Drabble: If You Give A Cripple A Cupcake

[verbal_kint]

Title: If You Give a Cripple a Cupcake
Rating: R
Summary: The day after surgery (infarction)
Word Count: about 500...so this is a faux drabble/one shot...whatever.

First you’ll start collecting things. But they aren’t really things so much as thoughts that spawn from the things. The things you can’t have anymore. Bicycles, skateboards, lacrosse sticks, the list of euphemisms for gratuitous amounts of jerking off that you keep in your wallet to keep laughing—they make you think, and God forbid you think when it’s all you can do.

Now, once you’ve collected these items and their corresponding thoughts, you’ll burn them, all of them, in the fireplace. And you’ll do it on Christmas for irony’s sake. And you won’t ask for presents this year, though you’ll probably receive more. And obviously they’ll be pity-presents, like colored crutches and sticky mats and elevators to nowhere. Maybe you’ll ask for a sledgehammer to demolish these things along with the other things. After all, these things will make you think, too, and God forbid you think when it’s all you can do.

After that you’ll make good on the plans you’ve made. You’ll lie more, and about bigger things. You’ll make out with Stacy while thinking about making out with Wilson, and you’ll make out with Wilson while thinking about making out with Cuddy. You’ll do these things when you can’t find a hooker. You’ll buy a Mogwai, name it after yourself, then feed it after midnight. You’ll break your good leg. You’ll invent new methods of suicide without actually trying any of them. You’ll become someone you hate, but it’s okay because you’ve thought it through. But God forbid you think when it’s all you can do.

And finally, after all of this is finished and you’re bored again, you’ll wonder how this all began, and it’ll be the first problem you can’t find an answer to. Make that the second problem, because you just couldn’t think fast enough. God forbid.

But now, at this very moment, you can be angry. You’re alone, and you’re gonna stay alone, save for the fucking meta-you that keeps thinking and making plans. This meta-you doesn’t understand that it’s the only ‘you’ that exists anymore. Your leg hurts, and why wouldn’t it? Today is simultaneously a normal day and the first day of the rest of your life. The meta-you wonders why the fuck ‘normal’ evens exists if it can change. Yesterday’s normal is not today’s normal. Yesterday’s normal was something you strived for. Today’s normal is something you can’t recover from.

You read. You doze. Wilson brings you a cupcake and you don’t say thank you because you don’t have to anymore. You don’t eat it. You’re cold, but you don’t shiver because it hurts to shiver. You don’t laugh because it hurts to laugh. You don’t cry because it hurts to cry. This is normal.

Suddenly you’re bored, and you wonder how this all began, but you can’t seem to find an answer.

You want to go home. And you think that’s a good sign, because it’s the first thing you’ve ever wanted since becoming normal, but God forbid you think when it’s all you can do.

--

Comments

[athinfacade.livejournal.com]

As a kids' librarian, I totally enjoy the twist on If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (or any of those other similar books). Anyway, liked this a lot. It's really powerful.

[genagirl.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's so raw and powerful. I like the cicular feel of it, the anger but how you captured House's unique way of thinking. I also love this line: You’ll buy a Mogwai, name it after yourself, then feed it after midnight. Awesome job.

[magie-05.livejournal.com]

Okay, wow. That's incredibly depressing but wonderfully told. This kind of circular thinking is exactly what I imagine to have been going through House's head after the surgery. *whimper* Anyway. This is really incredible. Memming for those times I need to make myself sad. Thanks :)

[katernater.livejournal.com]

I really liked this. The image of House burning all of those things that reminded him of his "past life" (the skateboards and lacrosse sticks; "jerk-off fodder", essentially) was a very powerful one.

[bmax67.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow.

This was so depressing and so perfectly House. His roundabout way of thinking of everything he's lost and what he has to look 'forward' to.

What else could a person do in that situation but think?

*mems*

[dreamsofspike.livejournal.com]

this was wonderfully poignant and heartbreaking, love, and reads as much like poetry as like prose... beautifully written, loved it :)

[in-a-crater.livejournal.com]

This is gold. I don't know the original story that it's based on, but writing in the future and in second-person are two things that are tricky to do. You conquered both masterfully. This is so raw and vivid, and so sad.
This is my favourite line, perhaps in all of fanfiction so far:
"Wilson brings you a cupcake and you don’t say thank you because you don’t have to anymore".
Post-infarction House runs the risk of being too over-dramatic, but you did it with restraint and yet the emotion seeped through. Gorgeous.

[littlemissgg.livejournal.com]

Oh this is gorgeous and heartbreaking and I loved it.
Especially this line You’ll make out with Stacy while thinking about making out with Wilson - like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Excellent.

[acbshada.livejournal.com]

This is nicely written...very powerful, very painful. And it's an excellent description of what deep, dark depression can do to a person. How they can withdraw inside themselves.

Loved this line: Yesterday’s normal is not today’s normal. Yesterday’s normal was something you strived for. Today’s normal is something you can’t recover from.

[zamaza.livejournal.com]

Between the mogwai and give a mouse a cookie references I was already going to have to save this. A few people quoted my favorite lines already so I'll just mention them again... the making out part, and the Yesterday's normal. Both of those bits were absolutely brilliant.