A/N: OK, so this part is kind of weird…but so am I so I guess that makes sense. I didn't know the names of Wilson's brothers? So I made them up. If you know, please tell me, but I probably won't fix anything since I haven't figured out how to edit stuff on this site…enjoy and let me know what you think, pretty please! Thanks to everyone who's commented so far.
Wilson is having a nightmare.
It doesn't start like one. He's dreaming of his childhood, of
his two brothers, two, not one, which is how he knows it is just a
dream, and an old dream for all that. He's had it a thousand
times before, whenever he is feeling lonely. He dreamed this
dream in college, in med school, in his first
apartment, a grungy
empty building with bugs of which he was nevertheless proud. To
date, he's dreamt this dream with three different wives, any number
of strange women, and, most frequently, he's dreamt it alone, thin
and shivering between cold sheets and countless hotels as faceless as
their occupants.
They are playing ball, soccer, it seems, Robert, Jimmy, and Tom, in descending age, Tom, who's face Wilson can picture at the ages of ten, twenty, and thirty, because he's seen it, and Robert, whom Wilson can only imagine. Never imagines. It is better to let things be, to not pretend that you think they can be alright, when you can't even find a woman you won't cheat on, when all you can do is send away the people you love, one by one, with your own selfishness, because you don't deserve them.
This is how he knows it is a nightmare. When he is waking, he knows that some of these are lies. Not everything you hear out there is true, his mother always said, but what about in here, eight year old Jimmy wonders. In a dream, everything is true, and nothing is true. And someone out there said that, so he can't even trust it, but Jimmy does. He's never listened to his mother.
It's summer and the three of them
are playing soccer in the field behind their house. It backs up
on the elementary school, so they've got all this space. Once
you get past the gate your parents can hardly see you, except to
watch for movement so they know you're there, and not leaving town
like you are always planning when you are eight.
When you get
older they stop looking, that's how Robert escaped.
Wilson can feel the blistering sun on his face, he loves the summer, he's forgotten, he doesn't spend much time outdoors anymore, he exercises at the gym, hides his face; he's like a vampire, living on the blood of others, or at least, surviving on their deaths. Somewhere in his adult head there is a doubt, which is burned away.
Someone hits him on the head with a soccer ball, he tumbles down into the green grass, grinning. There is dirt on his nose, his knees; the palms of his hands are smeared with yellowish stains from sliding to stop a goal. Tom's goal, probably, because Robert's shots always go over his head, quick, neat kicks to the upper right corner. They always go in, Jimmy never even jumps for them, it's a foregone conclusion. Tom isn't very good at soccer, but he's a good sport. It's Robert who's skipped the ball at his head.
Jimmy can hear his brothers laughing, his eyes are full of the blue sky above him, it's always this way in the field- there are no trees, no buildings to place the view, the sky eats everything and becomes everything. Jimmy wonders what it's like to be eaten by a giant beast. The clouds could be the teeth. He knows what's in the throat, what's in the stomach, how it would be done. He wonders how it would feel.
'Hey Jimmy, what's the matter! Are you staring at the clouds like a girl?' A rush of boyish indignation tingles in his nerves. 'You find any hearts up there, you sissy!' Hush, Robert, can't you see I'm having an epiphany?
Children always ignore the voices of grown ups.
Jimmy grabs the ball and leaps to his feet, cheeks blazing
as he prepares to defend his honor. His face is sweaty,
everything sticks, his jumper, his socks, he can't get the sky out of
his head. Wilson feels the breeze on his face as he pulls back
a thin leg for the kick, shoots the ball towards his older brother,
feeling that it will not stop, that it will whiz by and continue
rolling through the perfect green endlessness of the field. His
brothers are laughing, Robert shouting 'Missed me missed me now
you've got to kiss me!' and tackles him, they fall down, wrestling in
the grass. Jimmy struggling, knowing he's going to get a Wet Willy,
anticipating the slimy feeling of sudden cold in his ear, he squirms,
feeling an unexpected snow harden and mold beneath his body, braces
himself for it but there's a tongue in his mouth and rough stubble
against his cheek and suddenly something else blue is between him and
the sky and he can't stand it he's so scared and suddenly there's
lightning and he's up from underneath his brother/assailant. He
throws a snowball it becomes a bullet it hits Robert in the thigh
don't hate me don't hate me an accident I just want to be loved
Someone else's blood fills his mouth and he somehow he chokes out a scream loud enough to wake the dead.
Cuddy is standing in the doorway when he lifts his head
from his desk, chest heaving. 'Wilson, are you all right?' she
asks, her arms crossed beneath her breasts in a matronly way. 'House
called me from his office and said you were twitching on your desk,
said his leg hurt too much to go to you himself.' Coward,
Wilson thinks, an absurd
fear twisting in his chest, he's avoiding
you, he doesn't want to explain himself, he's so selfish sometimes.
'Just a dream,' Wilson shrugs, consciously relaxing the muscles in his face, directing his gaze away from Cuddy's breasts, an old reflex, he can never help himself. 'I wrestled in college.' He puts on a false grin, knowing she'll fall for it, just like the kids do. She'll want to believe it, because grown men don't have nightmares, they have wet dreams, or they have no dreams. That's the way the world works. Women dream about their weddings, he read that somewhere, he's too smart to believe it but something rings true.
He can still feel House's hot tongue against his cheek. He supposes he's no exception.
