Chapter Three

At nearly two months old, Sean James Wilson could still not impress House. The baby, who at the height of his ability could squeal with joy, or cry in a way that cut into House’s ears, simply didn’t make House go ‘aaw’ in the way that it seemed to make others do so.

“Wilson! Diaper needs changing.”

Wilson’s head became visible in the kitchen. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that you’d do it?”

“Sorry, need to be able to hold my cane and I can’t change a diaper with only one hand, now can I?”

“But crazy medical procedures, like holding people’s kidneys in place, are no problem,” Wilson said, shaking his head. “As always, you make perfect sense.”

“Thank you.”

Wilson came into the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel and reaching for the baby. He wrinkled his nose as he picked his son up. “You really do need a change.”

“Told you,” House said. With a raised eyebrow, he continued, “My, my – don’t you look like the little housewife. Apron and everything.”

To House’s surprise, Wilson chuckled and looked down at himself. “You’re right. Although this place still feels more like a bachelor pad than a home for a family.”

“And that’s the way it’ll stay,” House said. “We’re not a family.”

But he couldn’t put his heart into it.

He watched Wilson as he left with the brat. Wilson could not possibly know where House’s thoughts sometimes took him – to that place where Wilson would stay with House forever, not a wife but a—partner. Where Wilson would stay in House’s bed, rather than on the couch.

But then, there was the matter of the little parasite Wilson loved to carry around everywhere. House had no idea what to do about it. Cutthroat Bitch had yet to return and demand to get the brat back, unfortunately, and House had the sneaking suspicion that even if she did, Wilson wouldn’t simply hand the kid back and let things return to the way they had been before. No, Wilson seemed to actually like the little devil, even when it woke up in the middle of the night, screaming its lungs out, or when it pooped all over the place just after Wilson had put on the new diaper. Really, Wilson didn’t just like the thing – he loved it. And taking it away would make Wilson very, very unhappy. Which would, in turn, make House unhappy.

So, the way to make House happy was to keep Wilson happy, and the way to keep Wilson happy was to keep the brat around and happy.

Wilson appeared once more, content baby peering from his shoulder. House thought Wilson, who had taken off his tie and let his shirt be partly unbuttoned and loose, looked rather lovely.

“Dinner?” he asked.

“Five minutes,” Wilson replied.

”You’re no good as a housewife – you’re supposed to get it to me when I ask for it,” House said.

“Stop whining and set the table for the two of us,” Wilson said.

House grumbled, but stood and hobbled to the kitchen. Upon returning, he saw Wilson gently placing the brat on the colorful rug that had been bought especially for the kid a few days after Wilson had moved in. There was also a crib, which Wilson had brought from his and Cutthroat Bitch’s apartment. It clashed rather badly with its frills and pastel colors against the dark and dirty interior of House’s apartment. House had protested loudly at first, when Wilson had brought the crib with him.

“Nu-uh, no, no, no,” House said. “Not happening.”

“He needs to sleep somewhere,” Wilson said.

“What about that cot thingy?” House said. “He’s sleeping in that right now.”

“He can’t sleep in that forever,” Wilson said. “He needs a crib with some space.”

“He can share the couch with you - plenty of space,” House said.

In the end, he lost, because his argument that the hookers would either leave or gush upon seeing the crib had been squashed by Wilson, who had said that as long as he lived there with his son, there would be no hookers coming by. House had threatened to throw Wilson out, but somehow, in the end, he did not, and now the crib was there, light blue and frilly like there was no tomorrow, together with the colorful rug in blue and green.

“He’ll be colorblind when he grows up,” House said, taking a bite of his dinner.

“He’ll be fine,” Wilson said. “Colors are stimulating.”

“Then he’ll be gay, in all those pastels.”

Wilson shrugged. “There are worse things to be.”

House glanced at Wilson, wondering if Wilson would be equally okay if House told him that he might be a little bit gay. Well, when it came to Wilson at least – he had not been interested in another man since college.

“Here, dinner,” Wilson said, coming into the living room carrying two plates.

“Doesn’t smell all that—”

“House, shut up,” Wilson said. “We both know you’ll eat it and like it.”

“You know, you’re becoming far too comfortable here,” House said. “Being rude to the host and everything.”

“Yes, because you’re such a great host,” Wilson said, sitting down. “Scoot.” He handed House the plate. “You always buy the groceries, and cook the food, and clean up around here – I mean, what’s there to complain about?”

“Like I said, far too comfy,” House grumbled.

Of course, Wilson was hardly the only one getting comfortable in their little pseudo-family setup. House barred his own thoughts about it, because such thoughts couldn’t possibly lead anywhere good or happy, and he had – to his own great annoyance – found that he was almost that with these arrangements. House – happy? Blasphemy! Either way, he did not want to disturb the domestic bliss – he gave a mental snort at the idiocy of including himself in any such thing – and as such, he refused to dwell on just how much he liked living with Wilson. It didn’t matter.

Wilson leaned back into the couch for a moment, closing his eyes. House could see that he was tired; there were a hint of circles beneath his eyes, and a sense of lead-lining to the way he held his body. Not that it mattered – Wilson could probably starve on a deserted island for a year and still come off it looking good. Now, his hair fell in soft waves around his face and House didn’t want to touch it. Really, he didn’t.

He gave himself a mental slap and told himself to get it together. Nothing could possibly be helped by such thoughts. Wilson would run away and find ex-wife number four, and House would be left standing in the dust, wondering why the hell he had been so stupid.

“You’re watching me,” Wilson said, his eyes still closed. “TV no good?”

House frowned at having been caught. “Oh, you know, Jimmy, I’m just watching you sleep.”

Wilson snorted and opened his eyes lazily to look at him. “That sounds like a very House thing to do.”

“Gotta keep my repertoire fresh,” House said, glad that Wilson did not read more into it. “Keep everyone on their toes.”

Wilson yawned. “You keep me on my toes enough as it is. No need to try any harder.”

The thing on the floor started wailing and Wilson, almost finished with his food, set the plate aside and went to pick his son up. As Wilson took him to the kitchen to make the kid some milk, House stayed in the living room, doing what he did best – he ate Wilson’s food.

Peace of the kind that House and Wilson had experienced over the last few weeks was, by the natural order of things, not allowed to continue for long.

House woke up very early on Monday morning – the alarm clock read 04:13 and seemed to be taunting him – by the combined awfulness of the baby’s insistent cries, and his own leg’s throbbing pain. He heard Wilson shuffle about in the living room, banging his leg against the table and swearing about it, and he reached for his bottle of Vicodin, barely thinking as he popped off the lid, took a pill and dry-swallowed it. He lay back against the pillows, holding completely still in hopes of not aggravating the angry nerves. All the while, the baby simply refused to quiet down outside, and House felt a headache coming on. He tried calming breaths, knowing Wilson was not really at fault, but then, yes, he was at fault, because Wilson had made the goddamn screaming little devilish brat and damn it his leg hurt and—

“Would you get that thing to shut up!”

He yelled, and he knew he shouldn’t have, but then, House often did things he shouldn’t, so that knowledge did not help.

The crying continued, but Wilson stilled, no longer shuffling about. No response came – after all, yelling back would only serve to make the spawn cry even louder, the sound piercing through House’s skull like a long needle.

When the baby finally did quiet down, many long minutes later, House’s mood had already been shot to pieces, and he knew he wouldn’t get any more sleep. However, since the damn kid and its father lived in House’s living room, he wasn’t free to do whatever he wanted. Had it only been Wilson, House would not have cared – but waking the spawn up would mean listening to even more crying, and House’s head couldn’t take that.

Two hours later, which had passed in a semi-conscious state where House had been on the verge of sleep but not quite fallen, because each time he was about to, pain shot through his leg or his head, and sent him straight back to wakefulness.

Needless to say, House was in a horrid mood when morning came.

“I’m sorry we woke you this morning,” Wilson said quietly, making coffee in the kitchen as House shuffled about, leaning heavily on his cane because the pain simply would not loosen its grip on him.

“Next time, I’ll put a gag on it,” House said.

“It? Are we back to that?” Wilson asked, rather tiredly. “Look, I’m sorry – he gets hungry and it’s just the way it is. I can’t do anything about it.”

“You can always send it off to the bitch,” House snapped.

“House!” Wilson exclaimed, but House had turned and headed for the shower, because he couldn’t stand in the kitchen and debate with Wilson when his leg was hurting, his head was aching, the brat had just started making sounds again, and Wilson simply stood there, in boxers and a t-shirt, looking hot, despite the smell of baby vomit that seemed to linger in the apartment at all times these days.

Work didn’t improve his day. He ran into Cuddy by the elevators, and she smiled predatorily.

“Seeing how you have no case at the moment, you are going to be doing some catch-up on clinic duty,” she said.

“Let me think about that—no,” House said.

“It’s not a request, House. It’s an order,” Cuddy said.

“Didn’t know I’d ordered anything,” House snapped.

“House! Clinic. Now.”

House glared hotly at her. He didn’t want to be stuck in the clinic all day long, just because no one had managed to dig up a sufficiently difficult case for him. He didn’t particularly wish for anyone to dig up such a case for him either – he simply wanted to sit in his office and pop Vicodin all day long, preferably with no interruptions.

He should have stayed in bed. Oh, wait – no, someone woke him up from that. His expression darkened further, and Cuddy must have thought it was because she was ordering him to do clinic duty, and one hand went to her hip while the other one pointed at said clinic.

“Now.”

The coming hours filled with headaches, colds, STDs, a woman with the flu, a girl wanting birth control pills, and fourteen people claiming to have salmonella because they’d read an article in the newspaper. House growled, snapped and quite possibly risked several lawsuits. Not that it mattered to him – the pain in his leg simply didn’t want to give, and House refused to believe it had anything to do with fighting with Wilson earlier. After all, he rationalized, his leg pain had come before he started fighting with Wilson.

Said Wilson was at home when he finally was allowed to leave the hospital; after finding out that Cutthroat Bitch had left, Cuddy had decided that the three week paternity leave she had granted Wilson would be extended to a three month paternity leave, where Wilson would still be conferred with on important decisions and called in for the occasional consult, but mostly, he was allowed to stay at home and “bond with the child”, as she had put it. She was ridiculously gushy when it came to the kid, and it meant that Wilson had another week of occupying House’s apartment before he would be going back to work.

House thought as he drove home that the drive was the only calm he would have that day – PPTH and his apartment were equally filled with chaos and annoyances. He longed for his days of lonely misery, rather than the constant surrounding of people.

They hardly spoke when he arrived home. Wilson had made dinner; pasta and some sauce that tasted rather lovely really, but which House simply ignored, his irritation not yet having abated. The kid seemed to be in a fouler mood than usual, or perhaps House simply noticed it more – the screams, the smells, the general awfulness of a baby living in his home.

The rest of the week passed in much the same way, which was a downward spiral, because the less he and Wilson spoke, the more irritable House became, and the more irritable he became, the less they spoke. After two days, Wilson seemed to give up, no longer waiting to eat dinner with House but instead leaving containers of food for him to heat up in the refrigerator, no notes attached. House came home to an empty apartment on Wednesday, the baby carrier gone and no note telling House where or for how long. He didn’t know where Wilson left to go when he went out with the brat, but he told himself he didn’t care. It was spring time and they were probably out, enjoying nature or some such stupidity.

He caught a case on Friday morning, a girl presenting with dizziness, fever and twitching without any apparent cause, and he did not arrive home until nearly eleven at night, by which time the case had been solved. It had not been a particularly tough one after all.

Unlocking the door, House was surprised to say the least to find a young, blonde girl sitting on the couch, reading what looked like a teen magazine.

“Who are you?” House growled angrily, making the girl jump.

She had backed away several feet from the couch before House had taken another step.

“E-Emma,” the girl said. “I’m Emma—I live right across the street.”

“And you just thought you’d hang out in my apartment?” House asked, voice low and apparently threatening, because the girl backed away further.

“No—no,” she said. “I—Doctor Wilson asked me to baby-sit. He wanted to go out for a bit, I guess—he asked me just this afternoon—although he didn’t say he’d be this late—my mom’s gonna wonder where I’m at – it’s usually just an hour or two.”

She spoke fast, as though she was afraid of him killing her before she had the chance to explain herself.

“You’ve babysat for him before?”

The girl nodded. “A few times. It’s money, you know?”

“Yes, yes, so that you can go out and buy those shiny magazines and read all about what Lindsay and Britney did this week,” House snapped. “Fantastic.”

Wilson had let a complete stranger into House’s home? To do what? He seemed completely enamored with the brat – where would he go without it?

“Leave,” House said. “Wilson will pay you next time you see him.”

The girl didn’t seem to mind; she practically ran past him, grabbing her jacket as she went. She couldn’t possibly be more than fifteen, and House had to wonder why Wilson had thought it was a good idea to leave his kid with her.

Where was he anyway?

The door slammed shut behind the girl and House had only a moment to curse her before the irritating brat began wailing in his crib. Wonderful. What was he supposed to do now? He had hardly touched the brat since Wilson had moved in and he had never picked him up. He wanted nothing to do with the annoying thing that had disrupted his life so completely.

But the baby kept crying and House knew it would only get worse unless he picked the kid up. Waiting for Wilson was not a possibility – who knew how long the idiot would be gone? House would quite possibly have an aneurysm before he returned.

Leaning his cane against the crib, it took two attempts before House had a good enough balance to be able to pick the baby up. The lump of his body felt odd in his hands, and he leaned him against his chest, changing his grip on the thing. It still cried, but seemed to calm down a bit as soon as it felt House’s body and perhaps heard his heartbeat. House had no idea what calmed babies. He moved slowly, carefully towards the couch, holding onto the baby carefully, because he knew that if anything happened to the kid, Wilson would have his head. He pretended that was the only reason for his care.

He couldn’t walk around with the brat as Wilson did – his leg barely supported him as he moved the few feet over to the couch – but it didn’t seem to matter. The kid was tired and with his wail lessening to hiccups and slowly becoming quiet breaths, House could simply sit with the unfamiliar lump resting on his chest.

He watched it. It had milky skin and tiny hands, fingers curled together around the fabrics of House’s shirt. Dark lashes created shadows on his chubby cheeks, and the chocolate hair on his head was the same color as Wilson’s. House tried to imagine the brat when he grew older, a combination of Cutthroat Bitch and Wilson, with bushy eyebrows and a rather long face, and he wondered what the kid would be like. Would he have an attitude like his mother, or the save-the-world-complex of his father?

He blamed his drowsiness for the thoughts – in the two months that had passed since Wilson and the kid had moved in, he had not thought like this so much as once.

He felt sleepiness wash over him, and he wondered why he had not tried holding a sleeping baby before, if it was this helpful against insomnia.

House startled awake from his slumber when a key was inserted into the keyhole of the front door. It took a few more seconds before the key was turned and then another moment before the handle was pushed down and the door opened.

“House?” Wilson said, and the slur of the word made it painfully obvious what Wilson had been out doing whilst a fifteen-year-old babysat his child.

House could still not see Wilson, as he was sitting with his back toward the front door and didn’t want to turn around for fear of waking the brat, but he heard the uncoordinated shuffling as Wilson moved around.

Then Wilson stood before him, staring. “Where’s Emma?”

“Oh, you mean the teenager you let into our home without a second thought? I sent her home,” House said. “It was way past her bedtime.”

He knew his tone was far from particularly pleasant, and he probably didn’t have any reason to be angry at Wilson, but he still was. Wilson was supposed to be the responsible one – he was certainly not supposed to hand his son to a stranger so that he could go out and get wasted on a Friday night.

He checked the clock on the DVD-player and corrected himself – Saturday morning.

“But you—” Wilson began, clearly even more unable than House to wrap his mind around the fact that House was sitting with the baby in his arms.

“He started wailing,” House snapped. “And seeing how daddy dearest was MIA, I thought it best to pick him up before he broke my skull with the noise.”

Wilson continued to stare. House could see the flush of his face and smell the booze, and a hint of cigarette smoke. His best friend was beyond drunk.

Wilson laughed suddenly, a crazed giggle that House had not heard before. “So this was all it took—me getting completely pissed and leaving him here—with her—and you. I’d’ve done it sooner—should’ve realized—”

He held out his arms to take the baby from House, but House’s hold tightened protectively.

“You’re not touching him in the state you’re in,” House snapped. “Go take a shower and sober up and then you can have him.”

“I should get drunk more often if this is the reaction I get,” Wilson said, straightening up unsteadily.

“If you do this again, I’m putting this thing out on the doorstep until it stops crying,” House said.

“You wouldn’t,” Wilson started, but then shook his head. “Well, you probably would.”

House worried about the lack of care in Wilson’s voice. Even drunk, Wilson shouldn’t allow House to say such a thing about his son – lord knew that if Wilson had been sober, he would have taken the brat from House and refused to let House get anywhere near him ever again.

“So what’s the occasion?” House asked.

Wilson looked at him with little understanding before he realized what House meant. “Oh. Well, the fantasticness that is my life of course. Really, do you need a reason for getting drunk? That’s rich, coming from you.”

He walked off, heading towards the kitchen with an unsteady gait, and House followed his movements. He didn’t get up to follow him, because for one thing, he had a baby in his arms, and for another, he was unsure of whether he wanted to or not. He didn’t really want to listen to why Wilson thought his life was so crappy that he felt the need to drink himself into oblivion.

Wilson returned, a beer in his hand. House was impressed that he had managed to get it open, with the lack of coordination he showed.

“Just a beer?” House asked, unpleasantly. “I’m pretty sure there’s whiskey and vodka, so why not go for that?”

“Wanted beer,” Wilson replied, shrugging.

He flopped down on the couch next to House. Close-up, the smell of alcohol on his breath was even more obvious. House decided against telling Wilson that he ought to be drinking water – Wilson wouldn’t listen and either way, he would have a killer headache come morning. It served him right.

“You’re not gonna ask me?” Wilson asked.

“Ask you what?”

“Why I don’t like my life,” Wilson said, rather softly, still slurring.

“No.”

“’course not,” Wilson said. “You don’t care.”

That was untrue, but House didn’t feel like admitting it. He did care, but he had never been good with heart to hearts, and listening to all the things Wilson disliked about his life – which were quite likely to involve a great deal about the lack of Cutthroat Bitch in his life – was more than he felt he could handle.

“It’s everything,” Wilson began anyway, not caring that House didn’t want to hear it. “Amber – I got an email from her, she’s in California, working and she’s happy. She asked about Sean, and I sent pictures but I haven’t heard from her since and I don’t really think she cares or wants to know.”

House tried his best not to listen. Cutthroat Bitch was the very last thing he wanted to discuss, no matter how much Wilson probably needed to talk about her.

“And then there’s Sean,” Wilson said, “and I do love him, really, but he’s—I don’t know what to do with him and maybe I’m not enough—I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never been a dad before, ‘m not supposed to do it on my own. He should’ve a mom.”

House had suspected Wilson’s guilt about being alone with his son, and not being enough for him. That House believed the kid to be better off without his mother was beside the point; she had left, which had automatically disqualified her as a mother, in House’s opinion. Of course, Wilson would never agree – he would say that it was hard for her, that she was thrown into it and that perhaps he forced her. It was all bullshit, because she’d had as much time as Wilson to prepare for it, and it was no harder for her than for any other first-time parent, and she did have a will of her own, a very strong will of her own, so if she didn’t want to have a kid, she could have – and should have – said no.

“He’ll be fine,” House said gruffly, mostly because Wilson was staring at him expectantly with brown puppy-dog eyes that begged for some sort of affirmation that he was not doing everything wrong.

“And then there’s you,” Wilson said, and he poked House in the arm and then took another couple of large sips of the beer. “You don’t care, and I should know that, because I’ve known you for a decade, but you’re still such an ass. Would it kill you to care just a little?”

“Probably,” House said.

“See, I don’t think it would,” Wilson said, as though House’s comment had been serious. “We have a good thing going here, and you just—you just refuse to alno—acko—see it. I mean, I know he cries and wakes you and I know you have the leg and all, but it’s not that bad, not really. We work, the three of us, don’t we?”

House had to ask. “You like living here?”

Wilson looked at his as though that was a given. “Wouldn’t’ve stayed here for two months if I didn’t.”

They sat in silence whilst Wilson finished his beer, and the baby slept on peacefully. It felt very warm against House’s shirt, but somehow, he did not mind. He knew it would wake up soon enough and demand food again, and he wondered if Wilson was up for making said food. Wilson really ought to stop drinking and go take a shower and then sleep.

When Wilson leaned in and placed a kiss on House’s cheek, just a smidge away from House’s mouth, House was unprepared. The kiss was rather wet and heavy on the alcohol, but House’s heart still raced. Wilson lingered for a moment longer than necessary, and House sat perfectly still, afraid to move.

Wilson pulled back, a satisfied, silly smile on his face. “Thank you, House.”

It didn’t seem to matter to Wilson that House had absolutely no idea what Wilson was thanking him for – and House suspected that Wilson didn’t have just a single thing in mind either – and he stood up from the couch, the beer can on the table, and stumbled towards the shower. Left on the couch, House stared after him, wondering what on earth that had all been about – and curious as to whether Wilson would remember any of it come morning.

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