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verbal_kint) wrote2008-12-14 04:36 pm
Fun With Dick and Cane REDUX 1
Title: Fun With Dick and Cane REDUX
Rating: PG-13, for some language
Summary: While dealing with increased pain of his own, House gets a patient who's more like him than he'd like to admit. It's the blind leading the blind. Only, in House's case, it's the crippled curing the crippled. Takes place mid season 4.
Genre: Drama. I know, the title's kind of misleading...
Disclaimer: You know how Greenpeace workers don't own Hummers? That's kind of how I don't own House.
Very Important Author's Note: Okie doke, since the woes and perils of my real life have my Dickens rip-off at a stand still until at least next week, I thought I'd take what time I do have and put it towards trying to de-suckify my very first fic. Trust me, it wasn't easy. So here it is, cut down from 17 short chapters to 6ish longer ones that I'll be posting throughout the week. For those of you that have already read it (I think there's about 3 of you, so technically I'm not spamming), it is a lot different if you want to give it another go. If you've got any suggestions on further desuckifying this fic, feel free to send them over or even flame. Thanks, and sorry that this was so pitiful the first time around, haha.
-Verb
Chapter One: See Dick Dream
He dreamed about running.
No he didn’t, but he wished he had. If he had, it would’ve been pathetic, spectacularly pathetic, the kind of pathetic that makes people adopt ugly cats and pity disturbed mass murderers. House welcomed the nostalgia of running only for the self-pity that tends to accompany it, kind of like a homeless guy passing his old house and remembering a time before his life went to shit. And that’s why he wished he’d dreamt of running.
But House didn’t dream of running, because to dream you actually have to sleep.
He officially gave up at 4a.m., after a light rain had come and gone, and the thunderous surround sound of “Die Hard” had smoldered into the muffles of paid programming. He reached a practiced arm over to the nightstand where it connected with his pills, as it had done countless times before. He took two and considered a third before deciding it was a little too early to wander into a narcotics fog. He then took the comforter and tossed it away from his right side. This was typically when he decided what type of day awaited him.
On a good day, he could make a joke—a really dirty one, the kind he’d tell Wilson right before he took a bite of his semi-exotic salad, and then he could walk off fast enough to not be bothered by the appalled looks of those at nearby lunch tables.
On an average day, he could make an excellent comeback, or the perfect, demeaning, often cleavage centric remark to piss off Cuddy. He wouldn’t escape from the consequences, of course, but on the average day, he didn’t really want to. He savored the lectures that followed and threats of clinic duty or rounds with opinionated elderly gentleman. After all, it was one less minute he thought about the pain.
On a bad day, he could yell. On bad days, his leg was a cloth drenched in gasoline, and every move brought it closer to ignition.
Today, somebody was holding a match. He reached over and grabbed a third Vicodin.
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It was 10:17 when he finally walked across the giant red maple leaf painted on the floor—shamble, was what he actually did.
Well…crawled, if one was being metaphorical.
In that case, he crawled into work at 10:17. He stopped halfway across the leaf to let his breath settle back into his lungs, wondering if it was actually a maple leaf and not some poor man’s version of a bay leaf or a close relative. He winced and came to the conclusion that the lobby needed a people mover. Or a least a few more walls to lean on.
He caught the eye of Lisa Cuddy and immediately regretted it.
“Where the Hell have you been?!”
House would’ve preferred a “Good morning. Care for some Demerol, Dr. House?” but nonetheless, he ate the bait and threw back the hook.
“I spent the night in Paris….if you know what I mean.” He crawled slightly faster in the direction of the elevators.
“Ah, so you’re the one in the tape.” This was another voice, slightly more caring and therefore slightly more annoying: Wilson the BFG (Best Friend Guy). “Funny, I thought Paris Hilton liked men who were actually attractive.”
House opened his mouth to let out a beauty of a comeback (the kind involving generalizations about the entire Jewish race), when he tripped.
“Shit.”
He growled slightly louder than accepted conversational tones, but quiet enough to secure a little hope that no one would be concerned. This plan failed. Miserably, by the looks planted on Wilson and Cuddy, who were racing to his side.
And the funny thing is, House didn’t trip because of his leg. This unfortunate situation arose from a bad business meeting between cane and floor—a floor hastily mopped by a custodian with a small attention span and an even smaller salary. That didn’t mean that his leg didn’t hurt enough to make him keel over, just that irony really liked to screw with House.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t even know which one said it; his eyes were shut tight, as if somehow that’d help him surf this particular tidal wave of pain. It didn’t.
“House, are you okay?”
He still had no idea—they might as well have been the same person: Cilson, Wuddy, Carmen Electra. He just didn’t know, and he couldn’t think, so he decided to answer.
“Wilson forgot to clean my litter box,” he half-groaned. “Just thought I’d remind you how needy I am.”
Cuddy sighed, permitting a smile to peak out of her lips. House could make a joke and that meant he wasn’t dead. And yet, House had made jokes before while plenty close to death. It was one of those scary thoughts that eased back only with more humor: the only reason House wasn’t dead was because neither God nor Satan could put up with him. She gave House a hand to help him up. He gave it back, as usual.
He rolled over. “Plus, I wanted to see Cuddy bend over while trying to help me up.”
It was now Wilson’s turn to sigh. He held up a blue file. “Would a new case get you off the floor?”
“Depends. Is she hot?”
“Uh, I-I—“
“Is he hot?”
“I…guess.”
House smiled, not unlike a creepy troll doll. Genuine smiles from the man tended to be a rarity.
Wilson mustered a few stutters before trying (in a semi-homophobic manner) to explain that he indeed preferred women to men. Needless to say, it wasn’t quite convincing enough for the small lobby population. Giggles followed.
He shook cobwebs of embarrassment from his head. “House, trust me…you’re gonna want to take this case.”
There was curiosity there; House couldn’t deny it. He wanted to breeze through the file, to get the team out of their Sudoku comas, to play hero in the righteous fight against microbes and fungal infections. But more than anything, he wanted a nap. And the power of the nap prevailed.
“Sorry Dr. Fruit, I’ve got work to do.” He turned his back toward them as he got up, hiding his face and the grimace of pain surely visible there.
“Oh yeah, work,” said Cuddy, “Like what?”
House made his way (this time, with considerably more care) over to the elevator. “Cameron wanted me to write her a letter of recommendation to the Scandinavian Women’s Mud-Wrestling Team.”
He stepped in and pressed the button. “So if anyone asks, she’s Scandinavian…and a woman.”
Neither Wilson nor Cuddy noticed the bits of blood on his palms from where his fingernails had tried in vain to offer a distraction.
The elevator doors closed.
House set his head against the walls and let out the groan that had been clawing its way out of his throat for the past five minutes. The floors passed, and House tried to compose himself—at least in a Housian sort of way. He wiped sweat off his forehead only to find it back again moments later. His wiped his palms against his jeans, hoping that the washer alone would remove the blood. He didn’t own any Shout!. He fantasized about the black chair in the corner of his office as if it were a woman, a perfect, curvy Supernap woman who dished out mass quantities of Vicodin and back rubs to those in need, and raised the ottoman to the perfect height for a cripple who liked to stretch his legs. The coffee would be in one hand, his large tennis ball of indeterminate origins in the other. It would be like water on the fire, or at least like one of those portable extinguishers.
With a newfound raison d’être, he stepped out of the elevators, crawling a little faster now to his office, his chair, his ottoman, and his coffee.
That’s when his pager went off.
The message almost took up the whole screen: “Emergency in Clinic. Need help.” It was from Wilson’s number.
House turned around, and got back in the elevator.
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“Wilson’s a bastard.”
House prided himself in the fact he had made it to the clinic without making his obvious discomfort quite so obvious. Nurse Brenda, who was the current recipient of such whining, didn’t want to listen to House’s screwed up observations of the human condition, similar to the way a mall Santa doesn’t want to be peed on. But you can’t always get what you want.
House continued, “I get a page: ‘Emergency.’ I’m down here: No emergency, now why do you think that is?”
Brenda was almost sad she didn’t get to retort. Dr. Cuddy was there to save the day. “Because he wants you to do your job.”
“It’s not his job to ensure I’m doing my job. If I recall, that’s your job. Tricking me into coming down to the clinic while innocent children in Africa are dying, however, is not your job.”
She was losing patience. “Sure House, because everyone knows starving children die slower if you’re playing with a damn yo-yo.”
The glass door slammed, breaking the slight tension that filled the room while House thought of his next verbal blow. Wilson smiled sheepishly at his intrusion. “Has anyone seen my pager?”
House gladly ratted Cuddy out, sitting on the counter of the nurses’ station in an attempt to take the tax off his leg. “Cuddy has it. She’s apparently not aware that phone sex isn’t as appealing on devices smaller than a lighter.”
Cuddy knew the only way to regain control of the situation, and she used it. “I paged you because you have a case House, and because it’ll be a cold day in Hell before you actually do something I ask, I used Wilson’s pager. Patient’s been waiting for an hour, complaining of severe pain in his left thigh. He’s a 47 year old male, 5’10,’’ 260lbs…”
Only, House didn’t hear any of this, at least not above a low drone in the back of his mind. He was scanning the waiting area, looking for something different in the endless cluster of middle-aged men with the sniffles and kids with broken toes playing Gameboy, looking for something interesting.
He found it.
Sitting to the left of the water cooler was a man—mid to late twenties—who was sweating. But it wasn’t the sweating that interested him. It was the fact that every time someone passed this guy, he immediately grabbed his right leg at the side of his knee, protecting it from the potential danger of each passerby, as if even the vibrations in the ground hurt him. It was a reflexive action, something the guy had obviously been doing for a while. In his eyes, while not as interesting, was something still different, still unusual, but very familiar to House: Suffering.
“House.”
Over the years, the duties of House’s conscience had dwindled down to the measly task of reminding him to stop staring. For once, he listened.
“House!”
Ah, there it was, Cuddy’s grating voice along side of his ear. He looked up to where she and Wilson were standing, finding Foreman and Kutner there, too. Cuddy spoke again, “He’s in exam room one.”
House opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Kutner. “Whoa, Dr. House, you’re really pale.”
“I got a part-time job as a vampire. Don’t get too close.”
Cuddy inadvertently saved him by changing the subject once more. “Oh, and House…he’s a big donor.”
“I’ll take him, boss lady. Foreman, you take exam room 2.” He pointed towards the man by the water cooler. “Take Gimpy over there with you.”
As he started over towards exam room 1, Wilson put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?” It was a typical remark from the BFG.
House shook the hand off, and waved awkwardly towards the ceiling. He dispensed with the sarcasm as he lied, “Yeah, the lighting makes everyone look pale in here. I’m fine.” He walked away.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Wilson yelled as House shut the exam room door.
House could’ve fooled himself too.
Next Chapter
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You've got House's humor, his thought process, his defensive strategies -- it's wonderful. The descriptions -- of the chair; of the feeling of a homeless man walking past the place where he used to live -- are so inventive and vivid.
I laughed out loud at Cuddy's "dying children/yo-yo" quip, and how sneaky of her to use Wilson's pager.
EDITING TO ADD that, now that I've gushed over this, I scroll back up and see ... your disclaimer.
I think it's time to stop apologizing. :-) If this story ever sucked, I can't tell so far.
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I think apologizing is part of my process. I write something, post it without a second thought, read it a week later, go "WTF is this crap?!" bathe in self-pity, then post it again. Yep, that's me.
I'm really glad you like it so far though!
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These days I do what several of my other writer-friends do: Draft something and post under a tight friends-lock for a small, trusted group who then beta the heck out of it. Where it's lame, they tell me. If it's three times too long (oh yes, this has happened), they tell me.
And then they manage to make me wait a day or two before I post it for the public. That cooling-off period has saved me so many times.
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Think I'm about to go to bed now. I'll pick this up again tomorrow.
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