Two things before you continue reading.
First: My mothertongue isn't english, so I again would like to apologize in advance for any weird use of words, grammar or punctation mistakes.
Second: I have absolutely no medical knowledge! Everything you read here is from Wikipedia or plain made-up. I still would ask you to kindly just take these things as given, even if you know they are wrong. The story is just supposed to be for fun and not for medical correctness. ;)
Other than that - Merry Christmas and enjoy reading!
7:33, the radio-alarm kicked in with 'Last Christmas' by Wham. House groaned to himself as he began to stir in bed. He had the feeling, he just had fallen asleep half an hour ago and who knew, maybe it was true. It had been a pretty rough night for him, at some point he had stopped checking the time, also right now the throbbing pain in his leg made him wish to still be fast asleep. Not to mention that horrid song! Since the middle of November he already was tortured with all this Christmas rubbish! All of the sudden everyone loved each other and wanted to help each other, just because of some orphan with a questionable father, born in a stable. He didn't even know what all the singing and reindeers and all the fluffy red and white and green glitter stuff had to do with it. It was the very fest of hypocrites, who spent the year not giving a damn and then suddenly cared for everyone. Bah! Humbug.
His grouchy thoughts didn't quite help with either the pain or the mood he was in, so he came to the point, he might as well just get up.
Taking a deep breath, he so rolled out of bed, supporting his sore leg with one hand. He took a moment to just sit at the edge of the bed and rub at his leg with eyes focused at nothing. It was almost meditation, losing himself in the pain for a couple moments and the wish for it to go away. It wouldn't, he knew and so, ending his little pain mantra with a flinch of his face, he reached for his cane, pushed himself to his feet and limped stiffly to the kitchen.
There the morning didn't exactly get any more satisfying. He had coffee and Vicodin, his usual breakfast, then climbed into the shower and stayed there for a while, in hopes the warm water would sooth some of the pain, until the Vicodin would kick in. No such luck today, so he got out of the shower and into his clothes to get going, maybe there would be some distraction at the hospital.
When he exited the building, he however already found the next annoyance waiting for him. It seriously had snowed at night. Quite a lot, too. Well, they had warned about it, but the people from the weather station usually were as often right as Foreman was cheerful. Then again, today proved, that both might happen.
House sighed. He hated snow. It was cold and wet and deep, it made you have to lift your feet high and that was something jot exactly comfortable to him, not to mention how floors got all slippery due to snow and slipping was also no fun for someone, who already had issues walking on straight, dry ground. And the worst was, it made all kids go crazy!
Almost as if he had called them upon him, a bunch of screaming, laughing kids came suddenly running around the corner. The source was soon found, one of these cheap Santa's, all kinds of stores hired during Christmas, who was standing nearby, ringing his bell and giving out candy from a big sack in front of him. The kids just rushed pass House, not really paying attention to where they went, causing him to slightly stumble backwards, end up putting too much weight on his right leg, which was immediately responded, by a sharp, searing pain, that made him go hot and cold the very same time. He gave a hiss to himself, followed by furiously turning after the kids, once the pain had faded enough for him to turn it into anger.
"What's wrong with you twats? The guy probably just needs the money for booze! Santa Clause doesn't even exist!" He sneered.
"Hey, man, that really wasn't necessary!" a father of one of the kids huffed, while the boys and girls just stared wide-eyed.
"Yeah, it wouldn't be, if you wouldn't find it necessary to tell your kids a bunch of lies, ruining their childhood at some point, once they find out their childhood heroes are nothing, but lies!", House barked back.
The man just shook his head, while the Santa shot him an evil glare. House just gave a little huff to himself, shook his head and limped off towards his car.