Fascinating Wilsonhood Chapter 1, a house, m.d. fanfic

Title: Fascinating Wilsonhood

Rating PG

Pairing/Characters House/Wilson with special guest stars Mom and Pop Wilson

Spoilers: None

Summary Wilson spends a Sunday afternoon in his parents' basement sorting though boxes. Dust and memories are dislodged. A book is removed from its cardboard tomb. Cookies are eaten.

"Dutiful son responsibility #754-Spend Sunday afternoon helping Mom clean out the basement."

"Don't sulk. She offered to make dinner."

"And spend the whole day in the living room with Pop Wilson watching TV? That sounds like a blast. He's even less comfortable around me now than he was before."

"He's okay with it. Mom's okay with it. For some reason, they like you. At least you're not another wife."

"Wifely duties are more your schtick."

"I'll tell them you send your love."

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As is the case with many overactive young minds, when he was a little boy he had imagined monsters behind every door. His brothers fed this fear with stories about the creature in the basement. A horrid beast, all teeth and slime and scales that ate scared little boys like potato chips. He'd refused to go into the basement for six months. His brother still liked to bring that up. His wives had all heard about how little Jimmy practically wet his pants at the thought of going downstairs to empty the dryer.

The story came back to him as he walked down the stairs. His brothers' laughter and the wicked sparkle of their eyes as they tormented Jimmy in front of a succession of high school girlfriends. His oldest brother's laughter grew fainter with each successive girlfriend, fiancée and wife. Now, there was nothing but an empty chair and a single laugh. Monsters don't need dark basements and they don't just feast on little boys.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and shook off the thoughts. Thinking like that would just make a tedious task depressing. All he had to do was sort through a few old boxes, books and knick-knacks mostly, and haul the clutter away. His dad had been threatening to do it himself for months. After a few subtle hints from his mother he had volunteered to make a trip over and help with the task. Parental good will in exchange for a trip to the Goodwill. The wrath of an ignored House only slightly soured the deal.

"Do you want me to go through the boxes? Or should I just haul this crap out of the house?"

"It's not crap, Jimmy. It's stuff that's outlived its usefulness here. Someone else might be thrilled to have something in one of those boxes."

He reached into a box and pulled out a pile of string and beads. "Macramé owls are a welcome addition to any home." He laughed as the tacky wall decoration danced on the end of its string.

"Your Aunt Ann made that. She took up macramé when she quit smoking. For months, every time we saw her she gave us another lovely gift." She covered her mouth to hide a chuckle. "We were all so relieved when her resolve crumbled."

"Aunt Ann died of lung cancer. That's not funny." He tried to sound stern, but a wicked sparkle filled his eyes.

"No, honey, it isn't. But you've apparently forgotten the collection of hanging cats she crafted especially for you. Your expression was priceless. You tried so hard to be polite."

"It was hard," he laughed. "My six year old masculinity was threatened. Bet she wouldn't be too surprised to hear--" He stopped himself before he said something mom inappropriate.

A soft smile bent the edges of her mouth. She reached her hand up to brush an errant strand of hair off of her son's face. He pressed his hand against hers, resting his cheek against her cool palm. After brushing a kiss across his forehead, she stood up. "I should leave you alone. I'm not helping."

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Hours passed while he sifted through boxes of Reader's Digest Condensed books and back issues of National Geographic He didn't remember anyone in the family ever having a subscription. Why did they have a decade's worth of faded yellow bound pictorials? The dust he'd inhaled clogged his nose and chest and his head hurt from breathing in mold spores. He kicked himself for forgetting to take something to pre-empt the inevitable allergic reaction to a day spent in a cave. He'd find a way to use this to his advantage when he got home.

He dragged the last box out from under the stairs, sat down on the concrete floor and untangled the cardboard flaps. More old, dusty books with worn covers and dog-eared pages. Like all the rest of the boxes there was nothing terribly interesting inside. He'd set aside a couple of cookbooks and a coffee table book of sports legends. That book had been passed from brother to brother. Sleeping with the hard corners of that book under their pillow had been a rite of passage for the Wilson boys. He unfolded the glossy jacket and removed the girly magazines that had been carefully affixed against the front and back of the cover. It was such a sophomoric attempt at hiding tame porn. Over the years, many different magazines had lined the inside of that book jacket. Yellowed tape marked the white sleeve. He wondered if his parents had just chosen not to notice the way the book crinkled with every movement, or the way it seemed to float an inch and a half off the table. House would get a good laugh at this piss poor attempt at disguising youthful indiscretion. It was probably best that they were unlikely to have children. The kid would never have the chance to learn how to hide his porn. House would probably give him a pin-up girl mobile to hang over the crib.

At the bottom of the box, looking as if it had been in storage since the Johnson administration, was yet another book. This one was pink, with large, frilly font that covered the entire front cover of the book. "Fascinating Womanhood," he cringed at the title. It wasn't a book he remembered ever having seen on his parents' bookshelves. A title like is hard to forget. It was either a mid-century guide to marriage for the innocent female or thinly disguised erotica. For the sake of his sanity he hoped for the former. Hiding porn from your parents was one thing, finding out your mom's hidden kink…He shivered at the thought.

"Very mature," he mumbled to himself as he flipped the book open.

"Celestial love is a term used in Fascinating Womanhood to represent the highest kind of tender love a man feels for a woman. It lifts love out of the mediocre and places it on a heavenly plane. It is the flowers rather than the weeds, the banquet rather than the crumbs." (p.7)

"What a simplistic crock of shit." He turned a few more pages and began to read again:

"If your first response is always appreciative, he will add another confidence and another, until at last, if your reaction is never disappointing, he will lay bare before you every motive, ideal and hope that stirs within him"

"Hmm," he nodded and scanned further down the page:

"The man who becomes numb to the pain of humiliation separates himself from pleasure as well."

"Sounds vaguely familiar," he thought.

"He no longer feels the hurt, but neither does he see the beauty in a summer's day, delight in the laughter of little children…"

"Life hasn't been the same since House stopped delighting."

"…or respond to his wife's affection." (p.166)

He frowned. "Not you too, book." The wife jokes had started when they moved in together. The passing months had only given House time to get more creative with the descriptive terms. He tossed the book into the paper bag with the other things he'd set aside to take along. He began the challenge of lugging the boxes upstairs and out to his car.

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Six trips up and down the stairs later he sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and eating one of the cookies his mother had baked for him to take home. Chocolate chip, an obvious ploy to get House to feel comfortable with casual visits. She knew he preferred her peanut butter cookies.

"Did you find anything interesting?" his dad asked.

"There's a few books. Cookbooks, mostly. And that old sports book, remember the big one with DiMaggio on the front cover?"

His mom smiled, "And Miss July on the back."

"You knew?"

"I did laundry for all you boys. None of you that into baseball, and yet you all slept with that book under your mattress at some point. I just told myself you were reading it for the articles."

"Just like your old man. Always up for a good read" His father laughed at his son's discomfort, and patted him on the back. "Come on, son. That was one of the least shocking things you boys have thrown at us."

"Dad, I'm…" he started to apologize for his lifestyle again. Not that they expected it, but he felt obligated to explain himself at least once every visit.

"Did you find anything else?" his mother interrupted.

He reached into the bag and pulled out Fascinating Womanhood. "This caught my eye."

"Not that awful thing!" She took the book out of her son's hand and showed her husband the cover. "Do you remember this? My mother gave me this when we got married. I never could figure out what she was thinking. It's a how-to guide for manipulation and acting like you're blandly accepting the husband's authority. I don't recommend it."

He took the book from her hands and put it back into the bag. "It might be good for a laugh."

"Jimmy, I wouldn't even use it to line that rat's cage. Steve might read it and get a distorted view of womanhood."

"Considering the men he's used to, how much more screwed up could he be?" His father's chuckle made him squirm.

They finished their coffee and cookies and said their good-byes. He promised that next time House would come along and stay for supper. His mother handed him a Tupperware container filled with pasta salad and baked chicken breasts.

"I know he didn't cook. Now you don't have to."

"Thanks, Mom." He kissed her on the cheek and got into the Volvo. She stood in the driveway. He watched her in his rearview mirror until she turned and walked back to the house.

"A woman's role, difficult as it is, only lasts about twenty years. Even if she has a large family, twenty years sees her through the most of it. Then her life takes a turn."(p.105)