Housefic: O Little Star of Wash-and-Go
Title: O Little Star of Wash-and-Go
Author: nightdog_barks
Characters: House, Wilson, an OMC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No
Spoilers: Yes, for the Season 8 series finale arc.
Summary: You never know who you'll meet on Christmas Eve. 1,633 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is set in the Riververse -- a ficverse set after the end of Season 8 and in which House and Wilson's road trip has continued longer than either of them would've ever thought. Cut-text is from the holiday song It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. ;-)
Beta: The Collective, with especial thanks to blackmare and pwcorgigirl.
O Little Star of Wash-and-Go
If there's a lonelier place than a laundromat in East Deadville, Nowhere, on Christmas Eve, House doesn't know it. The only sound is that of the washing machines and dryers, rows of derelicts rescued from some scratch-and-dent outlet to finish out their mechanical lives in this flyblown firetrap. He sincerely doubts the lint filters on any of the dryers have been cleaned out since they were bolted to the floor to keep lunatics from stealing them, and the scorch marks stretching up one wall seem to bear out this assumption. Someone's made a half-assed attempt at decorating for the season -- strings of colored lights adorn a clothes rack, and an artificial tree, battered and bent and missing branches, stands in one corner, a few more lights draped around its middle and a tilted aluminum star topping it off. The air has that rich, moist smell of humidity and mildew, mixed with laundry detergent and bleach, and the third dryer from the left continues to run. It had been running when they'd walked in, the place deserted.
"Who leaves their laundry unattended?" Wilson had asked. He'd come to a sudden stop, the duffel bag and pillowcases full of dirty clothes slung over one shoulder.
"Somebody who doesn't care if it gets stolen?"
Wilson had grunted out an oof! as he'd slung the bag and pillowcases onto a folding table, its wooden surface scarred with cigarette burns and crudely-carved initials, most of which seemed to be variants on the letters F, C, K, and U.
"Or," he said, "if you're someplace where everyone trusts everyone else not to steal it."
"Oh," House said. "You mean ... Utopia!"
Wilson had sighed and rolled his eyes, which wasn't really the reaction House was looking for, but he'd take it.
House gimped over to the dryer and peered into it, but all he could see was a dark mass of cloth, maybe something red. He'd straightened up; Wilson had dumped the dirty laundry onto the folding table and was sorting it, whites and darks.
"Can I trust you," he said, not looking around, "to wash these separately? Because I want to go to the store before it's too late."
"I'll need quarters," House had said. "Otherwise they're going in one machine."
"Mooch," Wilson said, but there was no anger in it, and he was smiling. "Here," he said, digging in his jeans pocket for coins, and in the next moment he was pressing a handful of change and a few crumpled dollar bills into House's palm. "Don't forget to actually add the detergent, please."
"Oh, ye of little faith," House had grumbled, taking care to stuff the bills into an inside jacket pouch.
"Just remember, okay?" Wilson said. And then he was off, mumbling something about a roast and baked potatoes for their dinner. House watched as he re-crossed the tiny parking lot, head down against the wind, watched as he slid behind the wheel of their leased Honda Accord and drove away.
"Darks and lights," House had muttered, turning back to the double pile of clothing. He eyed the laundry for a moment, then picked up a pair of dark blue underwear and added it to the "light" pile. The underwear had been washed innumerable times and was well beyond any possibility of turning a white undershirt light blue, but ... it was the principle of the thing.
He'd had to move the darks to another machine after the first had refused to accept his quarter -- the steel coin tray had only slid half an inch and then stopped, probably jammed with a slug some previous customer had fed it -- but he'd finally gotten both machines going and eased himself into a hard plastic chair, and it had been then that he'd realized how damn lonely the place was. And over in the corner that one dryer had continued to spin.
House wakes with a start when the door to the laundromat runs out of air pressure and slaps closed with a bang. A shadow brushes past him, and he sits up, using his cane to lever himself into a more comfortable position as he regards his new visitor.
The guy -- because it is a guy, House can tell that much from the back -- is tall, probably six one or two, solidly built but fighting a losing battle with gravity. He's wearing red sweatpants made out of some kind of velour-type material, bright red, not faded, and black calf-high biker boots with tough, lugged soles. Suspenders rise up from the pants, loop over wide, powerful shoulders hidden inside a pink, long-sleeved t-shirt. He's got long gray hair, tied in a neat ponytail with what looks like a simple black ribbon, and as he lumbers to a halt in front of the row of dryers, House realizes the dryer in the corner has finally stopped.
"Huh," the guy mumbles, or it might be "ha," or "ho" -- House is too far away to tell. The guy peeks through the glass porthole at his laundry, and then, as if feeling House watching him, turns around. His face is broad, weathered, tanned to a rich nut-brown, but with those pale circles around the eyes that House associates with the Navy fighter pilots his dad used to know. He's got a good set of white whiskers going, and the stub of a well-chewed cigar clenched between his teeth, and his sharp blue gaze pins House to his seat. In three strides he's crossed to where House sits.
"Hey," the guy says, thrusting out one massive hand to shake, and this close, House can smell whiskey, and cinnamon, and ginger, and apples. "Hey," the guy says again, "I'm Nick."
"I'm ... Greg," House says, and gapes at himself in mental disbelief even as he allows Nick to pump his hand up and down. Greg?
"Good to meet'cha, Greg," Nick says, and lets go of House's hand. He stands back, takes the blunt cigar out of his mouth, inspects it for a moment, then reinserts it between his lips. "Can I getcha anything? For Christmas?"
House stares at him. He opens his mouth, fully prepared to say "What? Why? Who the hell are you?" -- but he closes it, having said none of these things.
"See, I gotta ask," Nick says. "Whoever I meet tonight, I gotta ask. It's a tradition." He rolls the cigar around in his mouth, one side to the other. "I'm not from around here," he says. Like that explains everything.
"Um," House says, but that seems to satisfy Nick, at least for the time being.
"You think about it," Nick says as he heads back to the dryer. "See, I had a little accident tonight -- spilled some milk on my coat, and I didn't want to go all night smelling like a goddamn yak factory. Hard to get that shit out after it's set, y'know?" He yanks open the dryer door, reaches in, and pulls out a red jacket, bright red like his pants, thick and velvety with some kind of faux fur trim down the front and around the collar. Nick holds up the coat by its shoulders and shakes it out, and the fake fur, which had been dull and ... well, fake, suddenly fluffs up like it's real mink or ermine.
"Wait a minute," House says, and has to stop and clear his throat. "Wait ... "
Nick beams at him. "Looks pretty good, don't it?" he says. He throws the coat across his shoulders, punches his arms through the sleeves and pulls the lapels close. "That's better." He runs one hand along the fur, ruffling it so the ends stand up, soft and feathery, and smiles at House. "So?"
House swallows. None of this is real. He's still asleep, still dreaming. But Nick is waiting.
"So ... what?" House croaks.
"So what do you want for Christmas?"
And House tells him.
"I'm back," Wilson sings out, and the laundromat door shuts with a soft sigh.
"About time," House grumbles, stretching in his chair and scrubbing at his face with one hand. He takes the hand away in time to see Wilson staring at the clothes on the folding table. The clean, folded clothes.
House stares at them too, for the very simple reason that he doesn't remember putting the clothes in the dryer, taking them out, or folding them.
"Um," he says, and immediately is struck by the feeling that he's said this already tonight. He'd had a dream -- there'd been someone, a guy, a fellow customer, here to use the laundromat --
"Well," Wilson says. "Okay. I don't know what kind of trick you think you're pulling, but it's okay with me."
House doesn't say anything. He's too busy watching Wilson. Wilson in his jeans and fleece pullover and bike jacket, his cheeks red from the cold and wind, his eyes bright, his hair unruly and standing up in badger tufts. Wilson smiling, rubbing his hands together because he's forgotten his gloves. Wilson ... alive.
Outside, it's begun to snow, and the streetlights with their decorations -- candy canes and holly wreaths and reindeer -- flicker to life.
"Did you get that roast?" House asks.
Wilson doesn't look up from where he's repacking the clean laundry into the duffel bag and pillowcases.
"I got a chicken," he says. "A roasting hen. It was the only thing they had left." He pulls the edges of the duffel bag close and even and zips it up. "It's Christmas Eve, remember? Everything was picked over." The smile hints at a return. "All the good stuff was gone."
Not all the good stuff, House thinks. Not all the good stuff.
He takes the pillowcase Wilson holds out, and together they go home.
~ fin
Author: nightdog_barks
Characters: House, Wilson, an OMC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No
Spoilers: Yes, for the Season 8 series finale arc.
Summary: You never know who you'll meet on Christmas Eve. 1,633 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is set in the Riververse -- a ficverse set after the end of Season 8 and in which House and Wilson's road trip has continued longer than either of them would've ever thought. Cut-text is from the holiday song It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. ;-)
Beta: The Collective, with especial thanks to blackmare and pwcorgigirl.
O Little Star of Wash-and-Go
If there's a lonelier place than a laundromat in East Deadville, Nowhere, on Christmas Eve, House doesn't know it. The only sound is that of the washing machines and dryers, rows of derelicts rescued from some scratch-and-dent outlet to finish out their mechanical lives in this flyblown firetrap. He sincerely doubts the lint filters on any of the dryers have been cleaned out since they were bolted to the floor to keep lunatics from stealing them, and the scorch marks stretching up one wall seem to bear out this assumption. Someone's made a half-assed attempt at decorating for the season -- strings of colored lights adorn a clothes rack, and an artificial tree, battered and bent and missing branches, stands in one corner, a few more lights draped around its middle and a tilted aluminum star topping it off. The air has that rich, moist smell of humidity and mildew, mixed with laundry detergent and bleach, and the third dryer from the left continues to run. It had been running when they'd walked in, the place deserted.
"Who leaves their laundry unattended?" Wilson had asked. He'd come to a sudden stop, the duffel bag and pillowcases full of dirty clothes slung over one shoulder.
"Somebody who doesn't care if it gets stolen?"
Wilson had grunted out an oof! as he'd slung the bag and pillowcases onto a folding table, its wooden surface scarred with cigarette burns and crudely-carved initials, most of which seemed to be variants on the letters F, C, K, and U.
"Or," he said, "if you're someplace where everyone trusts everyone else not to steal it."
"Oh," House said. "You mean ... Utopia!"
Wilson had sighed and rolled his eyes, which wasn't really the reaction House was looking for, but he'd take it.
House gimped over to the dryer and peered into it, but all he could see was a dark mass of cloth, maybe something red. He'd straightened up; Wilson had dumped the dirty laundry onto the folding table and was sorting it, whites and darks.
"Can I trust you," he said, not looking around, "to wash these separately? Because I want to go to the store before it's too late."
"I'll need quarters," House had said. "Otherwise they're going in one machine."
"Mooch," Wilson said, but there was no anger in it, and he was smiling. "Here," he said, digging in his jeans pocket for coins, and in the next moment he was pressing a handful of change and a few crumpled dollar bills into House's palm. "Don't forget to actually add the detergent, please."
"Oh, ye of little faith," House had grumbled, taking care to stuff the bills into an inside jacket pouch.
"Just remember, okay?" Wilson said. And then he was off, mumbling something about a roast and baked potatoes for their dinner. House watched as he re-crossed the tiny parking lot, head down against the wind, watched as he slid behind the wheel of their leased Honda Accord and drove away.
"Darks and lights," House had muttered, turning back to the double pile of clothing. He eyed the laundry for a moment, then picked up a pair of dark blue underwear and added it to the "light" pile. The underwear had been washed innumerable times and was well beyond any possibility of turning a white undershirt light blue, but ... it was the principle of the thing.
He'd had to move the darks to another machine after the first had refused to accept his quarter -- the steel coin tray had only slid half an inch and then stopped, probably jammed with a slug some previous customer had fed it -- but he'd finally gotten both machines going and eased himself into a hard plastic chair, and it had been then that he'd realized how damn lonely the place was. And over in the corner that one dryer had continued to spin.
House wakes with a start when the door to the laundromat runs out of air pressure and slaps closed with a bang. A shadow brushes past him, and he sits up, using his cane to lever himself into a more comfortable position as he regards his new visitor.
The guy -- because it is a guy, House can tell that much from the back -- is tall, probably six one or two, solidly built but fighting a losing battle with gravity. He's wearing red sweatpants made out of some kind of velour-type material, bright red, not faded, and black calf-high biker boots with tough, lugged soles. Suspenders rise up from the pants, loop over wide, powerful shoulders hidden inside a pink, long-sleeved t-shirt. He's got long gray hair, tied in a neat ponytail with what looks like a simple black ribbon, and as he lumbers to a halt in front of the row of dryers, House realizes the dryer in the corner has finally stopped.
"Huh," the guy mumbles, or it might be "ha," or "ho" -- House is too far away to tell. The guy peeks through the glass porthole at his laundry, and then, as if feeling House watching him, turns around. His face is broad, weathered, tanned to a rich nut-brown, but with those pale circles around the eyes that House associates with the Navy fighter pilots his dad used to know. He's got a good set of white whiskers going, and the stub of a well-chewed cigar clenched between his teeth, and his sharp blue gaze pins House to his seat. In three strides he's crossed to where House sits.
"Hey," the guy says, thrusting out one massive hand to shake, and this close, House can smell whiskey, and cinnamon, and ginger, and apples. "Hey," the guy says again, "I'm Nick."
"I'm ... Greg," House says, and gapes at himself in mental disbelief even as he allows Nick to pump his hand up and down. Greg?
"Good to meet'cha, Greg," Nick says, and lets go of House's hand. He stands back, takes the blunt cigar out of his mouth, inspects it for a moment, then reinserts it between his lips. "Can I getcha anything? For Christmas?"
House stares at him. He opens his mouth, fully prepared to say "What? Why? Who the hell are you?" -- but he closes it, having said none of these things.
"See, I gotta ask," Nick says. "Whoever I meet tonight, I gotta ask. It's a tradition." He rolls the cigar around in his mouth, one side to the other. "I'm not from around here," he says. Like that explains everything.
"Um," House says, but that seems to satisfy Nick, at least for the time being.
"You think about it," Nick says as he heads back to the dryer. "See, I had a little accident tonight -- spilled some milk on my coat, and I didn't want to go all night smelling like a goddamn yak factory. Hard to get that shit out after it's set, y'know?" He yanks open the dryer door, reaches in, and pulls out a red jacket, bright red like his pants, thick and velvety with some kind of faux fur trim down the front and around the collar. Nick holds up the coat by its shoulders and shakes it out, and the fake fur, which had been dull and ... well, fake, suddenly fluffs up like it's real mink or ermine.
"Wait a minute," House says, and has to stop and clear his throat. "Wait ... "
Nick beams at him. "Looks pretty good, don't it?" he says. He throws the coat across his shoulders, punches his arms through the sleeves and pulls the lapels close. "That's better." He runs one hand along the fur, ruffling it so the ends stand up, soft and feathery, and smiles at House. "So?"
House swallows. None of this is real. He's still asleep, still dreaming. But Nick is waiting.
"So ... what?" House croaks.
"So what do you want for Christmas?"
And House tells him.
"I'm back," Wilson sings out, and the laundromat door shuts with a soft sigh.
"About time," House grumbles, stretching in his chair and scrubbing at his face with one hand. He takes the hand away in time to see Wilson staring at the clothes on the folding table. The clean, folded clothes.
House stares at them too, for the very simple reason that he doesn't remember putting the clothes in the dryer, taking them out, or folding them.
"Um," he says, and immediately is struck by the feeling that he's said this already tonight. He'd had a dream -- there'd been someone, a guy, a fellow customer, here to use the laundromat --
"Well," Wilson says. "Okay. I don't know what kind of trick you think you're pulling, but it's okay with me."
House doesn't say anything. He's too busy watching Wilson. Wilson in his jeans and fleece pullover and bike jacket, his cheeks red from the cold and wind, his eyes bright, his hair unruly and standing up in badger tufts. Wilson smiling, rubbing his hands together because he's forgotten his gloves. Wilson ... alive.
Outside, it's begun to snow, and the streetlights with their decorations -- candy canes and holly wreaths and reindeer -- flicker to life.
"Did you get that roast?" House asks.
Wilson doesn't look up from where he's repacking the clean laundry into the duffel bag and pillowcases.
"I got a chicken," he says. "A roasting hen. It was the only thing they had left." He pulls the edges of the duffel bag close and even and zips it up. "It's Christmas Eve, remember? Everything was picked over." The smile hints at a return. "All the good stuff was gone."
Not all the good stuff, House thinks. Not all the good stuff.
He takes the pillowcase Wilson holds out, and together they go home.
~ fin