant when we broke up, and Laura never said anything. Don't really blame here. I wouldn't chose me as a parent, why would anybody else? But then, I got a call from her—the day of the bus accident, which is—probably the reason you didn't know about this sooner. Maybe if I'd handled it better," he paused; lips pulled tight, chest heaving. "Would it make me seem more normal if I acted like that? Anyway, she was sick, and didn't have anybody else. It was either me, or foster care, just until she got better." He craned his neck to make sure the boy was out of earshot. "He knows she—but um…he's been seeing somebody since the funeral, and…talking to this—and he's doing…I think he's okay, all things considered."
"Are you sure he's yours?" was what I wanted to ask. Greg had always been sort of obsessive when it came to birth control. Instead, I pussyfooted around the question. "Are you sure—have you—did you do a—have you checked to be sure that—um what I wanna know is. Is he…?"
"Yep, we're even the same blood type, which is sort of cool actually. He knows—not that I actually told him, or even sort of told him. Smart kid," he explained. "Dave goes to bed at 9:00. Can you wait 'til then to psychoanalyze me?" he asked, those neon blue orbs sad and almost desperate. I nodded, carrying the chicken to the kitchen, and smiling when I saw a pile f books sitting there, fourth or fifth grade math and science, social studies, and an English workbook. "I'm gonna move these while we eat, so that I don't get grease all over them. "David, this is my best friend James Wilson—you've heard me talk about him before, right?"
"He's the one who will marry anything with a pulse?" Greg smiled, and then quickly tried to make himself look serious.
"We talked about this. Just because I say something, doesn't make it acceptable to repeat. I try a lot harder around you than most of the idiots I run into, since you're pretty smart, and relatively cool for age, but you know that I mess up sometimes. So, just—you have to be more careful."
"Sorry, Dad. I was pretty sure that one wasn't okay, but you said that you guys tease each other a lot because guys do that sometimes," the boy explained, picking up a drum stick, and taking a bite, attempting to look innocent.
"You do your homework?"
"Most of it, but I need you to help with my math. Susan couldn't do it."
"Babysitter," House whispered to me, "speaking of which, where the he—ck is she?"
"She only left like a minute before you got here. She saw you guys parking, and said she was gonna be late for her night school class." I watched the two of them throughout dinner, laughing at each other's jokes, trying to pawn their vegetables off on each other, and mostly behaving like brothers all night. However, when the kid was getting ready for bed, I witnessed one of the most amazing things House had ever done in front of me.
He knelt down beside David, hugging him tightly, and then said, "your charge the batteries on your walkie talkie?" The little boy nodded. "If you have one of those dreams again, just push that little button and I'll be right there. Suddenly the kid clung onto him, and Greg didn't push away. Instead, he kissed the kid's forehead, and patted him on the back gently. "You want me to hang out in here 'till you fall asleep?" David nodded, looking up at his father with heavy-lidded eyes. Then he climbed into bed, and the older man sat down, quietly watching him until the boy was fast asleep.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Later, the two of us sat on the couch, talking quietly, although I hardly had his complete attention. The guy kept looking back at the bedroom, with its open door. "He keeps having these nightmares where we're out someplace, and I disappear, or lose him and never come back. His therapist said eh should go over to my room, see that I'm there, and go back to bed on his own. But it wasn't helping; he likes to talk when he's freaked out, so I got us a pair of walkie talkies, and he just pushes a button, we talk for a few minutes, and he goes back to sleep." He paused. "Yeah, I know, I've become one of those annoying idiots who spends all his time talking about his kid."
"You gave him your bedroom."
"I've only got one, and David's not handling change too well right now, and not to mention that I've lived here almost my entire adult life, and I usually pass out on the couch anyway, although now it's because of exhaustion, you'd be amazed how little time a parent has to drink during the day."
"He's a bright kid, Hell, he's more than bright. That's probably the smartest kid I have ever met," I started to explain wit the ultimate intent of getting hi to admit to what I already knew, but that Greg probably wouldn't face on his own.
"So what? He's got amazing genes, which makes it easier for me to relate to him, 'cuz I don't do so good with idiots, or even with kids—since they're usually not all that smart either."
"He looks just like you—a younger you, but still."
"That's probably because he's my son." I shot him a look. "Oh come on, Jimmy. There's nothing…can you imagine what the world would be like if there was a normal, happy, well-adjusted person, with my intelligence in it? He could be president, and bring about world peace, or solve poverty and hunger, end global warming, cure cancer!"
"Well you've sure got some high expectations for the kid, don't you?"
"I'm not gonna make him do anything he doesn't want to, unless I hafta, and those are pretty much limited to eating good food, behaving—sort of—finishing high school, and getting all his shots."
"And if there's a happy you in the world, then maybe you can be happy in the world one day too."
"I'm not hurting him," he said angrily, but still quiet. "I'm trying to give him the best life possible. You know what my childhood was like. What's wrong with me trying to protect my son from people like the jackass who called himself my father?" he asked, close to tears. I wrapped my arms around him, and that was when Greg started to cry. "I'm not hurting him!"
"No, you're not," I whispered. "You're doing a great job. There's nothing wrong with the way you want to take care of him. I hope it will make you happy. You've had more than enough pain for one life time." Greg nodded, straightening himself out, and trying to look strong. "He's a great kid, and you are a great dad."
"I know," he said, defensively. "I've been taking care of David for five minutes, and I'm already doing a better job than—than—I'm okay, really, I am. I'm fine."
"You should tell Cuddy. She wants a baby more than anything in the world," I suggested. "She might even let you leave work early, take off when he's sick—you know, kids get sick…she could even help, and kids need female—influences."
"And Cuddy comes into the picture, where exactly? She's more of a dude than I am," he chuckled. "Besides she wants a pink, little baby that sort of looks like her so she can act like it's actually hers. Last thing the woman needs is mini-me running around the hospital, causing trouble." I smiled, and he did too. I kissed him softly, on the forehead, cheeks, and then lips.
"Do you want me to go close the door so we don't wake him up?" I asked, after about fifteen minutes of making out, unsure as to how far he'd let thins continue.
"No way, kid freaked out his first night here, really, really bad. I slept in the chair next to his bed for two weeks. He's barely okay with the setup we have now, which is weird because I don't do so well when it comes to sleeping either." You both had traumatic childhoods, I thought, but kept to myself for obvious reasons. I smiled weakly.
"If I promise to be quiet, can I—that is, would you mind if I stayed the night? Unless, you think it would be bad for David, in which case I understand if you ask me to leave." House laughed then playfully punched me in the arm, and I pretended that it hurt. "Why do you like me so much? You paid somebody spy on me because I tried to stay away from you."
"I like you, because you're exactly the same person you were the night we met. Well, you got less hair, but…other than that—change scares me a little too. Look, don't tell anyone at the hospital I'm a parent. Probably get fired if they realize I'm getting soft in my old age."
"Oh please, you're the same guy you were when we met. You told an eight-year-old, your eight-year-old, that I'd marry anything with a pulse!"
"Because you will, and he's not a normal eight-year-old. Kid goes to a gifted school, takes junior high level math, and can talk his 33-year-old babysitter into letting him do whatever he wants. Of course, she's sort of an idiot to begin with, but it's still impressive."
"So what did you guys do all summer?" I asked, intentionally setting myself up for some sort of a joke, to lighten the mood.
"Normal parent and kid shit. We went to the shore. Kid actually got into the water at the freaking Jersey shore," he laughed. "Went to the amusement park, and ate garbage and road roller coasters 'till we barfed. Well, I barfed. He's got a cast iron stomach. We went finishing, sort of. We had to sit on the bank, 'cuz I can't swim, which means we can't go out in a boat, but he liked it anyway. Um—we watched bad summer blockbusters, and the park—you have no idea how obnoxious most parents are—went to the library a lot. He joined their kid's reading club. They gave out a prize for every hour of reading you do, and he finished the whole sheet, I think it was about ten or twelve hours, in a week, but the refused to give him the stupid prizes. Those morons claimed he cheated. So I went out, and got him a Gameboy."
"Because he didn't cheat," I finished.
"Well, yeah, exactly," he explained. "Fair is fair, even if the idiots around you don't see it that way."
"How did you explain—is that what you told him?"
"He's eight, and his mother just died. Nothing I can say will ever make him think that life is fair. Which it isn't, but I can keep it from sucking too bad, which is what parents are supposed to do, right?"
"You made the right decision," I told him honestly, kissing his face again. "And you are a very good man, a very good doctor, a very good father, and I love you so much. I love you more than anything in the whole world."
"Are you trying to cheer me up by telling me stupid stuff I already know, to make me sleep with you?" he asked, in that annoying voice, rolling his eyes, and smiling a little. "I don't wanna wake him up…I, of course I want to, you know, but the kid's sort of a light sleeper, and no eight-year-old should ever have to see you naked." He laughed. "Nobody should have to see it, but it's not really an option now is it?" I smiled, and snuggled, close to him on the sofa.
"So, can I stay here tonight?" I asked, realizing that he had never actually answered my question. House shrugged, looking back at the bedroom, cautiously. "He's okay, I'm sure. If he hasn't had the nightmare yet, maybe it won't happen." He sighed.
"Your statement is really stupid, Jimmy. They usually start around midnight, then he's up and down for an hour or so, though he doesn't always need to talk. I hear him tossing and turning, I think it's been worse the last week-ish. Maybe he's picking up on my, whatever."
"I think you could be the most secure, stable, happy, grown-up, functioning person on the planet, and he'd still be having nightmares. I'm an adult, a healthy adult, and I'm still having nightmares about Amber."
"I get that, but if you—if I wasn't. If somebody else was taking care of the kid, really taking care of him, being a real parent, then maybe, he might do a little better," House admitted, looking away, and sighing, tiredly.
"Except that you actually know what he's feeling. You help him a lot. I saw the way he reacted when you told him everything was okay and that you weren't going anywhere. That kid loves you, and yeah, maybe he would have been better off—and I don't actually believe this but you won't feel okay again until I say it, so I have to tell you—before you guys ever met, but you and I both know that you can't let him go now."
"I'm not talking about letting him go," he snapped. "I don't know what I'd do if—I don't know what I'm saying, just worried about him. I don't want my kid to hurt, I don't want his life to suck and if something I'm doing hurts him, then. Then—see this is exactly why I shouldn't be allowed near kids. I'm screwed up." I didn't know what to say there. I couldn't tell him, '' no you're not,' or 'everyone's screwed up a little,' because one was a little, and the other one didn't help him any. A few minutes went by, while we both lay there, not speaking, not moving, just considering what we'd been talking about. Then, there was a soft crackling sound coming from the walkie talkie.
"Dad?" David's voice called out terrified, and lost. "Are you there? Over."
"I told you, don't hafta say over," Greg teased, gently, "but yeah, I'm still here, you're okay. Wanna tell me about this one?"
"We were at the movies and we went into the theater. You sat down next to me at first, but then the lights went off and I said I wanted a soda. So, you went off to get it, but you never came back. After a while I was really scared, so I went looking for you, in the lobby, but you weren't out there. I looked everywhere, but it was dark, and there were a lot of people around, but I still couldn't find you anywhere. I was all alone and scared, and then—then I woke up."
"Well, that's why I always make sure we get our snacks before we go into the theater," Greg said, jokingly. They both laughed, and I watched him run his hand through his hair. "It's okay. I'm here, and I'm gonna stay with you for a good, long time. I'm not going to leave you in the movie theater or anywhere else, I promise."
"I know that in my mind, it makes sense, but…I know you don't wanna leave, but neither did my mom," the kid explained. House sighed. He understood that fear, that irrational terror, but he didn't know how to make it better. "Thanks for talking to me. It helps, hearing your voice—makes me know that you really are there. If I just look at you, and you're asleep, I'm not so sure, but..."
"Yeah, I—I've noticed. Look, I know things sort of suck right now, but it is going to get better. You are going to feel better. Just takes a while."
"How long did it take for you?" Smart kid, I thought, maybe he really does pick up on his father's emotions, and that makes him feel even more scared.
"It never happened for me," he admitted, "but I didn't have—my mom is a wonderful woman, and she loves me, she always loved and tried to take the best care of me that she could, but my—father, wasn't very nice."
"Not even to you?" the boy's voice asked, between yawns. I think it's tough for kids to understand that stuff unless they've experienced it first hand.
"Especially not to me…it's late, and I think you've got school in the morning. We will talk about this, sometime, but you need to go back to sleep. I can come and sit in the chair for a while, if you need me to." House pushed himself into a sitting position, rubbing his leg softly, preparing to stand up.
"No, I don't think I'm scared anymore, and I am really tired." This time I couldn't actually hear him yawn, but the silence between his words, and the odd sound of something over the walkie talkie. "Goodnight, Dad." Greg smiled a little, putting it down, and waited a minute, before allowing himself to relax and lay back down.
"I think he's doing better. First couple of times we did this—first couple of weeks actually, it took hours to calm him down, and I always had to get up and go in there, Maybe he's stronger than I thought, Maybe he's stronger than I am." He closed is eyes, laying his head on the pillow, closing his eyes. The lights were on, in the hall, and the den, but nowhere else. He also had the TV on—muted—and I knew from the previous nights I that I had spent in the apartment that House rarely slept in complete darkness.
"I think he's doing really well too, although, I just met the guy today. Mind if I turn the lights off?" I asked, touching his face again, and wrapping the blankets around his body.
"He likes to have the one in the hall way on, he just—I dunno…whatever helps, you know?" I stood up, turned off the lights near the sofa, leaving the television on, and then lay down next to him. The two of us curled up on the couch together, and fell asleep.
xXxXxXxXxXxXx
I woke up the next morning, with skinny, stubby, little fingers poking into my arm. When I opened my eyes, David was standing in front of the couch, in a set of racecar pajamas, staring up at me, an action figure, hanging limply at his left side. Greg had already gotten up, and I could smell bacon and pancakes cooking.
"Are you gonna marry my dad next?" he asked, his blue eyes wide, and intrigued.
"Don't answer that," House called out to me from the kitchen. "I already told you—"
"I know what you said," the kid interrupted, "but sometimes when you ask two grownups the same question, you get different answers." According to the clock by the TV, it was 7:23 AM.
"Yeah, well not on this one. Oh, and Jimmy, I was wrong. There's some sort of teacher meeting or something, so we don't have school today. So, uh—I was thinking we should do something?"
"Does we include me?" I asked the little boy. He shrugged his shoulders, I dunno. "I'm gonna go ask your dad, okay?" That's about the time when I realized that I smelled real food, that I hadn't made, in Gregory House's apartment. "Is he cooking?"
"Sort of. He uses the mix that comes in a box, and heats up frozen bacon in the microwave. My mom said that it was cheating to cook that way, but he tried to make real bacon once, and set it on fire, a little." That sounds more like it, I thought. "It's okay though, you can't tell the difference from tasting it." A voice from the kitchen called and told us that it was time to eat.
"So, does we include me?" I asked, upon sitting down at the table. Greg looked to his son—boy is that going to take a while to get used to—to make sure it was alright with him. The little House nodded.
"Sure, he seems nice enough, but I wanna know something. You talk about him a lot. I know he's your best friend, but I never met him before yesterday. How come?" I wasn't sure how to respond.
"Wilson had a difficult summer too. I guess, we've all been having a tough time lately," he said, bring us the food. David took in this information, processed it, and decided that it wasn't enough. Greg's eyes seemed to ask, is this okay? I nodded. "He lost somebody too…his girlfriend."
"Oh, but I thought that you guys were—you both slept on the couch, right?" he asked, and I couldn't help but smile a little. "You're just gonna say it's complicated, right?" he asked. "Maybe we should all be a family," the boy announced. "Or at least we should be together all the time. I know that you guys like each other a lot, and you hardly like anybody, Dad. He can help us."
"So Jimmy would be like a—step mother sort of character?"
"You're just making fun of him because you don't wanna be the first person to say you like my idea." Imagining what it would be like to actually live with the House boys was a little scary and a little funny, but for the most part, the kid had a point. Ever since we'd met, Greg and I had been close. We were the only constant in each other's lives. He needed me. I needed him, and the kid needed both of us. It was a brilliant idea. So we weren't a typical family; who the Hell is? If I could make them happy—if I could make House happy—well that was all I ever really wanted anyway. I said I was in, and Greg said, sure fine, whatever, but we all know he wanted this as much as the rest of us. "We don't hafta move, do we?" David asked, starting to sound slightly nervous.
"I'm sure we can come up with something, a way to make the den more like a bedroom, like a pullout, or a rollaway for us to sleep on. You can't sleep on the sofa, and he and I can't share it forever. But no, I don't think so. We can probably stay here, unless a time comes when we're all ready to leave this place."
We went to bowling that afternoon, which was actually sort of cute. Greg got them to put the bumpers up because the kid had never done it before, and then stood next to him, demonstrating empty handed, but David's aim was off, and so when he threw the ball it slammed into the left rail, bounced, rolling forward, across to the right, and then to the left, and then right, left, right, left, and right again, and finally, hit the pins with full force, knocking over more than half of them.
"Here let's try something else. We're probably gonna get kicked out of here, if we keep doing that. Roll it forward, with both hands. There you go. Hey, look at that, you got a spare!"
"I'm sorry, about the bouncing thing," he offered, doe-eyed, and slightly scared.
"It was an accident; I'll probably do the same thing a couple of times." After a couple of games, we went into the arcade and played videogames for a few hours, they even calculated, and figured out the best way to win a stuffed animal from that thing with giant claw. That night, I cooked dinner, pasta, with garlic bread, and a caprese salad for everyone. The House boys ate like a couple of starving animals, and then sat up reading until 9:15. For the first time since—Greg said—his mother's death, David slept through the night, and us grownups didn't do too bad either. Maybe we can make this work, I thought. The next morning, I woke up and saw my guys half asleep in front of Saturday morning cartoons, eating cereal, trying to keep from waking me up. I never thought my life would turn out like this, but I was happy, and they were…