Title: Reflections

Title: Reflections
Author: Isaytoodlepip, aka tubesox
Rating: PG-13, for violence and profanity, mentions of abuse
Word Count: 4500
Spoilers: This takes place shortly after "One day, One Room" and has spoilers for Season 3 up to that episode.
Summary: How do you know if it's bad, unless you have something to compare it to?

This way to Kafka and pillow forts...


Tommy Henderson just wouldn’t shut his mouth about Susan Parslow. My mom says that any girl who’ll do that before getting married is a horse. Stupid kid didn’t even know what he was supposed to say, let alone what it meant. But Greg knew. Thanks to Uncle Martin and those nudey playing cards he used to teach Greg how to count, Greg knew all about it. Except the clap. He’d asked his mom at dinner. He didn’t want to think about what happened afterwards.

Still, he’d learned enough to know that Tommy Henderson was an asshole. The fink had seen Susan Parslow kissing Hank Ford near the swings at recess and had immediately told the whole of the second grade. And the teacher had heard, and now Susan and Hank and their parents were all sitting with her and Tommy just kept talking about how dirty Susan was and how he’d bet she’d be kicked out of school.

“Shut up, will ya?” Greg finally snapped.

“What?” Tommy frowned. “You don’t think?”

“Just leave her alone.”

“Oh!” Tommy grinned, and he turned to their friends like he was talking to his very own studio audience, like he was some Ed Sullivan with the best new band. “I think Greg’s in love with slutty Sue.”

The boys all snickered and Tommy was glowing and Greg just felt sick to his stomach, like he always did when everyone and everything around him was wrong and there was nothing he could do to change it.

“She’s not a slut. There’s nothing wrong with kissing someone. You’re only making a big deal about it because you think it’ll make you special. But no one cares. You’re just some dumb kid who happened to walk in on something secret. A horse? God, you’re such a kid. You wouldn’t even know what to do if a girl talked to you.”

“Maybe you’re not in love with slutty Sue,” Tommy sneered. And Greg could tell by the way this puny little kid was balling up his fists and trying to stand tall that he was about to say something that should get him hit. “Maybe you’re in love with Hank.”

There was a whistling in Greg’s ear, a combination of all his friends sucking in air through their teeth and the wind against his face as he pulled back his arm, just before knocking one of Tommy Henderson’s front teeth in.

Back home on the base, his mom was making him dizzy as she flew around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards for no reason other than to have something to do with her hands. This was what she always did, when they were waiting for his dad to come home and “deal with him.” He could remember a time when she’d lie to him, tell him that she’d settle things with his father, make him understand. That she’d fix it. He could remember a time when she’d actually try. But at some point his dad looked at him and said “He’s a man, now.” And that was it. Men don’t need their mom’s help. Or at least, they don’t get it.

So he was sitting at the kitchen table, eating an early supper in anticipation of punishment. And his mom couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even say it would be ok. The most she could do was say she forgave him. That had been easy. On the drive home, she’d asked him why, and Greg couldn’t lie to her, not when she looked so sad already. So he’d sat up straight and said, “I was defending a girl’s honor.” She’d smiled at him, and laughed, and he knew it’d be fine between them. She never liked fighting with him. She said, no matter what, she always lost.

When his dad came home, Greg stood at attention, but let his mom go out into the family room on her own. He knew how this worked. She’d tell his dad what had happened, then his dad would demand to hear it from him. And then…

“You got into a fight?”

Even at its quietest, his father’s voice could send chills down his spine, and the weight of his hand on Greg’s shoulder was enough to make him stand at attention or risk falling down.

“Yes, sir.”

“You better explain yourself, or you’re going to get into another one.”

There was nothing he could say that would change his father’s mind, about the fight or about him. All he could do was tell him what happened, and wait. It didn’t matter what Greg had meant to do. Those things didn’t count. Kids laughing at Susan, calling her names without knowing why. Tommy’s ratty face, so smug and twisted with the idea that he was special, even though he’d already given away the one card he held. The rush of hot rage when Greg thought of Hank, all freckled and funny and so great at baseball, spending time with Susan and her scuffed -up Mary Janes. Those things didn’t count. Teeth and blood and bruised knuckles. Those were the things that mattered. Being sent out into the night. That mattered.

It wasn’t too cold, Greg thought. He could see his breath, if he was facing away from the light in the kitchen window, but it hadn’t snowed in weeks and the wind had died down. Still, sleeping in the backyard wasn’t as fun as his friends always said it was. Of course, they probably had sleeping bags. Maybe even a tent. Mrs. Carlson was exactly the type of mom to bring out thermoses of cocoa to any kids sleeping out in her yard. And Mr. Smith, he looked like a father who’d be good at building forts. Or tree houses.

Stop thinking about it, he told himself, rubbing the tips of his fingers together and bringing them up to cup his face. It wasn’t too cold, but that bit of warmth helped. Greg pulled off his canvas sneakers to have something to sit on. Experience told him that the night wouldn’t be so bad if he could keep dry, and although the sneakers didn’t offer much comfort, it was better than sitting on the damp grass and dirt. He pulled his knees up to his chest and leaned back against the apple tree. Thought about stretching his shirt out over them, over his bare forearms. But that might just earn him another night out there. It wasn’t nearly cold enough to risk that. Besides, there were worse things than being cold. Or damp. The spiders…Uncle Martin had told him about this guy he knew in Korea who’d slept out in a field one night and this spider came and laid eggs in his ear. And they hatched in there and ate his brain. His dad said it was a bunch of garbage, but even the idea of it made Greg glad that he had some candy wrappers in his pocket to stuff in his ears. But worse than that even was being bored. There was nothing to do outside but watch, and the fence around their yard kept him from being able to do that even. So he always sat there, staring at the kitchen window until the light went out. And he’d always watch his mom cleaning up the dishes and staring out the window with the saddest look on her face, like she was watching him sitting out there in the dark and the cold with the spiders. But he knew she couldn’t see him. She could only see her reflection. But maybe that was sad enough.

And then, after she’d gone to bed, his father would go into the kitchen, and he too would look out the window, and even though Greg knew that the glare would keep him hidden, he could swear his dad was looking at him. Because he looked angry. And disgusted. Just like he was that evening, when Greg had told him why Tommy Henderson was missing a tooth.

“A man never beats up on someone weaker than him.”

“Sure they do,” Greg had answered, looking his father straight in the eye. “They do it all the time. Sir.”

Almost forty years later and House still had dreams some nights about spiders eating his brain. That’s what woke him up in the middle of the night, and what drove him into the living room, where he promptly poked and prodded and made enough noise to wake Wilson up. Wilson, who had followed him home after the rape girl case and crashed on his sofa. Wilson, who was still a bit pissy that some stranger got dibs on House’s past before he did.

“What are you doing?” he yawned, moving over just enough so House could sit down.

“Bad dream,” House shrugged.

“Yeah?” And the excitement in Wilson’s face was sending chills down House’s spine. Always so eager to hear me emote. Or see me suffer like a real live boy.

“I pulled a man-eating cockroach out of this guy’s ear in the clinic and now my brain is infested with insects.”

“You know, it’s somehow fitting that you share a name with literature’s most famous roach,” Wilson answered, rolling his eyes.

“Technically, Gregor Samsa turned into a beetle.”

“And you know why, right?”

“Because he hated his job. I can empathize.”

“It’s because he repressed his emotions.”

“Bullshit.”

Wilson just shrugged. “You gonna tell me, or what?”

“How do you know I didn’t just talk about the infarction? Or Stacy? Or being shot? Or my one night stand with the penal system? Actually, that sounds kinda…dirty. I think I’ll remember that line.”

“You should. Hookers aren’t that hard to impress.”

“Just goes to show you know nothing about women. You get your balls in a knot trying to impress some nurse that’s slept with, what, five men in a lifetime? Even if you’re the best she’s ever had, you’re only better than four other guys. Lot more competition with working girls.”

“Yeah, but paying them kind of takes the edge off that competitive drive, doesn’t it?”

“Just goes to show you know nothing about men, either,” House snorted.

“Well, if you’re done being evasive, some of us actually need to get to work before noon.”

House sometimes wished it was just a little bit harder to drive Wilson into submission. But only sometimes.

Six days later, and House still couldn’t put his conversation with Eve out of his mind. And he was still dreaming about spiders. His team had a case, a real one that would get him out of clinic duty and the oppressive obligation to pay Cuddy back, but he couldn’t concentrate. After reading the file twice and still failing to pick up a single ounce of excitement over a new puzzle, let alone an idea about a solution, House handed the case over to his team.

“You’re risking this patient’s life because you’re, what, bored?” Foreman asked.

“What happened to that arrogant Blackpolean we all know and loved?” House taunted.

“You need to get over it and do your job,” Cameron insisted. House wondered if they ever got bored with their own predictability.

“No. You need to learn how to do yours. This fellowship doesn’t go on forever, despite Chase’s cute reluctance to leave the nest. I mean, I know I’m indispensable, but don’t you think you can solve just one case without screwing it up or calling me for answers?”

“Maybe it’s lupus?” Chase asked.

“Oh, God. Just…get out of my office. I’m not here today.”

It didn’t take long for one of his minions to oh-so-casually mention to Cuddy that House wasn’t actually working on the case. And it didn’t take long for Cuddy to barge into his office to talk about it.

“You either treat your patient, or get down to the clinic!” she hissed, and House knew the or go to jail was playing on loop inside her pretty little head.

“I’m in my office. My team is running tests. How is this different from all the other times I take a case?”

“You were involved in the ddx those times.”

“I’m supervising.”

“You’re avoiding.”

“I’m delegating. Like a good little department head. You don’t want me around, ready to step in if they screw up?”

“You actually planning on paying attention enough to notice if they do?”

House noticed that he was rubbing the back of his neck in a very Wilson-esque fashion and immediately stopped. “Yeah, I’m bored by this conversation. Come back and yell some more the first time the patient codes,” he answered, waving his hand towards the door before turning his chair to face the window. The soundtrack of sighs and heels against the carpet eased the tension building at the base of his skull. He thought about going next door to bug Wilson. He thought about taking an early lunch, getting an early beer, but he’d had no appetite in the last few days. He tried to find a reason why. He was hit with the taste of cilantro on his tongue, the smell of iron curling through his nose. He didn’t need to eat. He just needed to stop thinking.

Hours later, he woke up in the dark. No, it wasn’t completely dark. He woke up and the sliver of light he’d allowed himself was being crowded out by Wilson’s French shoes. House held on to that for a moment, as he held on to the stifling warmth that surrounded him. And then Wilson ruined it by being himself.

“Are you in there?”

“I’ll say yes only to save you the embarrassment of knowing that you talk to furniture.”

“Ohhh…kay. Any reason why you’ve built a fort?”

House’s office was a mess. His desk and Eames chair were upended and arranged against the bookcase to form walls. The cushions from three waiting room chairs provided the roof and padding, and a few blankets completed the structure, covering most of the cracks. House was curled up inside, telling his leg to shut the fuck up about it, and wishing he could tell Wilson the same. Sort of.

“I’m playing cowboys and Indians with the kids. I’m playing vampires and werewolves with Cuddy. I’m trying a new regressive therapy where I pretend to be in a womb, the idea being that I’ll get a whole new start if I decide to come out.”

“If?”

“Did they manage to kill my patient yet?”

“Amazingly enough, no. You…uh…want some lunch?” Wilson asked, waving a styrofoam box in front of the gap in the blankets.

“What’s on the menu?” House asked, though he still wasn’t hungry.

“Mexican.”

“Oh. God. Get it out of here,” he moaned, burying his face in the cushions and pretending that they didn’t smell like ass.

“House?”

“Get out!”

Sighs and heels, sighs and heels, but it didn’t help and his head still ached.

Teeth, knuckles, blood blood blood, spiders and grass and the weight of a four iron in his hand, glass breaking, so cold so cold, knuckles and belts, ice everywhere, ice to keep swelling down, smell of gauze and antiseptic, smell of gunpowder and blood, spiders on his skin, in his leg, in his stomach, the taste of cilantro in his mouth and the taste of everything around him going wrong.

“Shit,” he gasped, waking in the false dark and grateful that he was only dry heaving. When he caught his breath and ran his fingers over his face to make sure it was dry, House listened for signs of company. There was nothing. The light burned his retinas when he crawled out into the open, and his nerves screamed bloody murder, which he supposed was their right. It took more tries than he was willing to admit to stand up, more moments than he was comfortable with to regain his balance and his control. Finally, when he was certain of being able to walk without falling down, he pulled on his jacket, grabbed his keys and phone, and left the hospital.

Despite how predictable he could be (and House admitted, at least to himself, that he was too stubborn about certain comforts to be wholly unpredictable) it was easy to hide when he really didn’t want to be found. Because he remembered everything. Avoid the hospital, his apartment, the OTB parlor, the jogging park, the campus. But also avoid that restaurant where he and Wilson ate at three in the morning, still drunk and horny after his second bachelor’s party. Avoid the coffee shop where he’d stumbled into Cuddy, still not used to the cane. Avoid the parking lot in front of the dry cleaners where they’d stopped and he’d stood outside the car so she could change and he’d sat there waiting as she dropped off her latte-stained shirt. Avoid the hotel where she’d taken him (you can’t manage the stairs at my condo, she’d said; I can’t manage the lingering smell of Stacy on my sheets, he’d thought) and where they’d fucked for the last time. Avoid the restaurant where he’d taken Cameron. Avoid the places Wilson had lived throughout the years. Avoid the police station. Avoid Atlantic City. Avoid the bar where his team sometimes ate lunch. Avoid that Mexican place. Really avoid that. Don’t even think about it.

There were dozens of places he shouldn’t be, which meant the rest of the world was open to him. House went to the mall and spent a few hours in the arcade. He bought seventeen army men with his tickets and spent another hour in the parking lot, lighter in hand, until the fumes burned his eyes and the asphalt was covered in melted plastic. Then he pulled out his phone.

House let Wilson catch him at that bar he went to when he was trying to be upset that he wanted Mark Warner to die.

“Your mom called,” he greeted, sitting next to him and waving off the bartender.

“Yeah.”

“She said you called her, left a message on her machine?”

“Yeah.”

“She said you haven’t eaten all week.”

“Yeah.”

“You really think you should be drinking?”

“Yeah.”

Wilson changed his mind and called for a gin and tonic.

“She asked me if you ever told me about your dad.”

“What’d you say?”

“That I know he was a Marine, and that he moved you guys around a lot.”

“And when she called bullshit, what did you say?”

“I said that I know you don’t get along with him. That you think you’re a disappointment.”

“Ha,” House answered, deadpan. He ordered another Scotch, no ice.

“Listen, do you need –,”

“I don’t want to talk about my dad, ok? That’s not the problem. It never was the problem,” House snarled.

“What wasn’t?”

“Him! I don’t mind if he…look, if I told you that he was an abusive asshole, it wouldn’t be an answer to anything. It wouldn’t explain why I’m…it wouldn’t mean anything. I leave it alone at hate. I don’t let it prey on my mind and eat me up inside, and I don’t think about her just standing there and letting it happen, and that’s not what’s…it’s not a problem.”

“Ok.” House didn’t look at him, but he imagined Wilson was rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the bottom of an empty glass. Or at him. Either way.

“So what’s the problem?” he asked, when House had refused to elaborate.

“How do you know if something is bad, if you don’t have anything to compare it to?”

“Huh?”

“Everyone said she was looking to connect. If I had known it was some stranger at a party, I would have picked a different story. But I thought maybe it was someone she knew, someone she had trusted. So I picked something else. As you so kindly pointed out, I have a never-ending list of things to bitch about. But her guy was a stranger. And I thought, well, it could have been worse. You have to compare it to all the other shit in the world, or even just in your life, or else what does it mean? How do you know it’s bad?”

“So, what? You start comparing her rape to your abusive dad?”

“What? No! No. I told you it’s not a problem for me. It’s not even close to a problem, if you wanted to compare it to hers.”

“House. What’s going on?”

“You think of a time when you were cold, it’ll be the time you were the coldest. You think of pain, you think of your worst pain. You think of blood, you think of the most blood. You think of hunger, do you remember when you were starving? No, not usually. You think of food. And fucking…fish tacos.”

“The Mexican food? From lunch?”

“Jesus. I haven’t been able to eat all week and you think it’s because you brought me lunch today?”

“No.”

“Yeah. Look, it’s not my fault that my brain works this way.”

“I never said it was.”

“It’s your fault for making me talk about things.”

“Fair enough.”

“When I got shot and was in shock and hallucinating, I was eating fish tacos with the guy. Now I keep tasting cilantro in the back of my mouth and it makes me wanna hurl.”

“Oh.”

“Emotional pain can manifest as physical pain,” House mimicked.

“Just out of curiosity, what would you have said to your mom if she’d answered the phone?”

“I knew she wouldn’t be home.”

“So why call her?”

“It wasn’t her I wanted to talk to.”

“You wanted to have it out with your dad?”

“You think the guy who did this to me is sorry?” House whispered.

“What?”

“She asked me that. How the hell would I know? And why would I care? Why would she? It doesn’t undo anything. You can’t take something like that back. Sorry never means anything.”

“That’s not true,” Wilson answered, looking at him with absolutely no subtlety.

“No.”

“So…you wanted to ask your dad if he was sorry?”

“God, you’re an idiot.”

They sat there for moments. Minutes. The sweat on Wilson’s glass pooled on the bar, and he ran his finger through it absently, drawing little patterns. Hearts and crosses. That’s how House knew he wasn’t paying attention. Hearts and crosses were the patterns of Wilson’s life. They always bled through.

“My father was shot down, once. In Korea. His chopper went down, and he wasn’t hurt, but he had to wait there for someone to come get him. He was lucky. Nothing happened until a jeep came for him, and then out of nowhere there were shots fired. As they drove away, he hit a man. Killed him. The only time he saw the face of someone he killed. When he told me about that, I asked him if he felt bad for the guy. He’d never equivocated about what he did before. Always so proud to have done his duty, and when he couldn’t be proud of his actions, he was proud of the cause. I thought maybe he’d say he was just doing his job, and leave it at that. I’d hoped he’d say he was sorry, in some way. I don’t know why. Just a capacity for expressing regret would have been enough. But he said he didn’t feel sorry. He said he hated that man he killed. I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about that.”

“He never came to see you in the hospital,” Wilson answered.

“When?”

“When you were shot. Your mom came, but he never did.”

“So?”

“Nothing. Maybe your dad hated that man because he made him see his face.”

“That was so not the thing to say,” House snorted.

“I didn’t mean –.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“I never -.”

“So Cameron says I got shot because I’m an ass. And the guy, before he…he asked, ‘Why would anyone want to hurt you?’ And obviously he thought the answer was obvious, you all do, or you wouldn’t try to lie to me and manipulate me and make me be someone else, if you didn’t think it was my fault, but it wasn’t my fault!”

“House -.”

“I was just a kid!”

“Greg.”

He realized what he said. He’s not incapable of surprising himself, but it doesn’t happen often and he took a moment to relish the feeling before dropping his eyes to his glass. He could see thirteen half-reflections there, the lights hanging above the bar, the glint off the beer taps, the prisms on the glossy wood of the bar bouncing back through single-malt. He could see reflections of his fingers, trembling. The drink, trembling.

“I called my dad to ask him why he shot me.”

“Are you just being lazy with the pronouns, or do I have to page psych for a consult?”

“Asshole,” he grunted. But he didn’t answer the question. He was so tired. He hadn’t slept properly in days, and when he slept at all, he dreamt of spiders. And blood. And his father, holding a gun, asking, “Why would anyone want to hurt you?” as he grinned and pulled the trigger again and again and again, the report ringing through the room until his mom called John in to dinner. What does it feel like to kill a man you hate? What does it feel like to beat a boy you love? He sure as hell wasn’t going to ask his dad that, and then, there was no one left to ask. Wilson wouldn’t know. Wilson with his brown eyes radiating concern, and something else, some fear of the unknown, or rather the not-knowing. He probably thought he was imagining the worst. How would he know what the worst is?

“It was a nice fort,” Wilson offered out of nowhere.

“I don’t watch New Yankee Workshop for nothing.”

“Solid craftsmanship is a thing of beauty.”

“I bet Cameron and Chase are making out in there as we speak.”

“Your patient is still alive, in case you were wondering.”

“You really think I wouldn’t have heard about it if that wasn’t the case?”

“I’m sorry he hurt you.”

Sorry never means anything. Sorry never means anything.

“Do I look hurt to you?” House smirked, glancing at Wilson’s brown eyes before finishing off his last drink. He could tell from his friend’s roll of his eyes that he was taking it for what it was. Yes, he’d be thinking. Sorry.

“Let’s go home.”

“Since you’re such a Kafka afficionado, do you remember how Gregor Samsa died at the end of the story?” House asked him as he waited for Wilson to pull on his overcoat.

“No. Swatted with a rolled up newspaper?”

“He died from an infection. His dad threw an apple at him and it got embedded in his back, and it rotted and festered and itched like fuck until he finally just died. The fruit of knowledge.”

“The things fathers do to their sons,” Wilson shrugged.

“I’m just saying. Don’t liken me to a beetle. I have enough shit on my shoulders.”

The End.