Sessions: Ben and the Purple Crayon
It was quiet. Too quiet.
House looked up from the journal he was reading. The Little Bear DVD was playing quietly on the plasma TV in the man cave. He swiveled his head around to the corner where the toy box was and then to under the pool table. No Ben.
Sighing, and knowing better, he laid the magazine down on the coffee table and got up. Giving a quick check behind the bar with no luck, he then made his way out to the dining room. The kitchen lights under the counter were on, casting a soft amber glow in the otherwise darkened room. Sexy Kitty was nibbling on some kibble, which meant the little man was nowhere near, because she had long ago called a truce with the grabby fingers and decided that the downstairs was only her domain during the evening hours after her menace had gone to bed.
Cate had left them to their own devices for dinner while she and the 'girls' went out for the evening. He and Ben had feasted on hot dogs and mac and cheese, a familiar dinner when the local chef decided she needed a girls' night. After having cleaned up from dinner, he had given Ben a bath and dressed him in his jammies. They were doing their nightly ritual of watching Little Bear before bed, but the toddler had somehow slipped out and escaped. No real surprise. They had both seen this episode five hundred times. House could practically recite the lines himself by now.
The errant child wasn't in the dining room, or the kitchen, or the living room for that matter. Since the basement door was always locked with a hook and eye way above the wily little kid's head, House was sure he hadn't gone down there. That left upstairs.
Lumbering up the stairs, House poked his head into Ben's room. He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing or even smiling at what he found.
"Oh ho, little man," he said, startling the toddler into turning around with huge blue eyes. House mentally kicked himself for the thousandth time for all the moments his mother probably had to see that same look come from him with those same enormous blue eyes. God, the mother karma curse was a bitch. And he was getting it back tenfold for the misery he put his mother through.
The little boy was standing in the middle of his big-boy bed in his footie pajamas, holding a fat purple crayon. His blonde hair was still sweetly combed back from his bath and his adorable clean skin shined, making him look like an innocent little cherub. Except House knew better. There was mischief, ingenious and exceedingly cute mischief, in that child. And he had exhibited it yet again. On his watch. She was going to be so upset.
"Hi, Daddy," came the little voice.
"What are you doing?" he asked coming into the room cautiously, not wanting to scare him.
"Nothing," he replied through those red little lips.
House chuckled. And looked at the wall. "Is that a dog?"
"No Daddy," Da Vinci replied with indignation. "It's a woof."
"A woof? Like a woof, woof dog, right?"
The little boy rolled those big eyes at him. "No a woof, Daddy, like Little Red."
Ah… Little Red Riding Hood, the story he had been reading before bed lately. "Oh a wolf."
"Yeah a woof."
House moved over to the bed to look at the huge purple dog/wolf drawn on the wall. He crossed his arms casually. "So why did you draw a wolf on your wall?"
His son made a serious face and then pointed across his room with his little finger to the other wall. House's eyes followed the path. He was pointing at the mural of Winnie the Pooh and all of the characters. "What, Pooh Bear?"
Ben shook his head and gave him woeful sad eyes.
"Tigger?" Another shake. "Eeyore?" House hated Eeyore, he was like Wilson on downers. He wanted to kill himself every time he had to look at him, just to get away from the slow depressing animal.
"No Daddy, the bunny," he told him continuing to point his chubby little finger accusingly at the painted animal.
House looked at the bunny. "What's wrong with the bunny?"
Ben held his arms up in the 'hold you' pose with his bottom lip hanging slightly out. House picked him up, his firm little body warm in his cotton jammies, and sat him on his hip, running his hands soothingly over his little back. Ben held onto his shoulder and rested his head down on his shirt. "Bunny is scary."
House tried not to laugh. Of all the animals on the wall, he found it ironic that the bunny was the scary one. "Aww it's ok buddy," he told his son, "the bunny can't hurt you, it's just a painting."
"No Daddy, scary," he insisted.
The rationale dawned on him then and he chuckled at the intelligence that was already brewing in this little boy. "Ben, did you draw the wolf to protect you from the bunny?"
The little boy nodded his head earnestly. "Woof eats the bunny."
Now House couldn't hold it back any longer. Her burst out laughing and hugged his son to him with a strange sense of pride. "Ok, little man. I see. Give me the crayon." The child handed him the crayon. House put the boy down and sat on the bed. "What do you say we make the wolf really ferocious so it scares the bunny away, huh?"
Ben nodded excitedly. "Give him fangs Daddy!" He brought his chubby little hands up and growled like a werewolf. House mimicked the same pose and growled like a werewolf too.
Laughing, he scooted up closer to the wall. He took the thick, paper wrapped crayon and shook his head for what he was about to do. He hoped that once he explained, Cate would understand.
Kneeling on the mattress, he started to draw fangs on Ben's pretty accurately drawn wolf. The figure had four legs, an oval shaped head and triangles for ears. House was never much of a drawer, but he figured he could doodle a pretty fierce looking wolf if it made his son feel better about sleeping in his own bed at night. He shaped up the head, pointed the ears and opened up the mouth a bit to fit the gnarly fangs in. He then moved on to the eyes making them squint angrily.
Ben stood up on the bed and jumped excitedly up and down. "Yay, Daddy. Scary woof!"
House leaned back and took a look at his work. Damn the thing looked scary. Not bad for his first foray into graffiti tagging in his own home.
"Scary woof. Scary woof!"
"Ok, little dude, it's time for bed," House told him as he placed the purple crayon into his jeans pocket. Grabbing the squirmy little kid, he hugged him tightly and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
Carefully, House cradled the back of his head and laid him back against his rocket ship pillowcase. He tucked the blankets around his round little belly and brushed his hand over his soft forehead.
Ben grabbed his hand and hugged it. "Love you, Daddy."
House bent over and placed another kiss to his cheek. "I love you too, Buddy."
He reached up and turned out the light above head. The room was cast in dark until his eyes adjusted to the light coming in from the hallway and the moonlight from the sky outside the window. He ran his hand over Ben's head soothingly until the little boy closed his eyes. Once he could hear the even rhythm of his breathing, House stood up and looked at the mural on the wall. His eyes traveled to the bunny.
He chuckled quietly to himself. The bunny was creepy in the dark. The way the moonlight shined on the surface, the eyes of the rabbit became evil. The white of the eyes and buckteeth glowed an eerie blue making him look rabid and haunted. Yeah, he'd want to draw a woof to make it go away too.
Looking at his baby sleeping in the bed, he smiled proudly. She was most definitely going to be pissed but, her little angel had good reason. And his logic wasn't flawed. Not in the least. House couldn't have been more pleased.
An idea popped into his head suddenly and he let the room in search of some things to implement his plan.
A few hours later when Cate came home, she found him on the floor in Ben's room.
"Greg, what are you doing?" she whispered coming into the room.
He put down the paintbrush and gestured to the wall. "I'm killing the bunny."
"What?" she asked. "Why?"
"Because it's creepy," he said matter-of-factly.
She came closer to see what he was doing. "You painted over him?"
"Yeah," he said and then pushed off the floor. He hugged her closely and kept her turned away from the wall beside the bed. Kissing her, he ran his hands over her back. "How was your evening?"
"Good," she said melting into him. She hugged him tightly and then pulled back. "You're not getting out of it that easily, mister."
House brushed her hair off her shoulders. "He was afraid of the bunny."
She pouted sadly in empathy for her baby. "Aww. Really?"
"I'm going to show you something, but you have to promise not to get mad."
Eying him warily, she raised her eyebrow at him. "Why?"
"You just have to promise."
"Fine," she submitted.
Turning her around gently, he showed her the crayon wolf. She gasped in horror at the purple marks on the wall. Covering her gaping mouth with both of her hands, she stepped closer to look at the destruction.
Her eyes narrowed and she turned to him. "Why did you draw a werewolf on the wall?"
House rolled his eyes. "Your son started it."
"He's two and a half, Greg!"
"No, I mean, I found him in here drawing on the wall," he explained in a whisper and then rolled his eyes in frustration. "Can we go into our room and actually speak like humans?"
"Don't leave that paint in here," she pointed at the pail of water and his plate full of paint. "And is that on my good Mikasa ware? What the hell?"
Picking up his art supplies, he pushed her out of the room. "It's paint. It will wash off."
"Hello, diagnostician, when we're afflicted with some strange disorder and we don't know the cause, remember that you put paint on our dinner plates," she griped at him taking the defiled piece of pottery from his hands and then went in to the kitchen. "So explain to me why there is a really lifelike looking wolf on the wall if Ben was the one who started it."
House helped her wash off the brushes while he explained. "I caught him drawing this wolf on the wall and when I asked him why, he showed me the bunny. He said the bunny was scary. So he naturally drew a wolf on the other wall to come stalk it and eat it."
"And how did you come to help him finish his masterpiece?"
"Well, it made logical sense to me, as much as it did to him," he told her pulling a string of paper towels out to dry his hands. "You can't blame the kid for thinking it was ok, he's got other painted things on his wall."
She pushed her hair back with her hand and sighed. "Yes, true, I suppose. So you helped him make the thing scarier?"
"Yeah, I beefed him up a bit," he said with pride.
"So why were you painting over the bunny then?"
"Because the wolf ate the bunny," he ventured.
She stared at him for a long moment and then began to chuckle. Shaking her head, it turned into a full out laugh and she came over to him and hugged him tightly. "I love you. You're such a hero."
House shrugged. He didn't know if that assessment was correct but it sure felt nice to hear her say it. "Wanna go play Super Friends? You can be Wonder Woman?"
She grinned at him. "Come on Superman…"
The next morning, Cate took the finished load of clothes out of the dryer. The fresh smell of clean laundry hit her with the warmth from the residual heat. She was folding them when she noticed a stain on one of her t-shirts. It was a purple splotch. She didn't think that she had spilled grape juice on herself, or Ben for that matter. That was fruit punch from breakfast, and that kind of stain was usually more of a pink color. Not to mention, she had gotten it with the stain stick before she threw it into the wash. No this stain was distinctly blue purple. Putting the piece aside, she picked up another garment. This one had a stain too. Quite a few actually. It looked speckled with purple.
"What the hell?" she muttered out loud. She checked all of the pieces. They all had stains on them. Pulling out a pair of Greg's jeans, she saw the worst of it. His whole front pocket was stained purple. A wrinkled wrapper fell out of the pocket. Bending down she picked it up. Crayola… Purple…
"Oh my god… GREG!"