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wanderingwidget has, is, and does not plan in the future to make any money on any of the fics here archived. They were written and are provided for pure entertainment purposes.
Author: wanderingwidget
Rating: R (for language and content)
Pairing: House/Stacy
Warnings: zygotes (this is an abortion fic), angsting drunk House, cursing
word count: 3629
Summary: People didn't look at House and think 'He'd make a good Dad,' not even the ones who wanted to fuck him, few as they were. Not even the ones who wanted to fix him, and there weren't nearly as many of them.
Notes: This fic has been drifting around my journal under an f-lock for so long that I occasionally forget about it. Anyways, it's still unbeta'd but it's been through the wringer and the spell-check, and the dozens of re-readings spaced weeks/months apart. Concrit etc. all appreciated, and I apologize for making House miserable… And for writing het.
Anyways, the idea for this came from House's reactions in ep. 211,
Also how House generally acts around kids etc… Besides, it seems to me that every adult has to go through at least one phase in their life (especially if they're as old as House is) when they wonder about having kids, even if they know they never will.
all endings have to start somewhere:
People didn't look at House and think 'He'd make a good Dad,' not even the ones who wanted to fuck him, few as they were. Not even the ones who wanted to fix him, and there weren't nearly as many of them. It probably never even occurred to any of them that it was a possibility, or if it occurred to them then it was only in that pseudo-nightmarish way which the thought of him multiplying seemed to induce in people.
Maybe that was why she did it. Maybe that was why she didn't say anything about it. Maybe that was why he had to find out that Stacy had had his abortion from Miller, in the clinic, a full two weeks after the fact. And maybe all of that was the reason he was sitting in a bar at two in the afternoon getting shit-faced and wondering if Mike in Radiology could still hook him up with some really mind-fucking drugs.
The really shitty thing was that he couldn't even look at it as a betrayal. His father may not have taught him much worth a damn but he had made absolutely certain that he was clear on one subject: a woman's body was sacred; she was the only one who had any say over what was done with it. Granted, House Sr. probably hadn't been thinking along these lines when he'd pounded that lesson into his son's head, but the fact remained the same. It had been Stacy's decision, her choice, her body, her life.
But it had been their zygote. Maybe that was what was messing with his head, the thought that - for however long - he'd actually been a member of the reproducing population. Thoughts like that only led to what-ifs and could-haves. Both were meaningless masochism given the fact that it was over, done with, and he'd had absolutely no say in it.
And that was okay, really, it was okay. It had to be okay. Because it was Stacy's body, and her choice, and she had the right to decide what was and was not done to and with her body.
He believed it. He knew it. He just wished he couldn't feel it.
House wasn't dad material, never had been, never would be. He lived hard, played hard, took risks. A woman had to be crazy just to get involved with him, but to have his kid? No, it would never happen, and he’d always known that. Didn't mean it didn't suck, didn't mean it didn't hurt, but in the end none of that meant a damn. None of it meant a damn.
But - still - here he was. In the bar. Sulking; that's what Wilson would tell him he was doing. Sulking. He - almost - wished that Wilson would show up, use his mystic radar to tell his friend was depressed, and come to the rescue with a sympathetic look and a thoroughly unsympathetic stealing of his car keys. He didn't show up. No one showed up.
It was two in the afternoon. He was supposed to be in the clinic, seeing patients who were stupider than his fucking decaying zygote and - fuck it - no one would think it was weird that he'd fallen off the face of the planet. No one would care until, at least, eight.
The vodka wasn't burning anymore but he'd take numbness over the burning in his gut and behind his eyes any day. House didn't do kids and he didn't do tears and damn it. Just… damn it.
He raised his head to ask for another shot but the bartender was already there with the bottle in her hand. He was the only one in the bar. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do.
I got a bad feeling about this:
He didn’t go home that night, he couldn’t find the courage, so he did what he normally did when he couldn’t stand to go home. He had the bartender call a cab and gave the cabbie Wilson’s address. By the time the cab pulled up across the street from the townhouse he’d almost convinced himself that this was just another night of stupid - meaningless - drinking, that the only reason he was here instead of home was because he didn’t want Stacy mad at him for coming home drunk, but he knew that if that were true Wilson would be sitting in the damn cab with him.
He blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Twenty-two fifty.” The driver - whose license he couldn’t read because it (and the rest of the world) had become indistinct sometime between the fifth and tenth shot - held his hand out with all the patience in the world. In drunk-vision all the patience in the world looked exactly like ‘fifteen seconds from getting out the brass knuckles.’ House fumbled through his pockets until he came across his wallet and handed over a fifty because he couldn’t focus enough to tell the difference between that and twenty-two fifty.
He pulled himself out of the cab and lurched against the light pole because the sidewalk had started heaving like his cat when she’d had a particularly bad hairball. The heaving got worse and he closed his eyes in a vain attempt to keep what was in his stomach actually in his stomach, and not on the street. He hadn’t gotten drunk enough to puke since his days as an undergrad, he wasn’t about to start now, unfortunately his stomach had considerably less pride than the rest of him.
By now his brain had progressed past ‘comfortably numb,’ and clear into the uncharted territories, because the next thing he knew he was staring down at his own socks, which were sitting on top of that really hideous rug that Wilson had insisted on taking with him after the divorce, and an all too familiar hand was shoving a glass of water in his face. Very impatiently shoving a glass of water in his face. Very familiar too, House remembered needling Wilson about that damn watch the first time he’d seen it, it was too damn girly.
“- not a good idea, I’ll let him sleep it off in my guest room. Of course I’m sure. Besides, I have more experience cleaning up after him than you do. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell him, he probably won’t remember, but I’ll tell him.”
House blinked down at the glass and wondered whether he was supposed to take it or drown in it, both options seemed equally beneficial, but the choice was taken away from him by Wilson. He took the glass away and then stood there with his hands on his hips, which was as high up as House could muster the strength to look, and sighed.
“That was Stacy. She told me to tell you that she doesn’t put out for drunks.”
House snorted and fell back against the couch, which gave him a brief glance at Wilson’s face (he was pissed), and then a longer and much steadier view of the ceiling (it was white, and not pissed). The couch shifted beneath him as Wilson dropped down next to him. He could almost see him in the corner of his eye. But that was okay, he still had enough alcohol in his system to dull his senses, and the white spackled ceiling was really speaking to him.
That it was speaking to him in Swahili was vaguely disturbing but he was drunk and therefore willing to go with the flow.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or am I going to have to find out from Erica in Radiology?” Wilson said.
He opened his mouth, and the words were right there on the tip of his tongue, but nothing came out. His teeth tacked back together and he swallowed, tasted vodka and vomit on the back of his tongue, and tried to remember whether or not he even knew any Swahili. The wondering kept his mind occupied, which kept it from wandering off in directions that he definitely didn’t want it going right now, which was good because Wilson had never dealt well with outpourings of emotions.
“Right.” Wilson said. He stood up and then - without so much as a by your leave - hauled House up onto his feet and started prodding him towards the hall. House let himself be pushed because there weren’t really any other options. Besides: this was why he’d come, because he knew that Wilson would take care of him, and he didn’t know how to take care of himself right now.
“You’re a good friend Jimmy.” He said, but from the look on Wilson’s face he might have been speaking Swahili, at this point nothing could have surprised him.
Wilson had only been in this apartment for three months but, with a few exceptions, House already knew every piece of furniture. He didn’t know whether to be reassured or disturbed by the familiarity of Wilson’s guest room, so he decided to be reassured, because what was the use of being dropped into bed by your best friend if you couldn’t derive some comfort from it?
He stared up at the ceiling, which was still white, and tried to make his brain just like it. Blank, empty, white. It would have been very Zen, if not for the alternating visions of Stacy and the human gestational cycle which had never really stopped playing in the back of his head. He could drink himself stupid but he couldn’t make his brain just Shut. Up.
“You really are fucked up.” Wilson said.
He tilted his head to the side, knocking the world on its axis, and stared at him. Wilson was still there. Why was Wilson still there? He continued to stare stupidly as Wilson sat down on the edge of the bed and manhandled him so that he was - more or less - where he was supposed to be.
Wilson didn‘t look at him, just swung his legs up onto the mattress so that they were lying side by side, and House was perversely reminded of sleepovers with Mickey Cooper in sixth grade. “You want to talk about it?” Wilson said.
God. Yes. He wanted to talk about it. He wanted to scream or cry or curl up into a ball and pretend that the rest of the world didn’t exist. He wanted Wilson to reach out and wrap him up in his arms and just hold him. But that was wrong. He opened and closed his mouth, unable to make a sound, and finally he turned away. Back to the zen-like emptiness of the ceiling.
“Right.” Wilson said, and he pushed himself to his feet. Away.
House had a sudden sick feeling of premonition, this was how he was going to end up, lost and fucked up and alone. He closed his eyes as Wilson tugged the afghan up over him, then rolled onto his side, away from the door. He didn’t see the concerned look Wilson shot him, hand on the light switch, or the slight shake of his head as he flicked it and pulled the door shut behind him.
zen and the art of catharsis:
The next morning House woke up with the hangover from hell and only a very sketchy memory of what had happened the night before. Unfortunately he remembered why he’d decided to get smashed but the details of exactly how he’d ended up in Wilson’s guest room eluded him. It didn’t matter, he supposed, because he’d remember it eventually (he always did) and if he didn’t then he was sure that Wilson would fill him in on any embarrassing happenings.
Wilson was gone to work already but he’d left a sticky note on the coffee pot. Called you in sick, you so owe me. -W House shook his head and engaged in the highly delicate art of Pouring Coffee Into a Dirty Cup. His nerves hadn't been able to take the thought of opening the cupboards right then so he’d grabbed the one in the sink.
Unwilling to face the prospect of going home to the inevitable confrontation with Stacy, or - even worse - the possibility that he’d say nothing and they’d both keep pretending that everything was okay, he took a shower and stole a set of Wilson’s clothes and tried to remember why it was exactly that he’d quit smoking. Unable to come up with any meaningful answer he snooped around the study until he found the secret stash. This time it was hidden behind the stupid Indian flower pot that wife number 2 had insisted was worth a fortune.
Wilson smoked Marlboro Reds, when he smoked, but the pack was only missing one cigarette. Obviously it must have been a good month. Either that or it’d been a really really bad month and this was pack number two. He didn’t want to think about that, so he didn’t, he was still wallowing in his own misery and he figured that he had at least twelve good hours left before it started to go sour.
Out the back door, shoulders hunched against the breeze and hands cupped around the end of the cigarette. The damn light wouldn’t catch because the wind kept changing direction and snuffing the lighter. Suck did not even begin to describe what this day was like, and it was only, he checked his watch, noon. Shit.
Stacy had probably come home for lunch expecting to find him there contrite and bearing gifts of repentance. She’d expect an afternoon quickie before heading back to the trenches, but then again maybe not. She’d been more distant lately, something he’d barely noticed before, which made too much sense now.
The wind finally stopped, he lit the cigarette and took a deep drag, pulled the smoke in and felt the burn. Guilt pinged off his radar before it disappeared, just a glitch, maybe it was his fault for not noticing something was wrong with her but with something this big she damn well could have told him.
Instead she’d kept her mouth shut and he’d gone out and gotten drunk and, now that he was sober and thinking about it, Miller wasn’t exactly well known for keeping his trap shut so the rumor mill was probably already turning. That meant that Wilson, who was a closeted gossip queen, probably already knew which would mean…
There, the sound of a car pulling up out front, door slamming, front door opening and closing. “House!” He called.
“Out back.”
Wilson appeared in his peripheral vision, stood in the doorway and watched him warily, hands shoved in his pockets. This was his chance, his chance to confess, to be absolved, to shout or scream or cry with an audience.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He said.
Wilson nodded, slowly. “I asked Cathy in Pedes out to dinner.” He said.
“The blond?”
“The brunette.”
“The one with the-” he mimed cupping a pair of plus-sized breasts.
“Uh-huh.”
“Nice.” He whistled, took another drag, and frowned at the end of the cigarette, which was suddenly uncomfortably close to the filter. “Where’re you taking her.”
“Risotto’s, I thought.”
“Italian is the language of love.”
Wilson cocked an eyebrow at him and pursed his lips. “You eat lunch yet?”
“I just got up.”
“So I should take that as a ‘no’ then?”
He shrugged. “Depends on whether you’re planning on feeding me or kicking me out to save your pantry.”
“You have to go home sometime.”
“Yeah, but I really don’t want to.”
Wilson didn’t say anything to that, not that there was anything to be said, after all they weren’t talking about it. House lit up two new cigarettes and passed one to him. Overhead the sky was a clear, deep blue, and he hated it. If it’d just rain then he could pretend that he was just miserable because he was cold and wet and jonesing, and maybe he could have shed a tear or two. Then again, he wasn’t a crying-in-the-rain type of guy.
this is once upon a time:
Wilson had been right, of course, he had to go home. Unless he wanted to listen to his best friend and brunette - plus sized breasts - on the other side of the wall. Or get a hotel room, or sleep in his office. The closer he got to his apartment the wider the assortment of options that popped into his skull. His mom and dad were home for a few weeks up north, he could drive up and visit for the weekend. Mom would probably like that, he thought, but then he was pulling into his regular spot and staring up at the lit windows of their apartment and wondering exactly how much money he had in his checking account and how far he could get before he’d have to stop withdrawing for fear of being found.
Probably not very far.
House wasn’t very well-versed in how relationships started, his relationships never seemed to go through that phase, there was meeting and liking (or not liking) and then there was moving in or inviting over for movie night and Chinese takeout. Stacy had happened to him, the same way a car accident or a tornado happen to people. She’d come into his world without warning, torn it all apart, and now…
He wasn’t sure how they started, but he had a lot of experience in how relationships ended. Bitterness should have welled up in his chest at that thought, but he couldn’t muster the energy for it. Now that he’d actually thought it, accepted it, he was too tired to refute it. The self-loathing thing had to stop, it was getting old.
Stacy was curled up on the couch, TV on mute, thumbing through one of his magazines with that sour apple look on her face. She didn’t even look up at him when he came in.
“There’s leftover marsala in the fridge if you’re hungry.” She said. “How’s James doing?”
Not aborting my unborn child, he wanted to say, so I guess he’s doing okay. “Fine.” He said. The thought of food made him queasy.
“Your parents called. They wanted us to come up and visit them this weekend. I told them I couldn’t, Renault’s being sued for malpractice and the depositions on Saturday. I said maybe next weekend but they said they were going somewhere.”
“Columbia.”
“Yeah, I think so. Anyways, if you want to go up on your own you should. You hardly ever see them anymore. Besides, I’m going to be so busy I might as well just move into my office are you listening to me?”
“Visit. Work. Moving. Yeah. I’m going to go to bed.”
“It’s only nine.”
“Long day. Everything from the neck down hurts.” It wasn’t a lie, or at least it wasn’t that much of one, he did feel like shit.
She smirked at him. “At least you aren’t begging off with a headache.” She murmured.
“Only want me for my body?”
“Exactly.” She uncurled off of the couch and stalked towards him, eyes flashing with mirth and lust. God, he hadn’t seen that look in longer than he’d thought if it was getting a reaction this fast.
They didn’t make it to bed until much, much later. Stacy had pulled his arm over her side and trapped it there by lacing their fingers together. Stuck with the smell of her shampoo and sweat and lingering perfume he laid still and tried to make his mind be quiet. Even if he couldn’t sleep a little rest could have helped.
But everything in his head was spinning around in circles. Stacy and the abortion. Wilson and the brunette. His parents. There was obviously too much blood in his alcohol stream. He’d never wanted a kid, not really, they smelled and screamed and took all of your time and attention and then they grew into bigger, smellier, louder versions of themselves and they kept doing that until they’d turned into perfect miniature versions of everything about yourself that you loathed. It was a nightmare waiting to happen.
She was going to be busy that weekend, and he should have felt at least a little guilty for not even considering visiting his parents, but he didn’t. Wilson usually played golf on Saturdays, but golf wasn’t his thing and Wilson’s partners were boring and married and all oncologists. Who the hell was he kidding? He was going to sleep all day and then keep Wilson up all night playing video games, that’d show the traitor for having other friends.
Stacy shifted in his arms, sighing softly, her hand squeezing his just slightly. He squeezed back, just slightly. This could still work, couldn’t it? He wasn’t going to change but she hadn’t moved out yet so obviously he was doing something right. He just had to figure out what it was and then do more of it. Wilson could probably help with that, he thought to himself, but it was the slow kind of thinking that comes with excess alcohol consumption, or a tired brain.
Without his noticing it his eyes drifted closed. That night he dreamt that he was pregnant and Wilson was the father. Stacy was his OB and she was telling him that he had to push now. The next thing he knew the nurse handed him a bundle of blankets that seemed much too small and Wilson was cooing over it like a Mourning dove. He looked down, but he couldn’t see anything. The blanket was wrapped around nothing.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Wilson asked.
THE END
