Chapter Text
The grocery store has been gaudily decorated in shades of red and pink in preparation for Valentine’s Day. Both men, who walk far closer to each other than necessary, do their very best to ignore the sinking feeling in their guts at the sight of blossoming young love. Wilson bites away the bitterness inside him that wants to scream at every young couple he sees sweetly holding hands. He wants to scream that this will not last, that one of you will change or cheat or leave, and it will not last. House shoves the loneliness deep inside of his chest, refusing to acknowledge any jealousy he may have for the trusting new couples. Refusing to acknowledge the daydream that tiptoes in the back of his mind of a woman calling him, apologizing, and saying she still loves him, and wants him back.
They're just here for groceries, that's all they need. A loaf of white bread and a jar of peanut butter will hold them over until the miserable holiday has passed. They have a silent agreement to get in and out as fast as possible so they both may return to sulking in House’s apartment. So when House hears the unforgettable sound of Wilson’s dress shoes clacking on the linoleum stop, he’s terribly confused.
House turns to see Wilson standing in front of a shelf full of differently sized and coloured teddy bears, some have small hearts sewn onto them or little red bows, but plenty are plain. House figures it must have something to do with the man's recent third divorce, something about the fact Wilson has no reason to buy some overpriced plush bear this year.
Wilson picks up a plain dark brown bear, it’s decently sized, and looks incredibly soft. His hands run through the fur and House notes that the colour of the bear matches Wilson’s eyes. The thought makes his heart twist, for some reason. He’s about to tell Wilson to put it down, let it be, and not dwell on it too much, before Wilson beats him to it.
“House, if I buy a teddy bear, will you throw it away?” Wilson’s voice is soft, hopeful, but nervous, like he’s terrified of what House might say.
“What?” House is more confused by the fact Wilson even wants the thing than by the question itself.
“If I buy this,” He holds the bear up “Will you throw it away?”
“Oh. No, if you pay for it, -it’s yours, I don’t give a shit. You're in a lot more danger of me throwing away those ugly ass ties of yours.” House turns to start walking again, but Wilson doesn't follow.
“You're sure? You won’t get rid of it while I'm sleeping or something?” Wilson looks entirely distrusting, which is fair considering he’s asking Gregory House to respect his privacy and property, but still, it’s slightly worrying.
“I won’t throw it away Wilson, Jesus Christ. It’s just some dumb bear anyway.” House starts back on his way through the store and ignores the way he can practically hear Wilson’s heart sink at his comment. He also ignores the ever-increasing guilt that comes with having hurt Wilson’s feelings.
Wilson keeps a tight hold on the bear through the whole rest of their grocery trip. House says nothing, he’s upset Wilson enough today, but he finds it… odd. It’s definitely not for a girl. Wilson’s only been single for a few weeks now, and even boy-wonder-oncologist can’t bounce back that fast. House doubts it’s for a patient, Wilson would have just said so if it was. He can only figure Wilson’s buying for himself, but unless the last 10 years of House’s life have been built on a lie, he’s pretty sure Wilson is a 38 year old man and not an 8 year old girl.
When they get to the check out, Wilson places the bear on the conveyor belt with so much care House wonders if Wilson thinks it's alive. As the bear slowly slides along and gets closer and closer to the cashier, Wilson looks more and more nervous, fiddling with his hands and eyebrows pressed tightly upwards.
“Oh this is so cute! Is it for your wife?” The cashier's question is harmless, but House stares daggers at Wilson, waiting for an inevitable public breakdown. Wilson’s hands tighten and his pupils dilate while he tries to come up with some half-believable answer.
“Oh, uhm- Yes, she- she loves them.” God, it’s always incredible how the only people Wilson’s any good lying to are himself and House.
“Aw, well I hope she enjoys it! Happy Valentine's day!” Wilson nods and hurries off, presumably to cry in the car while he waits for House to finish paying. The cashier says nothing to House, cranky old men with canes tend to come across as a lot less friendly than big eyed doctors with boyish good looks buying teddy bears.
When House gets to the car, Wilson is just sitting in the passenger seat, holding the bear. He’s got his hands clasped softly around its waist and is running his thumb along its chest. He’s got wide eyes staring at it, House would think it’s almost cute if it wasn’t entirely off-putting.
“You really like that thing huh?”
Wilson is shocked out of his trance, he straightens his back and coughs a few times, pulling the bear closer to himself. “Oh, yeah yes. I like them.”
They don’t really talk much on the ride home, Wilson just falls back into just staring at the bear. His expression is a bit softer now, a sweet smile and eyes just barely crinkled upwards. House figures Wilson’s too happy about the bear to remember that showing genuine emotion around him is a good way to get made fun of. Oddly enough, House doesn't. Wilson’s smile is so… cute, and House would hate to be the reason it goes away, so he says nothing.
When they do get home, Wilson still doesn't put the bear down. He keeps it tucked under his arm while he puts the groceries away, then sets it on his lap when he sits down next to House on the couch. He’s just got his hand resting on his head while he watches TV.
“It’s just a stuffed toy for kids, why do you like it so much?” House bites it out, he’s not sure why seeing Wilson just hold the bear like that is upsetting him so much. The way Wilson has it tucked into his lap, is holding it like it’s alive and might love him back. If he was slightly more pathetic, he’d say he was jealous of the thing, but it’s a thing . It’s nothing more than an inanimate object, so of course House isn’t jealous. Not at all.
“I don’t know, I just, I like them. They’re soft and it’s not like they can do anything bad.” Wilson clutches at the bear defensively, he shifts a bit on the couch, away from House, which only serves to make him feel worse. “If you really don’t like It I can keep it somewhere else, but please don’t throw it away. I haven't had one for such a long time and I just-”
“Jesus Christ Wilson, I’m not gonna throw it away. If you like them so much then why don’t you already have one?” House leans in a bit closer to Wilson, one side of the couch is disproportionately empty now, but neither of them really care.
“I did, Julie threw it away,” Wilson says very matter-of-factly, as if it isn't a terribly sad thing to admit.
“What?” Suddenly House gets why Wilson had seemed so nervous when he asked if House would throw it away. Shit, he feels bad now. “She threw away your teddy bear ? What a bitch.” House never liked Julie, then again he didn’t like any of Wilson’s wives, but at least Bonnie never cheated on him or threw away his shit.
“She thought I had gotten from another girl, when I explained to her that I just liked them, she believed me, but it was already gone by then.” Wilson shrugged like it didn’t matter, but the way he held the bear close to himself in a tight grip made it very clear that it did in fact matter.
“She didn’t buy you a new one? She just threw away your stuff then didn’t replace it?” House internally ignores the fact he’s done the same thing with Wilson’s stuff before. He’s Wilson’s best friend though, not Wife. Best friends throw away your stuff as a joke, wives, decidedly, do not.
“She didn’t like teddy bears. Thought they were childish.” Wilson looks off the side. “She’s kind of right.” Wilson’s grip on the bear loosens momentarily, but tightens back up immediately.
House throws his hands up angrily “Who cares if they’re childish! She threw away your shit! How long had you had that thing?” House can’t imagine how upset someone as sensitive as Wilson would be when he found out a childhood toy had been thrown away.
“Oh not that long, I bought it for myself after Bonnie left.” Wilson relaxes into the couch a bit, closer to House.
“Wait, what? It wasn’t like, an old toy?” House is confused now, he’d figured Wilson was buying a new one to try and fill a hole left from childhood, not from two marriages ago.
“No, but all those bears are gone too. My parents threw them away.” Oh. So Wilson is trying to fill a hole left from childhood. Bitchy ex-wives just keep re-opening it.
“Your parents threw your toys away?” House says it like he isn’t entirely familiar with parental mistreatment, although his dad never threw his toys away. Then again, his dad never let him have any toys in the first place.
Wilson nods, again, like he hadn't just admitted to something shattering, something that probably affects him every single day. Shit, House feels really bad now.
“When I came back from my first year of private school, all my bears were just… gone. I asked them what happened and they said they threw them away. They must have gotten rid of over twenty of the things.” Wilson is staring off past the TV now, House figures he’s probably zoned out, that at this point if House asked him anything Wilson would answer honestly, he’s just that far away from himself.
God, House wonders how Wilson reacted coming home to all of his bears being gone. The way he’s holding on so tight to the one he’s owned for less than a day makes House nervous exactly how destroyed he must have been when he found out the ones he had owned for years were just, gone.
–
James tumbles down the stairwell of his home. It was his first day back from private school, it had been a difficult adjustment and he wanted nothing more than to return to his long missed bed with all of his stuffed toys. The ones he had not seen in 9 months, the ones his parents had refused to let him bring with him. The ones that were no longer there.
He’s standing at the bottom of the stairwell, barely holding back tears. His father hates when he cries, he just has to hold it together long enough to find out where they are.
“Father, where are all my teddy bears?” He speaks politely and with a clear voice, his father won’t tolerate anything else.
“I threw them away.” Thomas Wilson doesn’t look up from the newspaper he’s reading. Doesn’t spare a glance at his distraught son.
“What?” James can’t speak clearly now, his voice is a shaky whisper. Gone? They’re all gone?
“You're a highschooler now James. You're not a boy anymore, you're a man. Men don’t have teddy bears.” He looks up past the paper at his son. James does his very best to stay still, if even a single tear falls from his eyes this will all be far worse for him.
“I- I understand, Father.” James slowly treks his way back up the stairs. Quietly closing his bedroom door behind him. He sinks into his bed, pulling loose blankets up close to him to hold onto, and sobs.
–
“You never got any more?” House’s voice is uncharacteristically soft, and worried. He knew Wilson’s childhood was nothing to send home about, but he’s never really been granted any details.
“I tried to, but when they’d visit the dorms then go through my whole room and get rid of any they found.” Wilson tenses up a bit. “I stopped buying them during sophomore year, it wasn’t worth the argument.”
House worries that he and Wilson have a similar definition of ‘argument.’
–
“What the Hell is this?” Thomas holds a stuffed bear over his son's head in a vice grip, shaking it around angrily.
“It’s- It’s a bear, Father.” James knows he’s done something wrong. He knows he shouldn't have bought the bear, but it was his own money. He found it in a thrift store, the only one with both eyes still intact.
“Exactly! And tell me James, who are bears for?” He’s standing close to James, who’s pressed nervously against the wall. James can see a few of his classmates looking in with worry.
“They’re for… Children.” James looks at the floor nervously.
“Right! And tell me again James, are you a child?” His voice is condescending, mocking, and it's one James knows well.
“N-No.” He shakes his head.
“You're not a child?”
“No!” Jame is crying now, staring at the bear as his father shakes it violently in the air.
“Then you don’t need-” Thomas brings his other hand up the bear, grabs its arm, and starts pulling. “This!”
James slumps slowly to the ground as bits of cotton stuffing fall across his floor, he stares in horror at the two separate halves of his bear hanging limp in his father's hands.
Thomas stomps out of the dorm room holding onto the pieces of the bear, a trail of cotton following him. James presses his knees to his chest and starts to cry, his roommate running in to comfort him. It won’t work.
–
“What about after that? I mean, you’re an adult, they can’t just burst into your home and take your things anymore.” House doesn’t really get why he’s so worried. Sure, he’s always liked to know why people work the way they do, it’s interesting, but this is Wilson. They've always had a silent agreement to not press too much about each other's childhoods, but here House is, pressing.
“I got one freshman year of college, but Sam thought I had kept it from a previous girlfriend and insisted I get rid of it. I didn’t buy another until she left.” Wilson sank further into the couch, his eyes glossed over. He was already looking worse for wear since the start of this conversation, but talking about Sam always makes him look empty in a way House can’t quite place.
–
“What the Hell is this?” Sam is standing above the bed in his dorm room, holding up a stuffed bear in one hand. Jesus, sometimes she sounds so much like his father.
“A… Teddy bear?” James knows where this conversation might lead. He doesn't like it. He hovers a hand by the doorknob, ready to leave if she gets too upset. He’s dealt with this before, he can do it again.
“Yes, James. And why do you have it?” She sounds condescending and mocking. James figures it’s a voice he’ll hear in his head for the rest of his life.
“I bought it? It’s a teddy bear Sam, I just like them.” James speaks clearly and softly. After so many years he’s gotten very good at sounding nothing like how he feels.
Sam huffs “Yeah right, because you’d buy a teddy bear. I’m your girlfriend, James. You need to forget about whatever girl gave you this.” She chucks the bear at James, he’s lucky it’s soft. He knows full well that even if it hadn’t been she would have thrown it just as hard. “Throw it away.”
“What?” Oh no, no no. Not again, maybe he can convince her to let him keep it, tuck it away in a box under his bed. He can’t lose another one.
“Throw. It. Away.” She crosses her arms over his chest, clearly not willing to rethink this.
“But it’s… It’s mine. I bought it.” He looks down at the bear. “I don’t want to.” He’s looking at her with pleading eyes, desperate.
She just huffs again, walking towards him and snatching it out of his hand. She thwacks it against his face, laughing a bit when he flinches.
“Fine. I’ll throw it away then.” She slams the door behind her as she leaves him alone in the dorm.
He slumps against the wall and sinks to the floor, tears roll slowly down his face, but it’s not really crying. He’s too used to it cry much.
–
“What happened to the ones you bought after that?’ House has lost track of exactly how many bears Wilson has had cruelly taken from him one way or another. He wonders what that might do to a person, losing the same thing over and over again, never being able to keep it for long, but never being able to help yourself from getting attached. Suddenly the way Wilson grieves every lost patient like they were his family makes more sense.
“When I met Bonnie I tucked most of them away. When she found them she let me keep them all, we even bought a few together, but when she left she took them all with her.”
“She just took them?” House supposes that's a bit better than past few, but still, it makes a cold bitterness rise in him thinking about Bonnie doing that to Wilson. She was always who Wilson seemed happiest with, or at least who House hated the least out of all of Wilson’s ex-wives.
“I think she figured I didn’t want them.” He tugs the bear on his lap closer to himself.
“But you did, didn’t you?”
Wilson just nods slowly.
–
Wilson had been coming home to an increasingly empty home for the past few days now. Bonnie had said she didn’t really want to see him again, but still needed to get her things back. Wilson agreed to let her come into the house while he was at work so she could get her things without having to see him.
Slowly more and more things had just been disappearing, coffee cups, small decorations, and clothes. None of it had surprised him, even if it did make him deeply sad.
What had surprised him was walking into his bedroom and seeing what had once been his and Bonnie's awry of teddy bears no longer on the dresser. He ran a finger over top of it, drawing a line through the gathered dust. He stared at the spot the bears had once been, also clear of dust.
He sighed and sat down on the bed, just his bed now. He slumps back and lays staring at the ceiling, eventually rolling onto his side and pulling the blankets close to him so he can hold them.
He falls asleep at 5pm in his work clothes, clutching on to an old blanket wishing it were a teddy bear, holding it tighter than he ever had his wife.
–
“I got another one a few months after that, but like I said, Julie found it and threw it away.” Wilson looks like he might fall asleep soon, like just talking about this has worn him out.
House doesn't respond this time, not really. He just hums and shifts closer to Wilson on the couch, their thighs are touching and when Wilson inevitably falls asleep his head will probably land on House’s shoulder. His eyes drift down to the bear.
–
“I found the gift from your little girlfriend.” Wilson hasn’t even taken his coat off before he hears Juilie cold hurt voice cut through his chest.
“What?” He steps over to the couch where she sits, arms and legs crossed, but doesn’t sit down with her.
“The teddy bear. The thing looked scrappy, so I don’t think she cares about you much.” She’s not looking at Wilson when she speaks, just ahead at the black screen of the rarely used TV.
“The teddy bear?” Wilson shakes his head a bit. “Oh, no Julie, that’s not from anyone, it's just mine. I should have told you sooner, I’m sorry.”
Julie chuckles, but it’s not funny. It's tired and husky. She’s so tired. “Oh I’m sure it’s ‘yours’ James. You probably got it from one of your ex-wives, or House or something.”
“No Julie, please listen. I bought it for myself years ago, before I met you. If you give it here I can show you the tags, I promise I’d never cheat on you.” Wilson’s closer to her now, but still not on the couch. They never sit down together, the closeness feels foreign to them both.
“You promised your last wife that too, didn't you?” She finally looks at him, but her eyes are pressed tight together, she’s bitter. Wilson thinks she has every right to be. “I threw it away already anyway.”
Before Wilson even gets the chance to ask her why, she’s up and off the couch to her bedroom. It’s her bedroom, not theirs. He hasn’t slept in that bed in months.
Wilson sleeps on the couch, no blankets, holding onto a scratchy throw pillow, the already shoddy colour gaining unsightly damp spots with his tears. He gives it about another 2 months until she leaves and he can sleep in his own bed again, alone.
–
House feels Wilson, unsurprising, fall against his shoulder. There’s a soft snoring sound coming from his best friend that assures House he really is asleep. He slips himself out from Wilson’s side and helps guild him slowly to a lying position on the couch. He watches as Wilson tugs the teddy bear closer to himself and presses it close to his chest. He’s holding it the same way a child would. Like it’s the only thing keeping him afloat, like if he lets go all his worst nightmares of loneliness and anger will get him.
House pulls a blanket over him and walks as quietly as he can manage with the cane to his room. Before he closes the door behind him, he turns back to look at Wilson. He looks exhausted, but, for the first time since moving in with House, peaceful. House can just barely see the warm brown fur of the plush poke out from under the blanket, right by Wilson’s face.
House thinks for a minute, then decides thinking is a waste of time. He’s got 38 years of stolen and trashed teddy bears to make up for, he better start now.