House/Wilson
Title: 2.1.2.3.
Author: finding_jay
Pairing: Mild House/Wilson
Rating: PG
Warnings: Big shiny white teeth ; friends with Dorothy ; Professor’s Rubik’s cube ; cleaners that arrive too early
Summary: It doesn’t matter when it happened, or why it happened, only that it did happen and that’s all that matters.
Disclaimer: I don’t own House.
Notes: This is apparently my first House/Wilson story since June 2006. Just a head’s up.



He thinks he was twelve. Maybe thirteen, he can’t really remember. It was some time around that period, though. Summer holidays, probably middle school or just after his freshman year. His friend, Marcus, was going down to Mexico with his parents, and it happened because he was going to be away during James’ birthday.

His mother, James remembers, has very straight teeth. Very white, very straight, very clean teeth. When he was a child, he would stare at them where she spoke. And when she was angry, like when he was twelve or thirteen, her upper lip would curl back and he could see the tops of her gums. They were like marble. Little chips of marble sitting in a row and glistening at him with saliva. Marcus had crooked teeth. His left front tooth leant into the right, and he had a chip on one of his eyeteeth and he already had three fillings by the time he was fourteen. James wonders if maybe that’s why he doesn’t take the best care of his teeth. Attempts to be less like his mother but not enough to be like Marcus.

He could never watch The Nanny. Fran’s mother (Sylvia, wasn’t it?) reminded him too much of his own mother. He was at med school at the time, and he’d only just managed to convince his mother that he was eating right, there was a girl he might be interested in and it really wasn’t necessary to call everyday. The Sylvia character grated on his nerves. His mother had darker hair, a less nasally voice and didn’t visit him all the time, but he couldn’t stand looking at her. His roommate, unfortunately, was rather obsessed with the show and would have the sound up so high James could hear it in his room while he was attempting to study. It’s a wonder that he managed to finish the year with out murdering somebody.

It’s not something he thinks about deliberately. He just doesn’t find the stereotypical Jewish mother on TV as appealing as, say, stereotypical blondes (like his first girlfriend) or stereotypical cheerleaders (like his second girlfriend) or just stereotypical Jews as a whole (much like his lawyer brother, David). His mother, in most aspects, was the perfect Jewish wife to a tee. He thinks he takes after his father in most ways. His mother was quite religious while his father could take it or leave it. His mother was careful with money, his father not so much. That’s not to say he bought frivolous things, but he wasn’t going to count his pennies and dimes when the cashier gave him change at the store just to make sure that he did receive nine dollars and thirty-three cents back.

But James can’t stop thinking about his mother’s teeth. Neat, little white lines framed by pink gums and bright red lips. She never had food stuck between them, or caught up along her gum line. She never chewed gum or drank coffee. They were always pristine. He never saw her brushing them, either, which strikes him as an odd thought. He’s thirty-eight and never thought of his mother brushing his teeth, but on the other hand, why would he?

‘Do you ever think of your mother brushing her teeth?’

House looks at him with a frown. He likes catching House off guard. It doesn’t happen very often, and when it does, he usually catches on pretty quick. This doesn’t seem to be one of those times.

‘No. Am I meant to?’

James shrugs a shoulder. It doesn’t matter.

House’s office is bare and open, nothing like his own that’s smaller but a lot cosier, with a couch and posters and things to make patients feel comfortable when he tells them they have six months to live but if they continue treatment, they may receive an extra four weeks.

He does like the chair in the corner, though. It reminds him of his grandfather’s.

‘I don’t think I ever saw my mother brush her teeth.’

‘I never saw my parents having sex. Doesn’t mean they didn’t.’

‘You never saw your parents having sex?’ He’s not sure why that’s a surprise.

‘Did you?’

‘I think I was six.’

‘Now that’s just wrong.’

James guesses it is. Then again, he was always slightly precocious and his sex talk seemed to set him up to be the kid everyone turned to when they wanted to know about all that stuff. He’s not sure why, he didn’t lose his virginity until three years after his best friend.

It’s after six. His last appointment was at four-thirty. House’s patient was miraculously saved at eleven and he’s not sure why he’s still hanging around. Kutner, Taub and Thirteen (he knows her name but Thirteen suits her better. Not as mysterious and baffling as it’s made out to be) have long gone home. The cleaners will appear in their masses come seven. The sun’s setting and it’s casting long shadows through the blinds. He looks out the glass doors to the balcony. It’s cool out with a warm breeze but he can’t be bothered getting up. He puts his feet up on the ottoman and loosens his tie. He’s suddenly unbelievably tired. The kind where he knows his eyelids will soon be heavy and his head will start rocking forward. He used to laugh at his father when that happened to him.

‘She had extraordinarily white teeth,’ he suddenly says.

‘Who did?’

‘My mother.’

House is looking at him. He’s on his third Rubik’s Cube of the month, the kind with four different coloured blocks. James used to be great at them. He used to spend hours, when he wasn’t studying or in class, with them. Working them, getting the colours to match. Now he couldn’t do it if there was a gun at his head.

‘Marcus used to make fun of them.’

‘Who?’

James waves his hand. ‘Kid I used to go to school with.’

‘No, who’d he make fun of?’ House has done one side. Maroon.

‘My mother’s teeth.’

‘Why?’

‘They were white.’

‘As opposed to?’

‘I think she used to bleach them,’ James says with a frown. He’s staring at the cube. If House twisted the bottom row to the left, then the third, and turned the first row- the side with his left thumb, not the right- down, he’d be closer to finishing the yellow side. It’d mess up the maroon, but that could be fixed so easily… ‘He kissed me.’

House looks up at him without lifting his head. He has that frown again, the kind when James catches him off guard. ‘Who did?’

‘Marcus.’

‘With your mothers teeth?’

‘Huh?’ James looks up at him with a similar frown.

‘Marcus kissed you with your mother’s teeth?’

‘What?’

House sets the cube down. James reaches out, wriggles his fingers, and House tosses it over to him. He’s ruined the yellow side but that’s okay, it can be fixed.

‘You were saying- ’

‘I know, and no. When I was twelve. Or thirteen, I can’t remember.’

‘What has any of this to do with your mother’s teeth?’

‘She… snarls,’ he says, offhandedly. Twist the second row towards his right thumb. ‘She caught us. It wasn’t anything. Nothing…’ He shakes his head, waves his hand. ‘You know. We were kids. She had a newspaper, I kept thinking she was going to hit my nose with it.’

House doesn’t say anything. A few more moves and the yellow side is done. James rolls it in his hands, looking over the other sides. Sides that look the most complete aren’t necessarily the ones to attempt next.

He vaguely remembers his mother grabbing him by the shoulders afterwards, when Marcus had been sent home and he was alone in his room. You like girls, she’d said, girls. Not boys. Boys kiss girls, not boys.

And he kept looking at her teeth. Bright, white teeth that dazzled him.

He received a Rubik’s cube on his birthday.

White side done. That was easy.

‘I never really thought of her brushing her teeth.’

James looks up at House. ‘Huh?’

‘My mother. Now that you mention, it’s never something I really thought about. I guess she has to. Be gross if she didn’t.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I think she has dentures, though. Or at least a few false teeth. I’m not sure.’

James starts on the next side. Orange. This Rubik’s cube has a hideous colour scheme. He actually became obsessed with them for a while. In the time between his twelfth or thirteenth birthday (actually, he’s fairly sure it was his twelfth birthday. He’s certain he would have remembered his thirteenth) and when Marcus moved away sometime during his sophomore year of high school.

‘He died,’ he finally says.

‘Marcus?’

‘Mm.’

A beat. Then, ‘how?’

James shrugs. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Because of a police inquest?’

James just shrugs again. ‘Just don’t know. Didn’t ask, wasn’t in the letter.’

‘There going to be a funeral?’

‘Imagine so.’

‘You invited?’

‘Imagine so.’

‘Do you care?’

James doesn’t reply.

A twist of his wrist and the orange side is done. It’s messed up the yellow side though. James sighs and twists it back so the yellow is complete but the orange isn’t. Holding the cube up, he squints at the squares, wondering just what mathematical equation could fix this. He could always just pry the blocks out and put them together in the right way.

‘Friends with Dorothy, then?’

James lowers the Rubik’s cube. ‘What?’

‘You two were friends with Dorothy, then?’

‘I…’ He sets the cube on the armrest of the chair. ‘Maybe. I guess. I’m not sure, I don’t remember a lot of it.’

That surprises him. Either it was so unremarkable that the experience wasn’t important enough to warrant memories or his intrusive mother made it all so traumatic that his mind has blocked it out. He’s leaning more towards the former.

‘There wasn’t any sex. I’d remember if there was sex.’

‘Especially if you were twelve.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And with a man. Boy. Manboy.’

‘Yes.’

There’s a noise outside. Cleaners. James pushes his sleeve up and takes a glance at his watch. It’s not seven. It annoys him some, that the cleaners have arrived before their duties to take out the trash, vacuum the floors and clean the windows. Or maybe they only arrive at seven at his office. That could be it.

‘She had really white teeth,’ James murmurs.

‘Why are you obsessed with your mother’s teeth?’

Furrowing his brow, he looks back out the window. The sky has turned a soft pink colour, the light dancing along the clouds. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Cancer?’

James shakes his head. ‘Just one of those things, I guess.’

House gets to his feet, in that silent way he usually does, preferring to suffer on the inside where nobody can get to him and question how he is. It used to worry him, watching House having to ease his leg down, swing his cane over and use his arms to stand. Now he just knows that it’s better to not help.

He crosses over to James and snatches up his Rubik’s cube. He studies it for a moment before slipping it into his jacket pocket. It bulges out, the corners making distinct lines against the fabric. In one, easy swoop House presses his lips against his. James doesn’t move, just sits there until House pulls away. They don’t say anything as House adjusts the strap on his bag and leaves the office. The sound of the vacuum cleaner swells as the door opens and shuts.

James sits there, watching the clouds go from pink to blue to black as the sun sinks into the horizon. He finally gets up when he catches sight of a star. It winks at him. He passes by the cleaners, ignoring the way their mops clean the floors until they’re shiny white like his mother’s teeth.